Their debt, which includes a £2m bridging loan that went towards a £3.6m upgrade of facilities and was taken out in advance of ECB grants being paid, is described by the club as manageable.ĭurham’s financial woes are the most well-documented in the County Championship, having accepted a £3.8m bailout from the ECB last October and been relegated with a string of points deductions in all three competitions to boot. This summer sees their ground play host to a Sir Elton John concert and eight matches in the Women’s World Cup. In contrast to their on-field performances, Derbyshire have enjoyed an upturn in fortunes after recording a surplus for the past six years under their departing chairman, Chris Grant. Their chairman, Steve Denison, believes the current borrowings will be repaid in 10 years through the increased cash flow from this refurbishment and the £1.3m a year from the new T20 tournament. The county’s £25m debt – a fair chunk of which is owed to a family trust fund set up by their former chairman, Colin Graves – is well-documented and looks set to increase to £40m with the redevelopment of the Football Stand End that will keep their international status beyond 2019. However with the next three years seeing Edgbaston play host to five Champions Trophy fixtures, three Tests, a Twenty20 international, two Blast Finals Days and five World Cup matches, and beefing up its catering and retail facilities accordingly, the Bears are bullish. Warwickshire’s reported turnover of £14.3m and operating profit of £785,761 were down on the previous Ashes year as the club manage a debt of £27m which is a result of ground upgrades. The membership sits at 10,000 and with six games in the Champions Trophy this year, their Blast matches against Middlesex and Kent expected to sell out and Tests guaranteed until 2022, all appears rosy at the now 25,000-capacity Oval. Non-matchday revenues have grown from £1.6m to £4.5m in four years, chiefly through staging conferences. International cricket returns to Taunton in 2017 too, with a men’s T20 international against South Africa and the Women’s World Cup, while the County Ground is also down as a host venue for the 2019 men’s World Cup.Īs the big beasts of county cricket, with an annual revenue of around £32m and seven years of profit, it is easy to see why Surrey feel there is little need for a new T20 tournament. The club boast 6,000 members and have reported a £600,000 profit for 2016 after selling out their entire Twenty20 home schedule and seeing their new pavilion deliver increased commercial returns. Somerset appear the model non-Test county. As tenants at Lord’s, the club have not, unlike others, been faced with the cost of upgrading facilities and thus they are debt-free, although the new T20 could see costs increase if they have to play more cricket at outgrounds while it is taking place. With the title has come new commercial partners, the most eye-catching of which being Nike as official kit suppliers.
The champions turned a loss of £284,000 in 2015 into a pre-tax profit of £117,000 last year thanks to a reduction in operating costs and the receipt of prize money. £60m has been invested in the ground in the past nine years, the latest redevelopments seeing the club’s debt set to rise to over £25m. The joke around the club for a long time was that paving over the ground to provide parking for the other Old Trafford would be more profitable than hosting matches and it is non-cricket activity – chiefly conferences and music concerts – that has been the biggest plus, bringing in £3.7m of sales. The Red Rose county have reported an operating profit of £1.2m for 2016, a 60% increase on the year before. Nevertheless, they are actively supportive of the ECB’s new Twenty20 tournament. Their assets are around £100m and debts of £10m are considered manageable. The club, who stayed in Division One through Durham’s enforced relegation, are a limited company and have diversified of late with a new hotel and the staging of music concerts, as well as a golf course that opens this year. Set to report a modest profit of £50,0 having hosted two England internationals but also seen two Twenty20 fixtures washed out.
Their chairman, John Faragher, is a vocal opponent of the ECB’s new Twenty20 tournament but says he will be guided by the members. There are plans being worked on at present to take one home match to the London Stadium as a possible dry run for the 2019 World Cup. Debt-free at present and one of the counties for which Twenty20 cricket – in its current form – is working well, recording a small profit last year from a £5m turnover and having seen phase one of an apartment block project on their land recently completed.