The high jinx of the 'High-Performance Review'

The high jinx of the 'High-Performance Review'

Rich Clarke
Governing Bodies,

Fans play on the pitch during the lunch interval of Surrey v Essex in 2022. The real ‘inspiring of generations’

One of the main issues I have about the ECB’s High-Performance Review is... well... it is all about High Performance.

Don’t get me wrong, we all want top-quality, truly competitive, ever-improving sport. This is the entertainment for the fan, the endeavour for the athlete and underpins the business model for the organisation. It also supports the ideals of physical play, hence the Olympic motto - "faster, higher, stronger".

However, sport is much more than merely high-performance. It is about meaning and identity, something that is conferred through the generations by storytelling.

To put it another way - I like cricket because my Dad did. I am an Essex fan because my Dad was. And, as regular readers will know, I have tried my darnedest to pass on these passions to my kids.

This is what ‘inspiring generations’ really means.

Having worked in elite sports organisations, it is clear they believe, as one of my former CEOs put it, "a winning team solves everything". And from their perspective, it ticks most of the major boxes - more money through media, commercial and tickets, greater prestige, greater glory and a massive ego boost.

But ‘everything’ is an all-encompassing, immovable word while ‘winning’ is always temporary. Manchester City have been more successful than Manchester United for the past decade but the latter remain the bigger club. City still get ridiculed over the number of empty seats at the Etihad Stadium and the financial source of their success. Essex have won more trophies than any other county since 1979 but have they stolen any fans from their rivals because of it? Not one, I suspect.

Look at this major survey from the European (Football) Club's Association (4,000 respondents spread across Europe, N America and China). It tells us that family connection is the most important reason for interest in football across all demographics bar one, where content and story take the top spot. Team success is only No 3 or No 4.

My point is not about using the majority of your focus and resources to try and be successful on the pitch. It is about using almost all your focus and resources to the detriment of other key drivers. I have seen stupid money gambled on that flakey player who "might add a bit" and featherbedding their foibles when redirecting just a fraction would have created a best-in-class marketing and content team.

This survey would suggest a High-Performance Review is needed but only after one covering content/story and, most importantly of all, the How-To-Get-Your-Kids-To-Support-The-Same-Team-As-You report.

In this graph, “favourite club was successful’ was the fifth most important reason for a fan following football in Europe. In the US and China, it was not in the top five

Of course, success is relevant to that last venture. The late primary school years are considered key in the consolidation of lifelong fandom and my personal passion was surely based partly on the fact that I was nine when Essex won their first trophy in 1979. I distinctly remember listening on the radio when we won the Championship again a couple of years later.

But all this was mediated through my Dad. He told me what it all meant and seeing his excitement rubbed off.

The ECA survey adds that, in relative terms, younger fans are less influenced by family, less devoted to clubs but more likely to be lured by social media, content and the fitness gained by participation.

Selling anything to the young is a very different beast these days, especially sport. For a start there are strict laws about marketing to pre-teens and, though it is almost entirely ignored, most social media platforms require users to be at least 13.

But, above all that, sporting stories are different now. Footballers are known as much through their ratings on the online game FIFA than anything they do on the pitch and YouTuber creators-turned-boxers are selling more pay-per-views buys for their fights than world champions. We all know the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named is so similar to T20 as makes no difference but the sizzle sold around it is light years beyond the way the ECB has ever marketed county cricket.

The experience (72%) is what 16-24 year-old fans crave most from a football match but identity is close behind on 62%

The irony of all this is that the High-Performance Review was prompted by our failure in the Ashes, a regular occurrence that, yet again, does not make me less interested the next time it comes around as memories of sporadic successes still provide hope. Yet Test cricket seems well down the agenda for the ECB, moving next year's Ashes to accommodate you-know-what would seem definitive.

Over the past couple of cricketing decades, as we have lurched from crisis to crisis, nadir to nadir, review to review, we have never got a clear sense of the priorities in the game from our governing body. Surely that should determine where you put your time, money and focus.

And now, having lost control to franchise tournaments based on their very own invention, they are desperately trying to regain a foothold with a big review, with a big name running it.

The review to end all reviews.

This is it.

Final.

No more.

Nope.

All done.

…errr, until the next one.

If ‘character is destiny’ it will be the same brand of bollocks we have seen before and, because we have no agreement or understanding on the priorities, the execution will be fudged due to competing pressures.

The ECA report shows clearly, what is apparent to everyone, high performance is very important but NOT all-important.

It is folly for the ECB to think otherwise.

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