SA20 expansion on horizon

While pleased with the continued enthusiasm of the public for the SA20, Graeme Smith is acutely aware that standing still is akin to going backwards in a sports landscape that is rapidly evolving. 

Before the third season even ended at the Wanderers last night, Smith, the league’s commissioner, was already looking ahead — to the short, medium and long term — with expansion still on the agenda.

“I see it through my socials and in the interaction that I’ve had, just how many people want a team in their area. That is a good thing and I don’t want to scupper that [enthusiasm] but there are a lot of factors that need to be considered,” said Smith. 

The current six-team structure had to be locked in for five years, he explained, to allow the franchises — all owned by Indian business conglomerates — to establish themselves.  But talk about expansion, which already started after season one, has not abated. Although firm discussions will only happen after season five, data gathered from the first three editions of the competition will provide the foundation for those talks. 

“There are a lot of factors that will come into play. You want to maintain the strength vs strength element. Are there 30 high quality South African players who can keep the league competitive? Hopefully there is, and hopefully that strength of the player base gets stronger. What you don’t want is to build a league that is one-sided — like three to four teams dominate and the other four (if there were eight) can’t compete,” said Smith. 

“And then if you do grow where do you grow? We do get approached by a number of entities that are looking to get involved. As we build towards year five we will sit with Cricket South Africa and other stakeholders and see what is right for the league.”

While encouraged by viewing figures — that included a live unique audience of 382,778 viewers on SuperSport for the opening match of this season’s tournament between MI Cape Town and the Sunrisers Eastern Cape, a 129% increase from Season two’s opener — the fact that the SA20 is still seriously considering options to broadcast matches on the SABC reflects a desire to expand the audience.  “There was even talk that [yesterday’s final] could have been on the SABC but that didn’t happen.”

Satellite broadcaster SuperSport, one of SA20’s partners, supports showing matches on the SABC and sought a sublicensing agreement with the corporation before this year’s tournament. “We will try every year. We believe our product can grow the game and we want to expose as many people as possible to it,” said Smith.

The league’s next test will be monitoring the public’s acceptance after this year’s big player auction, when the composition of all the teams will change. Smith said a positive feature this year was how fan loyalty had grown. “You’d go to a ground and see the opposition do something brilliant and it's almost dead quiet — because the fans have really come behind their teams.”

Players like Ryan Rickelton, who is from Johannesburg — and still plays for Central Gauteng Lions domestically — has become a firm favourite in Cape Town and it is the same for Bjorn Fortuin, another Lions player, who is with the Paarl Royals.

The auction could see them bought by different teams. “We will need to assess how much [player] movement the league thinks is good. There are a lot of factors — retentions, international players who will be pre-signed by the teams and South African players who will also be pre-signed,” said Smith.

“There are players in some teams who’ve been sitting on the side and could be starters elsewhere. And then you have to consider that some players in the first few years were signed at a very low price and now their value may have skyrocketed. There is a lot to consider as we build into the next season and try to get those things right,” said Smith.