Sorry everyone. The travails of the real world have put a hold on new postings. I’m thoroughly busy in the office, Southeastern are a disaster area, and when I get home I find I want to veg out on the sofa. So cricket has taken a little bit of a back seat.
So here we are. Chris is still in foreign lands. I’ll be far far away for most of next week, so we’ll see if Sean or any of our guest writers can fill in the breach in the meantime.
So, to avoid SimonH’s excellent ICC post getting cluttered up with even more comments, let’s have your views on the news coming from the meeting of county chairmen today. Were they all mouth and no trousers – and Yorkshire, I’m looking at you. How far will the south east resistance go – Kent, Sussex and Surrey reputed to be the ones to stand up to Mr Mediocre and the Empty Suit? Can #39 avoid licking so many ECB boots that he comes down with cherry blossom poisoning (an Only Fools and Horses joke)? Watch as other media giants push each other out the way to crawl to the ECB. It’s been a spectator sport all right.
Comment away.
PS – TMS followed me on Twitter. That’s odd.
Being Outside Cricket 
Good read on the pooling of TV rights:
http://www.thenational.ae/sport/cricket/bcci-faces-challenge-as-economy-of-cricket-is-readying-itself-to-be-rejigged
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Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder how some people ever found themselves commenting on sport BTL, without any apparent sense of the many and varied factors that explain how we arrived at where we are:
“Devil’s advocate: I do wonder how much of a disparity there is between the percentage of the population who have sky sports accounts now and the percentage of the population who had anything beyond a passing interest in the sport immediately prior to the Sky takeover.
I do wonder if we’re all blaming Sky for keeping cricket off our screens when really what we should be blaming them for, as cricket fans, is fueling the rocketship-rise of football’s popularity in this country. (How is that football exploded into the mainstream at the exact time Sky took it over and yet when Sky takes over cricket we blame it for pushing cricket to the margins? Seems to me that the Sky deal’s become a little bit of a scapegoat for a shift in national interest.)”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/sep/14/franchise-based-twenty20-tournament-moves-closer-following-positive-vote-ecb-counties-cricket#comment-83269311
It’s the bit in brackets, in particular, that made my head split apart like the T-1000 at the end of T2: Judgment Day. I composed a reply which listed at least half a dozen contextual things he might like to read or consider, but I couldn’t avoid it coming off as patronising and sensed I’d be wasting my time anyway. Among them and in no particular order were the work of David Conn, Italia 90, the post-Heysel ban on European club football, the ‘Big Five’ who wanted a ‘Super League’ in the mid-late 80s, Adrian Tempany’s recent book, the admittedly obscure figure of Rupert Murdoch and the mind-bending and ever-accelerating trivialisation of “news” media.
Sky *created* that mainstream interest in football, everyone. They didn’t *exploit* anything whatsoever, and are not in any way shameless money-driven opportunists.
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Re: the PS.
Maybe Zaltzman hacked the TMS Twitter account when he was scoring for them the other day.
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I see dinosaurs are still clamoring for cricket on FTA TV to attract kids, when the focus should be on free or at least cheap online streaming services with apps on mobile platforms. That’s the only way to spread cricket amongst kids who were born in the 21st century.
It’s utterly baffling ECB doesn’t have a online streaming service like MLB.tv. Heck even Cricket Australia have realized how important streaming is, and now offer online streaming of all their home games.
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Yes, well done, you’ve correctly observed that many teenagers now use social media and their phones more than they sit in front of a traditional tv set, but what you have failed to observe is that what is discussed on social media is dictated largely by what is shown on FTA tv.
We’ve talked about the incredible power of FTA tv before – just look at that stupid bake off show that is incredibly popular with people of all ages. Do you really think that would be the case if it were being shown on sky 1 with 200 people watching it?
Understanding how technology and society interact and recognising the importance of mass consumption that only FTA tv can instigate does not make me a dinosaur, far from it.
Cricket has lost almost 90% of its tv spectator base since the early 2000s, but those casual fans are still out there and would immediately start watching cricket again if it appeared on their tv screens.
and if they watch it, they will talk about it on social media, and they will talk about it at work, and to their kids. and then the kids will start watching it, and then their mates will hear about it and tune in to see what all the fuss is about. And so cricket will slowly become relevant again to a generation who are currently hardly even aware of its existence.
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Indeed.
I hear the organisers/owners of The Champions league are now questioning if going on subscription TV is losing them viewers. We will see.
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“what is discussed on social media is dictated largely by what is shown on FTA tv.”
What is discussed by *ADULTS* on social media might be dictated by FTA TV. But I’m talking about kids and teenagers here. What they talk about is hardly dictated by FTA or BBC. I can assure you kids aren’t talking about GBBO.
Children in the UK spend more time on the internet than they do watching TV:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/26/children-time-online-watching-tv
That’s why if ECB’s goal is indeed to attract a next generation of fans, the focus should be on producing a world class online streaming service and mobile apps.
FTA TV won’t hurt, but it will pretty much mostly attract old dinosaurs, not the next generation.
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“I can assure you kids aren’t talking about GBBO.”
Can you? How many kids do you know? I coach a whole load of kids aged 9-17. I know better than most people what the “kids” are talking about.
You sound like an old dinosaur TBH, you don’t even appear to realise that tv and the internet are now completely the same thing and have been for about 5 years. Nothing comes nowadays without internet access, and most FTA tv content is available online. Its the same thing. A tv is just a big monitor, a laptop is just a portable tv.
Catch up with the times, granddad.
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“How many kids do you know?”
Plenty, as I used to be a kid not so long ago (I’m 23). Vast majority of them have ZERO interest in GBBO or anything on BBC. They talk about video games, cool YouTube channels, latest gadgets and tech, Pokemon, Tinder etc etc.
Like it or not very few of them watch BBC either on TV or online. As much as it hurts dinosaurs to admit, BBC and TV in general is dead to young people.
Average age of BBC viewers is, wait for it, 59. Yes. FIFTY NINE. And it’s rising every year.
It just shows how most cricket fans are dinosaurs by their emphasis on BBC and FTA TV. They are all still living in their utopia land of 1980s when BBC was the centre of public entertainment.
Those days are long gone.
Get over it.
And embrace the future.
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You still don’t get it. Even after I’ve explained it.
No-one is suggesting that if you put cricket on FTA tv, thousands of kids would instantly start watching it religiously. The same applies to a “cool youtube channel”, and if you think differently you’re a grade A idiot.
The point is, if you put cricket on FTA tv, thousands of ADULTS would start watching it again. The same 9 million people who regularly watched cricket on tv 10 years ago haven’t gone anywhere. They don’t watch cricket on sky sports because, like the vast majority of the population, they don’t have sky sports.
How do you think kids get into cricket? How do you think kids get into any sport? Because someone introduces them to it. Maybe their dad, maybe their older brother, maybe their granddad, maybe the PE teacher at school whatever.
There is cold hard evidence that if you take cricket off FTA tv, the number of adults who maintain an interest in the game drops dramatically, and those people then don’t bother to introduce their kids to the game. We have seen junior player numbers fall by over 50% since cricket moved to sky. 50%!! That’s half of all junior cricketers gone in under 10 years.
Cricket in Australia was having the exact same problem: falling spectator numbers, and falling junior cricket numbers. So what did they do? They started showing cricket on FTA tv again. The result? A massive uptake in spector numbers and a HUGE increase in junior player numbers.
The choice is clear: without FTA tv, cricket is slowly dying. Less people are watching the game, less people are playing the game, and less kids are playing the game. Follow Australia’s lead: put the game on FTA tv, and spectator numbers will recover, amateur players will recover, and junior players will recover.
You are either for FTA tv, or you are against cricket. Whose side are you on?
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Polite request. Not keen on respondents on here being called Grade A idiots, even tangentially. We all have views. Play nice.
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Tangentially inferring that someone may or may not be an idiot is completely unacceptable, but staring with an opening gambit of directly calling people “dinosaurs” is totally acceptable, right?
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I gave advice open to all. We don’t moderate very much at all. We have robust discussions. I am aware. Just asking for all to play nice.
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I don’t think I’m the problem in this particular discussion….
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“You still don’t get it. Even after I’ve explained it.”
The opposite is true.
“The same 9 million people who regularly watched cricket on tv 10 years ago haven’t gone anywhere.”
That’s a complete and utter LIE. 9 million people never ever “regularly” watched cricket in this country. Never. Ever. Only ONE day in an entire generation (2005 Ashes 4th test day 4) drew about 8.8 million people for the closing moments of the test match. That’s it.
The fact that you claimed 9 million people “regularly” used to watch cricket proves that you are a LIAR and a bullshitter. Everything else that you said can be disregarded based on that alone.
“We have seen junior player numbers fall by over 50% since cricket moved to sky. 50%!! That’s half of all junior cricketers gone in under 10 years.”
Correlation does not imply causation. There is evidence that all of that decline, or even majority of it is due to FTA coverage. In general, sports participation rates across sports are declining.
“Cricket in Australia was having the exact same problem: falling spectator numbers, and falling junior cricket numbers. So what did they do? They started showing cricket on FTA tv again.”
Again you clearly prove you have ZERO idea what you’re talking about. Cricket in Australia has ALWAYS been on Free to air TV — Channel 9. It never went away. You’re either incredibly misinformed or willfully LYING.
“You are either for FTA tv, or you are against cricket. Whose side are you on?”
I am not against FTA TV. What I’m saying is it has very little relevance in the modern world, especially when it concerns young people and kids.
Oh btw, you’re either ignorant or a liar. Which one is it?
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Put the toys back in the pram, and come back and re-write that post when you have calmed down. Then I will respond to it. Work on the assumption that I’ve been debating and researching this issue since you were 10 years old, am in no way a “dinosaur”, and probably know what I’m talking about, even if you disagree with some of my points.
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PS, it is in my experience the case that the point when a debater starts ignoring the thrust of the overall discussion and instead chooses to narrow in on a couple of issues of pedantry, is the point when they realise they have lost the argument and try to disguise this behind bluster and personal attacks.
From an outsider’s point of view, this is how your last post appears. Nitpicking over the use of the word “regularly”, making the tired and incorrectly used “correlation vs causation” argument, and missing the fact that Australia did NOT have live domestic T20 cricket on FTA tv until 2013 (the point it started to take off in popularity, funnily enough), just goes on to demonstrate that you have no more compelling or convincing arguments to bring forward, in which case this discussion is effectively over.
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” Work on the assumption that I’ve been debating and researching this issue since you were 10 years old”
And? I am pretty sure I have more cricket in my relatively shorter life than you have. I watch, follow, read and think about cricket way more than you. How do I know that? From your blatant misinformation on various issues which I have pointed out previously.
“instead chooses to narrow in on a couple of issues of pedantry”
No it was far from pedantry. There is a *massive* difference between 9 million people *regularly* watching cricket on TV vs that number watching it for 30 minutes once in 20 years.
If that was pedantry, I could as well say that tens of millions of British people “regularly” watch athletics and swimming on TV, based on Olympics viewing figures. Obviously that would be just as stupid as your assertion about cricket.
“making the tired and incorrectly used “correlation vs causation” argument”
It is only tired to people who are at the wrong end of it. And no it’s not incorrectly used. I work in data science, and I know it’s absolutely appropriate in this instance.
“missing the fact that Australia did NOT have live domestic T20 cricket on FTA tv until 2013”
Funnily enough you WILLFULLY chose to provide those specifics in your original comment. I wonder why? Because it didn’t fit your narrative that Australian tests, ODIs and T20Is have always been on FTA TV and STILL cricket saw a big decline there?
“the point it started to take off in popularity, funnily enough”
Oh once again you’re using correlation as causation. I think I now get it why you’re tired of this being pointed out.
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You genuinely don’t understand correlation vs causation. If you do actually “work in data science” and that isn’t just a euphemism for entry level data entry then this is extremely worrying. Have you run a Granger test on the time series? Do you even know what that means?
I left out some detail in my previous post because I was typing it quickly because I’m at work and I don’t have time to write huge long missives. I thought the inference was clear, my apologies if it confused you, but some people are beyond help.
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“You genuinely don’t understand correlation vs causation.”
Yes I do.
“If you do actually “work in data science””
Again, yes I do, and have also done graduate level research on this area.
“Have you run a Granger test on the time series?”
Have you done so? If you had an iota of understanding of what you are talking about, you’d know that the onus is on YOU to prove a causality exists between your data and your claims. I don’t have to prove the causality doesn’t exist. YOU have to prove it does.
“I thought the inference was clear, my apologies if it confused you, but some people are beyond help.”
Oh don’t worry, you didn’t “confuse” me at all. What you *should* be apologising for is posting willfully wrong and/or incomplete information that suits your agenda and ignoring those that don’t.
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Did anyone ever see that episode of Porridge when Fletch and Blanco played monopoly.?
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Graduate level research? At which university? I may have taught you. Wouldn’t that be ironic.
I could actually get one of my staff to run the numbers through STATA, but they have better things to do. The onus is not on me to prove anything, you appear to have confused this discussion forum with a piece of academic research.
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“Graduate level research? At which university? I may have taught you. Wouldn’t that be ironic.”
Those details are orthogonal to this discussion, and hence I am not interested.
“The onus is not on me to prove anything, you appear to have confused this discussion forum with a piece of academic research.”
You don’t have to prove it, if you don’t want to. But until you can establish causality, I am absolutely right to point out ‘correlation does not imply causation’. You said I used that term incorrectly, but in absence of any proof of causality, I am correct.
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This is straying off topic, but as it is a topic I am interested in, I will continue for a couple more posts.
“Correlation does not imply causation” is one of those clichés that makes less sense the more you think about it, a bit like “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
It is, fundamentally, completely bullshit. Correlation frequently and robustly implies causation. it doesn’t prove causation, but that is a different statement.
So how do we prove causation? Well, first we find a strong correlation, like we have here. Then we control for other potential explanatory variables and potential endogeneity issues (easily done). If you think there is a time trend, then stationarise the time series. Then we provide a viable mechanism (as I have done), and compare with alternative explanations using a SIC test. If it all hangs together, then you have “proved” causality as much as it is ever possible to prove anything.
I quite often interview candidates in the mid-late 20s for graduate or post-graduate level positions with a heavy statistical/quantitative element. I think I am going to start asking “does correlation imply causation”, and if they answer “no”, I will put a big red cross through their application form.
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“It is, fundamentally, completely bullshit. Correlation frequently and robustly implies causation. it doesn’t prove causation, but that is a different statement.”
Again, it’s difficult to say if you’re being willfully obtuse or are genuinely so. I’d give you benefit of the doubt and assume the former.
OF COURSE correlation *can* be due to causation. Everyone knows it’s a necessary condition for causation. But it’s not sufficient to imply causation. And yes, “imply” has a very specific meaning in maths and science. If A implies B, that means *whenever* A is true, B *has* to be true. No exception. Saying A doesn’t imply B means if A is true, B may or may not be true. Therefore, correlation doesn’t imply causation means, a causation may or may not exist. So yeah, it’s a perfectly valid statement.
It’s very problematic that you don’t understand the scientific meaning of the word “imply”.
“So how do we prove causation? Well, first we find a strong correlation, like we have here.”
Sure.
“Then we control for other potential explanatory variables and potential endogeneity issues (easily done). If you think there is a time trend, then stationarise the time series. Then we provide a viable mechanism (as I have done), and compare with alternative explanations using a SIC test. If it all hangs together, then you have “proved” causality as much as it is ever possible to prove anything.”
And you did not do any of that in your original posts. Hence, I was quite correct in pointing out that correlation doesn’t imply causation. Once you have done all the work to prove the causality, I will stop using that phrase you so dread.
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No, I didn’t do any of that, because I didn’t need to. because when you’ve done these things as often as I have the answer is frequently obvious, as it is in this case. Regression analysis almost always just confirms what you already know.
You’re welcome to go through the process, and then come back and apologise when it proves me correct, as it undoubtedly would.
“Imply” does indeed have a specific meaning in science, but it is not the same as “prove”, as you seem to think it does. Back to school with you!
I’m going to exit this conversation now, I normally get paid to lecture students, and they’re normally considerably smarter and generally less snotty.
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“No, I didn’t do any of that, because I didn’t need to.”
“You’re welcome to go through the process, and then come back and apologise when it proves me correct, as it undoubtedly would.”
Oh dear, as I posted previously, you seem to have little understanding of how science works. When *you* make a claim, such as lack of FTA coverage has caused decline in kids participation in cricket, the onus is on *you* to prove the causality. Yes, it’s on *you*. Why it’s on you? Because YOU made that claim! I don’t have to do the work to prove such causality doesn’t exist! That’s how science works.
““Imply” does indeed have a specific meaning in science, but it is not the same as “prove”, as you seem to think it does. Back to school with you!”
Nope, NOWHERE did I say “imply” means “prove”. Nowhere. In my previous comment I explained *exactly* what “imply” means. That is the formal definition of the word “imply”. The fact that you took it as me suggesting it means “prove” says more about your lack of understanding.
“I’m going to exit this conversation now, I normally get paid to lecture students, and they’re normally considerably smarter and generally less snotty.”
That’s just as well. Because if I am to be lectured by a “professor”, I’d rather he understood some of the very basic concepts of science and maths. Unlike the case here.
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Just out of interest, do you really have such a chronic case of the Dunning Kruger effect that you actually believe you’re smarter and better informed than your lecturers, or is this purely a spot of low quality trolling?
You came on here thinking that as a 23 year old fresh out of uni with an undergraduate degree (although you won’t say where from) you were the smartest commenter in the thread. Not only arrogant, but also statistically extremely unlikely.
Well, you’ve thoroughly embarrassed yourself and shown yourself to be out of your depth in pretty much every subject we’ve touched upon, which is no surprise, as you’re a 23 year old straight out of uni – of course you’re out of your depth! How on earth would you think anything else?
I genuinely do hope that you learn a little bit of humility and perspective before its too late. Life is a lot easier when you are actually willing to listen and learn from other people rather than simply trying to shout louder than them. I found this out a long time ago, I hope you do too. Good luck.
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Not that I have a dog in this fight but this site is good for a giggle: http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
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We have this on our office wall, its a useful reminder of the vacuity of that statement: https://xkcd.com/552/
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“you actually believe you’re smarter”
“You came on here thinking that as a 23 year old fresh out of uni with an undergraduate degree (although you won’t say where from) you were the smartest commenter in the thread. Not only arrogant, but also statistically extremely unlikely.”
Oh dear straw men of quite another level!
“better informed than your lecturers”
*MY* “lecturers”? Hahahaha. Only in your dreams mate.
“you’ve thoroughly embarrassed yourself and shown yourself to be out of your depth in pretty much every subject we’ve touched upon”
On the contrary, it’s *you* who have utterly embarrassed himself here. This final post of yours just seals it, if there was still any doubt!
You are a so called lecturer who doesn’t understand the meaning of the term “imply”, who doesn’t know the burden of proof of a claim rests upon the one who makes it, who thinks “correlation doesn’t imply causation” is a wrong statement, and who resorts to straw men, ad hominem, and appeal-to-authority when he finds that a 23-year old knows more about those very simple and basic concepts than he does.
Yeah, you’re the one who has embarrassed himself here, mate. Both professionally, and socially.
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That was fun, though it got a bit shouty at the end, here’s my pedantry, in my field, philosophical logic (actually I do philosophy of language, but hey ho), implication is a much weaker relation. A implies B, just as long as it not the case that B is false while A is true. So, May being PM implies that BOC is a website. There are some non-classic logics that try to capture the stronger relation Adam H defines, AB wants and is closer to the usual english meaning of ‘implies’. NB. that Adam’s relation is such (entails, ho ho) that the following is true: ‘One Direction being a band implies that 2 + 2 = 4’. I think that the relation you want / argued about is ‘is evidence for’.
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“is evidence for” is certainly the usual scientific meaning, and I suspect Adam knows that. He’s not going to admit it, because that would mean he was also wrong about correlation never implying causation, and also wrong about the clearly causal relationship between the number of cricket tv spectators and the number of junior players, in which case he would be admitting to being consistently wrong for this entire argument.
It was shouty at the start, never mind the end. When someone opens up with a sentence calling everyone in the thread “dinosaurs”, you know you’re not going to get a nice, respectful debate. I should really know better by now than to feed the trolls.
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Has it ever occurred to you, for even a split second, that you might actually be… wrong?
I used to be like you, an arrogant student straight out of uni who thought 4 years of education meant I knew it all. I probably also believed that correlation didn’t imply causation, because I had once read it in a book, like you have.
The truth is, your education is only just beginning. But you’re not going to get far if you’ve already convinced yourself that you know everything.
The best thing that could possibly happen to you today is that you allow a little bit of doubt in. Let that oh-so-obvious veneer of intellectual self-righteousness slip, just for a moment, and consider that actually, as someone who is basically you plus a Masters, a PhD, a second degree, and 10 years of further experience and studying, I might actually know a little bit more about this topic that you.
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“an arrogant student straight out of uni”
“that oh-so-obvious veneer of intellectual self-righteousness”
Oh dear you actually doubled down on the ad hominem.
“as someone who is basically you plus a Masters, a PhD, a second degree, and 10 years of further experience and studying, I might actually know a little bit more”
And well done, for doubling down on the appeal-to-authority too.
“I probably also believed that correlation didn’t imply causation, because I had once read it in a book, like you have.”
Except I don’t “believe’ in “correlation doesn’t imply causation” because I’ve read it in a book. It’s tremendously simple to prove this statement is correct if you understand the meanings of the term “imply”, which you’ve already demonstrated you don’t.
Guess what? I do understand what the term “imply” means. And hence I can *easily* prove the statement is correct. Here’s the proof:
If “correlation doesn’t imply causation” is a wrong statement, then you must believe “correlation implies causation”.
Correlation “implies” causation means: if there’s a correlation, there MUST be causation. Every. Single. Time. If I can show ONE instance of no causation existing despite there being a correlation, that means the statement “correlation implies causation” is false. And if that is false, then the original statement “correlation doesn’t imply causation” must be true.
See, that’s how to make a constructive, scientific argument, without resorting to ad hominem or appeals to authority.
But then again, you have already repeatedly proven your lack of understanding of science.
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I’m not arguing with you as I don’t see the point. I’m trying to give you some genuine advice. I can’t make you take it.
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” I’m trying to give you some genuine advice. ”
Thanks for the concern, but excuse me for not being too interested in taking advice from a person who’d rather engage in ad hominem, and who shies away from any sort of scientific argument. And who refuses to either accept he’s wrong or prove otherwise, despite mounting evidence from the other end.
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Somehow this has got under my skin, but, even assuming Adam’s rather dubious definition of ‘implies’, you have left an undischarged conditional in your argument. That’s sloppy and disingenuous. The real problem though is your reading of ‘implies’ by giving it such a strong reading, A implies B if and only if, whenever A is true B has to be true, you turn ‘implies’ into ‘proves’. To argue that correlation doesn’t proof causation and, hence from the equivalence of implies and proves, doesn’t imply it is, in this argument, to beg the question.
AB’s claim is that correlation does in fact give you a reason to smell causation. Whether or not there is a causal relation has not yet been established. He also claims that the drop off in audiences and participation is caused by the absence of cricket on FTA tv and, further, that could be rectified by reversing the current policy. You, Adam, seem to agree with AB on the first two claims, although you disagree about how significant a factor the paywall has been. The interesting question is the third. Would a free, streaming service be more effective than FTA screening and is FTA now pointless?
Last bit of pedantry, drop the modal language ‘must be true’, ‘has to be true’. Bachelors are unmarried. You can’t be married and be a bachelor. I’m a bachelor, but I don’t have to be unmarried. All that has to be case is that if I’m a bachelor, I’m unmarried.
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I’m going to a social event this evening. Will this be concluded when I return?
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Thanks for your helpful thoughts. On this:
“Would a free, streaming service be more effective than FTA screening and is FTA now pointless?”
I would have thought the two things go hand in hand – it is virtually unknown nowadays for anything that is on FTA tv to not be available via streaming.
The options are:
1) no free availability of cricket (current situation)
2) free availability of cricket by streaming only (limited effect IMO)
3) free availability by both freeview/freesat and streaming (strong effect IMO)
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Hi, Grenville, thank you for your comment. I am so glad to finally be able to engage in a constructive discussion after all that’s gone on
You’re suggesting my definition of imply is dubious. It’s the definition I learnt from my undergraduate Discrete Mathematics textbooks.
The definition is this: A implies B means, if A is true then B is also true.
That’s it.
If we A is true, but B is found to be false, then the statement “A implies B” is false.
Do you think that definition is wrong/dubious?
I’m looking forward to your reply, as it’s a chance to learn something new! We’ll tackle the remaining issues after that.
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@Adam, this slightly different definition of implication is a very standard one in philosophical logic. My guess is it’s very standard in mathematics. (Note that it is different from the one you gave earlier, you’ve dropped the modal language). It’s useful for the formalisation of arguments because it treats implication as a truth functional relation. That will make it very easy for you to build a model theory for your formal language. You might think that a formalisation of English or Swahili reveals both the deep logical structure of the world and true nature of the concepts we are working with. That’s Frege’s thought. Personally, I think that is wrong. Formalisation is helpful because it lets you do certain things. It can also be misleading. I think that in this case treating implies as a truth functional connective is misleading. We don’t want a neat definition of implication. We are trying to think about the relation between correlation and causation. Someone has coined a slogan to warn people off assuming that just because events of type B regularly follow events of type A, A events are causing B events. The way have always heard it is “correlation does not prove causation”. (Incidentally, there is a way of reading David Hume that suggests he thinks that there is no more to causation than correlation). That sounds true. The issue then is that as where there is causation there will also be correlation. So correlation will be prima facie evidence of causation. You could capture that by saying “correlation implies causation”. I wouldn’t do that because it’s so one clear what that means. I would rather say “correlation does not prove causation, but it is evidence of it”.
@AB, I think that I agree with you. I certainly agree that any FTA coverage includes streaming. I am no digital native and I have no idea whether or not streaming by itself is an effective channel of communication. My feeling is that with something as esoteric sport you need to be initiated in to it. So, whether or not young people ever watched traditional broadcast media, their parents, uncles, aunts and teachers certainly do. For that reason, the ECB need to get a significant number of high-profile games onto a mainstream free to air channel.
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Hi Grenville, how is the definition I gave in the previous post different from my earlier ones? I think I said the same thing throughout?
To use your example, “Being a bachelor implies the man is unmarried” — if this statement is true, and if you are a bachelor, then by the formal definition of “imply”, you MUST be unmarried. Because if you’re not, then the original implication is false.
Do you agree?
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Either “imply” means “provides evidence for” (how a scientist would commonly understand it), or it means “provides definitive and conclusive evidence for”, in which case it is a synonym for prove, as I have previously pointed out.
In the first sense, how its commonly understood, the phrase “correlation does not imply causation” is a meaningful statement, but its completely wrong. Its just bullshit.
In the second sense, the phrase “correlation does not imply causation” is true to the point of tautology, and is entirely useless. Its not really a meaningful statement in any sense.
Either way, its not a particularly helpful or insightful thing to add to a conversation. Its a pretentious version of shouting “bullshit” without bothering to explain what you think is actually wrong.
If we look back and see how it was first used, I claimed “There is cold hard evidence that if you take cricket off FTA tv, the number of adults who maintain an interest in the game drops dramatically, and those people then don’t bother to introduce their kids to the game. We have seen junior player numbers fall by over 50% since cricket moved to sky.”
To which Adam H replied ” Correlation does not imply causation. There is [no] evidence that all of that decline, or even majority of it is due to FTA coverage”
given that I never claimed to have proved anything, simply offered an evidence based opinion, its clear that he was using the first sense of the term otherwise his comment makes no sense in that context. In which case everything I subsequently said about the validity of the phrase is correct.
Turned out I was right and he was wrong. who would have suspected that….
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Ah, are we still comparing intellect sizes or have we moved on yet? All for passionate debate chaps, but let’s put a handle on this; no one wants to be compared to the rubbish that goes on with the Guardian BTL. Just a thought
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To echo. I put a lot of trust in people on here. We don’t moderate. But today hasn’t been this blogs finest hour. I seriously could not give a stuff about causation and correlation. I don’t care if you are a lecturer or a student.
There are diverse views on cricket. We welcome them. I don’t have all day to read the comments. We trust you. But please please please don’t give me another day like today.
Thanks.
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[@LordCanisLupus: Please delete this comment if you think it’s inappropriate]
“Either “imply” means “provides evidence for” (how a scientist would commonly understand it)”
No a “scientist” wouldn’t commonly use the term “imply” that loosely. A scientist would use the formal definition of imply.
“or it means “provides definitive and conclusive evidence for””
Again “provides definite and conclusive evidence for” is far too loose a term. A “scientist” would never use such loosely defined terms. A “scientist” uses terms like “implies”, “if and only if”, “necessary and sufficient”, “necessary but not sufficient” etc etc. All of those have very particular meanings.
“In the first sense, how its commonly understood, the phrase “correlation does not imply causation” is a meaningful statement, but its completely wrong. Its just bullshit.”
That’s because the first “definition” of the term is far too loosely defined and the definition itself is bullshit.
“In the second sense, the phrase “correlation does not imply causation” is true to the point of tautology, and is entirely useless. Its not really a meaningful statement in any sense.”
Yes thanks for admitting it’s true. But no, it’s not useless. A lot of people use correlation as a substitute for causation. The statement “correlation does not imply causation” was invented and is used to stop them doing so. There’s a reason one variation of the term is “correlation is not causation”. Perhaps that should be more widely used, as the formal definition of “imply” is not widely understood.
“Either way, its not a particularly helpful or insightful thing to add to a conversation. Its a pretentious version of shouting “bullshit” without bothering to explain what you think is actually wrong.”
Of course it’s insightful in the sense that it clearly spells out what’s wrong. See my previous paragraph.
“given that I never claimed to have proved anything, simply offered an evidence based opinion, its clear that he was using the first sense of the term otherwise his comment makes no sense in that context. In which case everything I subsequently said about the validity of the phrase is correct.”
No you claimed “There is cold hard evidence that if you take cricket off FTA tv……”. By your loose definition of the term “cold hard evidence’, I could make the statement “There is cold hard evidence that if you take cricket off FTA tv in the UK, usage of Twitter and Facebook becomes more popular worldwide”. So, lack of FTA TV becomes “evidence” for rise of social media worldwide. Of course, that would be a laughable statement, unless I can establish a “dependence” between the two variables. Which you didn’t. So no matter how much you deny it using loosely defined terms, you were trying to pass off correlation as causation. And the usage of the term “correlation does not imply causation” was indeed appropriate.
“Turned out I was right and he was wrong. who would have suspected that….”
Umm no.
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I’m glad I never studied maths.
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Hi Grenville, how is the definition I gave in the previous post different from my earlier ones? I think I said the same thing throughout?
To use your example, “Being a bachelor implies the man is unmarried” — if this statement is true, and if you are a bachelor, then by the formal definition of “imply”, you MUST be unmarried. Because if you’re not, then the original implication is false.
Do you agree?
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[Sorry wrong thread. Please delete this comment and parent.]
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I’m replying here ‘cos the other thread is too long.
The problem is that English doesn’t mark scope well. To my ear at least saying that I must be unmarried is to say that it is impossible for me to marry. That’s false. Similarly to say that B has to be true is to say that it’s impossible for B to be false. You want to give the modal operator wide scope: Necessarily, if I’m a bachelor, I’m unmarried. I accept that English is ambiguous here.
When you defined implication as if A then necessarily B, I read that as trying to capture the idea that A, correlation, brings about B, causation. The classical interpretation of –> (if-then/implication) is purely truth functional, so true unless A is true and B is false. That classical interpretation seemed too weak for the dispute with AB because it would require correlation to be equivalent to causation, which is obviously false (pace Hume)
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Yes indeed that’s why I didn’t simply say “you must be unmarried” on its own. I qualified it like this:
“if this statement is true, and if you are a bachelor, then by the formal definition of “imply”, you MUST be unmarried.”
Of course, saying you must be unmarried without those if statements would be wrong, and hence I didn’t do that.
“When you defined implication as if A then necessarily B, I read that as trying to capture the idea that A, correlation, brings about B, causation. The classical interpretation of –> (if-then/implication) is purely truth functional, so true unless A is true and B is false. That classical interpretation seemed too weak for the dispute with AB because it would require correlation to be equivalent to causation, which is obviously false (pace Hume)”
Yes indeed “correlation doesn’t imply causation” can be written more simply as “correlation is not causation”. Indeed, I have seen that as a variant of this statement. And I’d say that’s exactly the intended meaning of the term. The fact that it’s false may be obvious to you and me, but either consciously or subconsciously people use the term like they’re equivalent.
Thank you for the chat.
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No surprises here:
“No idea why…”, and let’s insult county members while we’re at it.
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But is it as dense as this one?
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I didn’t really understand that comment. Is Selvey so out of touch with reality that he doesn’t realise that almost every settlement in the UK with over 50,000 people has a professional football team to support and watch?
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@AB
Precisely so, it seems. You really have to dumb yourself down to grasp the idea that he *is* notionally comparing a long-established system of 92 clubs, plus non-league, spread right across the country, to one with eight large cities (or seven, with London twice) but no presence across great swathes of populated areas. I mean, if it’s the traditional six grounds plus Cardiff and one other Test ground, then you end up with either nothing north of Leeds or nothing south of the England section of the M4. Pardon any know-nothing fringe idiot who points out the number of football teams in those areas! And that’s without even mentioning the disenfranchised land mass east and south of Nottingham.
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Just seen this. Selvey’s argument doesn’t support the new competition. As a kid, my footy team was Everton, but as I lived so far from the north west, I went to watch Peterborough instead. In a different league. A different competition.
Somerset fans will probably follow the team nearest them in the competition that best provides one, i.e. Somerset in the NWB. The 8-team competition will be on the pub TV, much as the IPL is (except on footy nights).
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How can the county game continue the same?
From Geroge Dobell
” It also seems that around 100 players will be taken out of Championship cricket for the month-long duration of the tournament. In the longer term, it is likely that the Championship schedule – already set to be cut from 16 to 14 games in 2017 – will be cut further.
This is looting of the system plain and simple. All the lies about growing the game are just lies. They have no interest in growing the game. Just looting the carcass of cricket before it dies.
Selvey, Hughes and co have lowered themselves to unscrupulous double glazing salesman. Perhaps they are on commission?
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Double glazing?? You’re bigging them up Mark….snake oil more like!!
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Can’t imagine how much fun it will be to see Sam Curran playing for Southampton and Jason Roy for Manchester. That’s what could happen with a draft.
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I’m blocked but apparently he has also come out with the genius suggestion that this new tournament must be the best. No mention of how or why.
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Gold dust.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/1056775.html
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I thought our list was funnier.
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Diamond dust!! 🙂
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They missed off The Security Advisor Dick RegAsm
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Lordy, I always thought Hopps was grumpy when he was at the Guardian, but I’m beginning to see why.
The rage is strong in him.
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I suspect the ECB will be hoping the BBC do a lot of the heavy lifting promoting this city cricket. Lots of FTA radio publicity, radio commentary, maybe a TV highlights package. Radio 5 live cricket shows pontificating on the state of play etc etc. I hope the BBC tell them to go f….. Themselves.
I’m fascinated who all these people are who currently have the chance to watch a 20/20 game near them, but choose not to. Suddenly they are going to wake up and say ” oh wow this is new and shiny, let’s go.”
But then I am amazed people watch X factor, Bake off, and Big Brother so what do I know? Just get Katie Price to open the batting, and you will have a smash hit.
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There are lots and lots of people out there who you could describe as “very casual” cricket fans. They will probably watch the game if it is on tv and they have heard in the papers or through people at work that something is exciting going on, and they might even enjoy it, but they won’t go out of their way to find the game if it isn’t on tv. They certainly won’t bother with illegal streams, for example. They might go to a local game with a few mates or their family if it is cheap, easy and hassle free, but they won’t know any of the players names and it won’t really matter, they’ll enjoy stumps cartwheeling, diving catches, big sixes and a close finish. If the games are expensive or at an inconvenient time or a long drive away, they’ll just do something else instead.
If they do get to see cricket regularly and enjoy it, then who knows, maybe they will get a season ticket for their kids and maybe they’ll even join the work cricket team, and take their kids along to a local club session. I know loads of people like this.
These are the people the ECB needs to be attracting. These are the exact people that this new system will make it even harder to attract.
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“If the games are expensive”.
This is a crucial point that I’ve hardly seen mentioned in the media. Cheap tickets are a vital part of the BBL mix.
I can’t remember the precise figures but I’m sure we had Australians comment here and say that a BBL ticket was about a quarter the cost of an ODI ticket. CA are not averse to a bit of price-gouging but they understood this. Price-gouging is so hot-wired into the ECB’s DNA I’m not at all confident that they will.
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Ticket prices are crucial, but they are generally significantly outweighed by transport costs, and that’s going to become even more of an issue if the competition retrenches to only a small number of venues.
For example, to get to London to watch a T20 would require a £31 train ticket, a £4 bus ticket to the station and a £15 taxi back at the end of the evening, totalling £50, twice the cost of the ticket. I drop well over £100 to visit a T20 game, and that’s just for me by myself.
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But hasn’t it already been established that city cricket will be on Sky? So the fta, expanding the game argument is irrelevant.
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I haven’t heard a detailed justification of how or why they think this will be better than the current situation, only that “what we have is not working (debateable) so anything has to be better than nothing”.
They appear to believe that there are huge swathes of people out there whose sole objection to going to watch T20 cricket is that they don’t like the team names.
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Mark, as I understand it the new competition will be on Sky for the first two years until the existing broadcast agreement runs out. This is apparently hunky-dory because the BBL was on C9 for its first two years.
After 2019, I’ve no doubt some of this new competition will be technically FTA. However it will be the occasional game on some obscure FTA channel starting at whatever hour that they dictate so only the already converted hardcore will find it.
The crucial thing with the BBL is that every game is on TV so it builds up a narrative and the matches all start at the same time so the floating viewer can find them easily.
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Simon, Yes that is what I thought. The first 2 years will be exactly the same broadcaster. So I don’t see what Hughes is going on about new dawns, and counties stuck in the 1970s. After 2 years who knows, how long is a piece of string?
DOSH DOSH DOSH DOSH That is what this really about. Mr Hughes should tell the truth.
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From…£60 a ticket i heard
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Madness if that’s right IMG.
Still, their useful gimps and Geeks and Analysts will say “yeah, but football tickets cost…… “.
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Those counties that are trying to claim that yesterday’s vote wasn’t an agreement to the new tournament, just an agreement to discuss it further after consulting their members, must be enjoying the shock this morning of finding all the media are reporting it as a done-deal.
Creating an unstoppable momentum behind it was part of the plan. Anyway, it should be clear after the last decade that the ECB’s idea of consultation is duping, bribing or arm-twisting anyone who disagrees with them until they get their own way.
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More constructive stuff from the FTA crew:
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No further questions, m’lud:
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Oh dear god, it all just makes me feel so tired .
And since my partner of the last 14 years with whom I have a 7 year old daughter has just decided to let me know that she thinks perhaps it might be time to call time on our relationship . , . . . I wonder if I can be bothered with any of it at all really.
#weariness
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Terrible Northernlight. Thoughts with you and hope you can work it out.
I started 90 days notice of being at risk of redundancy yesterday and with this cricket news I am feeling very flat too as watching county cricket and work are two massively important things in who and what I am. The fact both are seriously under threat is a big concern to me right now and being called a dinosaur is just so wide off the mark. I am up for change but just cannot understand why we cannot have change that includes everyone?
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Commiserations, good luck with it all.
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Ah.
Tough, tough stuff.
Sending thoughts of fortitude for you.
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Thanks for the good thoughts everyone. I’m floundering around a bit but I’m not getting dragged under just yet! Just trying to adjust to a very different future to the one I would have predicted if anyone had asked five days ago. Some people find adjusting to such changes easier than others. As a cricket fan, I’m not so good with change 🙂
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Can’t really give you much advice except from watching friends who have been through a similar thing. Always put your daughter first. Even if it means backing down on a few things with your partner. Don’t make her a pawn in the dispute. She will be glad of it, and you in years to come. Try not to become too bitter, although it wont be easy. Who knows who you may now meet, and what doors might open?
As always in life it’s a glass half empty/ half full situation. As someone once said…..
” Things turn out best for those that make the best of how things turn out.”
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Great sympathy for you. I might offer a little silver lining. Had something slightly similar years ago. Said to myself I’m never going near a bloody Sussex woman again. Met a lovely lady in South Asia and we’ve been happily married for over 20 years now.
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Good luck NL. And speaking as someone with a 7-year-old daughter, spoil that little girl rotten (within reason).
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Sorry to hear that. My wife and I separated a couple of months ago and of course I don’t know your situation, but I can say that for me it has been easier than I thought it would be. It’s certainly nice to not live with someone who’s miserable all the time!
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Lengthy debate between #24 and Tregaskis (and others) last night on FTA. #24’s status as outsider hipster blogger was already looking shaky but his apparent desire to act as a salesman for Sky marks a full transition to the dark side of the Force.
He argues:
1) It costs Sky £10k a day to produce cricket. Where does that figure come from? How is it calculated? Is it impossible that maybe that figure could be a little inflated?
2) BBC have no live sport anymore. FTA isn’t just the BBC.
3) Sky cover cricket better than BBC did or could. See 2. Plus better than it did is comparing broadcasting in the 1990s with broadcasting now, not the BBC with Sky. Better than it could misses that when the BBC and someone else show a live event the BBC always get better viewing figures.
4) BBC don’t show any interest in bidding for cricket. Maybe that’s because of a rigged market?
5) Sky is very good value for a cricket fan. Where do you start with that?
6) Without Sky there would be no central contracts and all the best players would be in India. Where do you start with that, part 2?
7) His son and daughter love cricket and weren’t alive for FTA. I think we all kind of know that appealing to kids of cricket-mad parents isn’t the issue here.
8) More money for grass roots than ever. Maxie in one of his last TFT posts demolished that argument.
9) The best we can hope for is that some of this new tournament will be on one of Sky’s free channels. That may be what we’re going to get – but it isn’t the best we can hope for.
10) Cricket is a niche sport. Was it when 9m were watching in 2005?
11) You FTA people want to deprive the blind. Hang on, that was Andy Bull…..
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OC#24, not Clare Connor, I presume?
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If you think Bunkers is the #1 problem on the outside cricket list we have a problem.
Impressed peeps are counting down though.
Disappointed in him. There’s shades of grey.
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NOC – there’s only one Power List now in my reckoning!
LCL – I wasn’t taking it as a rank order. I’m pretty certain #27 isn’t #27 in that sense!
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I certainly don’t think so, but we have no other order to go on… a real order would indeed be controversial!
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Their arguments are bogus and dishonest. It’s looting pure and simple. They don’t give a shit about growing the game, and they don’t care if it is not on fta. It is all about the dosh.
Surprise, surprise that all the pundits who live off ECB hospitality. (Free tickets, fine wines, cakes nice lunches, etc etc) are all for it. With the extra money Mr Hughes will get a better vintage of wine brought to his commentary box. It’s a gravy train of free tickets, free meals and drinks for a bunch of freeloaders. All paid for by football fans subscriptions to Sky.
The Premiership should demand Sky pay more for the football rights. Cricket is eating their lunch.
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Oh #24. Yes everyone is an idiot and he is always right. I think that shows that he is moved over to the dark side.
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One for the memory banks:
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How does he know this?
He must have stuff leaked to him. The ECBs favourate way of doing business.
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Wigmore wrote this a while ago but it’s still good:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/820095.html
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Wondering what was said at the ECB meeting?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2016/09/15/ecb-warnings-swayed-counties-over-t20-shakeup/
A mixture of bribery, threats and “we haven’t worked it out yet”. What a surprise.
And their strategy for two years of building their marketing around Alastair Cook hasn’t exactly, and by their own research, been the most swinging of successes. Who’d have guessed that?
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“Executives at the ECB told the counties that market research had revealed more children recognised the photograph of a WWE wrestler than Alastair Cook, the Ashes winning captain and England’s leading run scorer in Test cricket.”
BBBBWWWWWHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Funniest thing I have read all week. All the fawning, all the soft focus, the kid glove treatment, all the eulogising, and it don’t mean a dam. A WWE wrestler is better known.
You frigging morons. You brought this on yourselves. The ECB and their media chums should now form a circular firing squad.
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I’d love to see Vince McMahon promoting English cricket.
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Shaw was wrong. It’s not cricket that was invented to give the non-spiritual English a concept of eternity.
It’s this thread.
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Yorkshire’s take on the t20 revolution:
http://cricketyorkshire.com/what-is-yorkshires-stance-on-the-new-city-based-t20-competition/
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I don’t know how those journalists do it. Staggering as the ECB doesn’t leak.
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They get it 100% right when they are spoon fed the selections. The problem comes when they have to think for themselves.
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I feel like there’s a correlation implies causation joke to be made here…
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First thoughts:
1) Taking 17 for a two Test tour is absurd – the selectors might as well have said “we haven’t got a scooby”.
2) Buttler playing as a specialist batsman looks a real possibility with so little specialist batting in the squad.
3) Dobell’s said they’ve not taken Leach out of worries about Kerrigan mark 2.
4) Nobody wants to be the party-pooper about Hameed so let me. England have never picked a teenage opener. No teenage opener ever has averaged 40 and played more than two Tests – with one exception (you’ll never guess). It smacks to me of a mixture of desperation and a selection panel accused of risk-aversion going too far the other way.
By the way, it didn’t get widely reported in with all the stuff about Morgan, but Strauss said again he is not going to reform the selection panel. He said the current panel works but they will make better use of the available info (especially video footage). By accident or not, that leaves “the selectors” to take the flak when things go pear-shaped.
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Hanif Mohammed and Vengsarkar qualify on the playing more than 2 Tests and having 40+ averages, while debuting as teenagers.
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Vengsarkar of course did not open much (mainly 3 and 4), but he did debut as an opener (though his stats as an opener are even worse than Hafeez’s outside Asia).
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I meant their batting record as teenagers – not their final career average.
Although the relative paucity of teenage openers who finished with a 40+ batting average suggests it doesn’t exactly work as a “loss leader” either.
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Can’t say that I’m particularly impressed with the spin options. The only shining light is that they aren’t necessarily going to keep this team on for India but even if one or two faces were to change, they would have precious little preparation for that tour should new faces be selected. Ironically the ODI squad with Duckett and Billings in there might be more intriguing with at least two non-regular batsman set to play.
Re Bangladesh, with the injury to Mustafizur and with them not having played a test since July of last year, I wonder how competitive they might be compared to the expectation that they should be a whole lot better than the 6 year or so that have passed since we last played them.
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I think it’ll be the most competitive Bangladesh/England series to date by far, although Mustafizur’s injury is a huge loss for them: if he was fit I might even be tempted to make Bangladesh favourites for the ODI series, whereas without one of their main bowling stars I think it’s about 50:50. Given that Bangladesh haven’t played a single test for over a year, England *should* win the test series, but that’s a big *should*: I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if there’s at least one draw given Bangladesh’s improvements and our lack of a real superstar spinner (no disrepect intended to any of our four options).
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The reading from Pringle (who says he doesn’t do irony?), Hayter and Stocks looks particularly absorbent this week:
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“Selectors should not ignore Div 2 talent.”
They always come over to our view eventually. Takes them a bit more time, Bless. But they come round in the end.
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Second division players named:
Ben Duckett
Tom Westley
Sam Northeast
Alastair Cook
Moeen Ali
Graeme White
also, Vince looked anxious every time he walked to the crease for England.
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I wonder if Pringle really belives this or as usual he is spinning like a top for the ECB management?
ECB pick a few division 2 players, and surprise, surprise the in house corporate cricket media is right there supporting it. You can never get a fag paper between them.
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Peter Trego. He’s not impressed…
https://twitter.com/tregs140/with_replies
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“At least the new guys are English born.”
Careful now.
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Is Strauss English born?
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Guardian people, it can’t be just me that has noticed this:
Is pjrowntree2 related to Ben Duckett or what?
He’s beyond Poetseye levels!
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There was something about the Poetseye’s utter devotion and love to the Eternal Sledgehammer that came to resonate very deeply with me. I mean, I don’t feel that way about anyone. Not my wife, my kids, not even my dog. Poets’ love for Bell was/is just so total, to all encompassing, so all consuming, and just so pure. Would that we could all feel like that, just once in our lives, I think. Still, better to give that kind of love, rather than receive, perhaps, as that might feel a bit creepy.
I once wrote a kind of Diary Of Ian Bell in regards to his FB account BTL, which was affectionate, I felt, yet I knew I had to immediately apologise to Poets, you know, just in case.
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Ha, was wondering if you’d pop up today. Seventeen people selected for the Bangladesh tour. Seventeen! And when Australia did that, oh how they laughed.
How are those wheels going?
Also notable that scanning through the squad (took me a while), Cook, Root, Anderson, and Broad were all known and uncontentious names. The rest ranged from “yeah he’s been OK before” to “who?”. Things have changed alot since Cook, Strauss, Trott, KP, Bell, Prior, Anderson, Broad, Swann, and two others to make up the numbers.
Looks to me like England has just gone through a home summer where they could test everyone out, and then selected a quite experimental squad for the winter.
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Also, regarding this whole T20 kerfuffle, I know there’s a bit of FTA/Money involved, but as a disinterested observer, it seems to me most of angst is about counties. England is made up of counties, cricket is based on counties, and nothing else would work. I’m not saying that’s good or bad. I’m just saying that from what I can gather the biggest objection is the undermining of the existing structure and the loyalties that go with it.
People interested to watch cricket might be asked to watch a team that they don’t have long historical/family/geographical/cultural identity connections with.
It would require people in some cases to disconnect from historical ties and find new alliances. Always a tough ask.
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@Fred.
Good points re the T20. I’m against it because it endangers my ‘historical tie’. My county team falls into irrelevance for the median potentially also for the authorities, who have a new shiny toy, while becoming ever more dependent on handouts. However, I also think that it won’t work, because it seems the success of the Big Bash has two pillars which our new Sizable Slap won’t have: balmy summer evenings and cheap tickets. What’s your view, from down there?
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@me
“media and”, not “median”. I normally let it go, but this one really could baffle people.
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Rooto
true Australia has better weather but I do remember playing tennis til 10.30pm when I lived in Scotland, which is never possible in Australia. England has long summer evenings, but perhaps for a shorter window.
I think the main thing is less of an attachment to tradition (mainly because there isn’t much of any, unless you’re Aboriginal). No one is going to get too emotional about their cricket team (except when it comes to those w***kers from NSW, everyone hates them). Players happily change states as a career move, regardless of history.
Football is more tribal but there’s been changes in that over the years without fuss, as a national competition was formed, although admittedly I don’t think any teams have disappeared.
Also, each state is basically has one important city. So South Australia is Adelaide, and Adelaide is South Australia. I think counties have multiple important cities which complicates things.
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I should add I don’t live in Australia anymore and I dont follow Big Bash or any othter T20 compétition, so it’s possible I’m talking bollocks.
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Thanks Fred. It seems that the ECB have drawn conclusions from the BBL, but probably the wrong ones. Personally, I’d have tried to copy the FTA coverage and cheaper tickets, along with the family friendly atmosphere (at least in half the stands), rather than the franchises. You’re right that the glorious evenings can be unbeatable, but also unpredictable!
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