Sky's the limit?
by Duncan O'Leary
As might be expected they have gone for the Sky option, arguing that the '2 million extra will provide a platform for greater investment in the sport and eventually a better England team. Predictably there’s considerable debate about whether this is the most effective option – with the counter-argument running that with less kids able to watch the matches, fewer and fewer people will end up playing the game, leaving an even smaller pool to be selected from the England team.
Whilst this debate rumbles on, however, I wonder whether (or not) this provides another practical example of how adopting Public Value as a framework might have made a difference. The argument would go something like: even if the sky deal is the most effective way of producing a world-beating England cricket team, does this actually reflect what the public values..? Yes, people all want the England team to be the best in the world, but they also want the opportunity to watch their matches. And if the country doesn’t have some ownership over its national team, then what, really, is the point of it..? So maybe we’d actually sacrifice some investment in the game for the opportunity for more people to be able to enjoy it…? Or maybe we’d be willing to see some more public investment if it meant keeping events like this on the terrestrial channels..? Or then again maybe we wouldn’t…