Warwickshire County Cricket Club double their profits
Feb 25 2010 by Graeme Brown
Incessant summer showers and rising costs have not stopped Warwickshire County Cricket Club from more than doubling profits.
The Ashes Test match at Edgbaston helped the club to post a £1.2 million profit in 2009, compared to £450,000 the year before.
Meanwhile, turnover increased from £11.9 million last year to £15.5 million, which helped the club to deal with rising expenditure.
The news comes as work begins on the long-awaited £30 million development of the world famous Edgbaston ground, which chief executive Colin Povey said would help ensure major cricket matches continued to be staged in the city.
He admitted that revenue from international matches was crucial to the business plan at the club, with seven days of play accounting for almost half of sales.
Mr Povey said: “In our business model international cricket is vitally important to us and last year was probably the best programme we could have had.
“We had The Ashes, a one-day international and the Twenty20 finals, which is becoming a major event. In terms of our international programme we had a very strong year.”
He added: “If you look at the international revenues I guess that the total would be getting close to 50 per cent of sales would be apportioned to those days.
“If you take five days of the Test match, one day of the one-day international and one for the 20/20 finals, that is only seven days, but the planning and the selling goes on for much longer.
“It is the same for most sports. If you look at rugby union then the Six Nations figures are likely to be huge at the moment.”
Mr Povey said despite a wet summer – which included losing a day of the five-day Ashes Test match – and an increase in costs, revenues and profits from the crucial Australia matches were ahead of the memorable 2005 match.
He said: “We are considerably ahead of the last time we hosted an Ashes match. I think the last time, in 2005, our profits were somewhere about £800,000 or £900,000.
