The future of Test cricket points to a wider problem in modern sport: crowds create the meaning, identity and emotional value that commercial systems increasingly seek to own and monetise.
Chas Keys recently raised an important concern about the future of Test cricket. His argument was not really about batting techniques, bowling actions or even the quality of the modern game. Rather, it was about power. Increasingly, the future of cricket appears to be determined less by players and supporters than by boards, investors, broadcasters and the owners of franchise competitions.
The rise of T20 cricket has brought extraordinary financial success. It has also shifted the centre of gravity within the game. Decisions once made primarily in the interests of cricket are now increasingly influenced by commercial considerations. Chas’ concern is that Test cricket, the game’s oldest and richest form, may become one of the casualties.
Perhaps the issue is not simply what is happening to cricket. Perhaps cricket is merely revealing something that is happening across much of modern sport.
Who, exactly, owns the crowd?
At first glance the question seems absurd. Crowds are not owned. Supporters choose which teams they follow and which games they attend. Yet the history of modern sport can almost be understood as a gradual shift in the relationship between the game, its participants and its spectators.
For much of sporting history, spectators were little more than a fortunate by-product. Clubs were established because people wanted to play. Communities organised competitions because they valued participation. Supporters gathered because they knew the players, lived in the district or simply enjoyed the contest. The crowd was important, but it was not the reason the event existed.
The local football field still reminds us of this older reality. On a winter Saturday morning parents stand on the sideline watching children play. Nobody imagines that the purpose of the game is to attract spectators. The spectators are there because they care about the participants.
The same principle once extended much further. Sporting clubs were often expressions of community identity. They represented neighbourhoods, workplaces, regions and traditions. The relationship between the club and its supporters was reciprocal because both emerged from the same social foundations.
The arrival of television began to alter that relationship.
Television did not simply expand audiences. It transformed the economics of sport. Broadcasters discovered that sporting contests could reliably attract viewers, and advertisers quickly recognised the value of those audiences. The crowd was no longer simply watching the game. The crowd itself had become valuable.
This marked an important shift. The game was still being played on the field, but increasingly its financial worth lay in its ability to assemble and hold attention. The audience became something that could be measured, packaged and sold.
In many respects this transformation was beneficial. Revenue increased. Facilities improved. Athletes became professionals rather than enthusiastic amateurs. Entire sports expanded their reach and popularity.
Yet the commercialisation of sport has not stopped there.
Today many sporting organisations appear to be moving into a new phase, one in which investors, media companies, betting agencies and multinational sponsors exercise an influence that would have been unimaginable a generation ago. Teams are bought and sold as assets. Competitions are expanded to create additional content. Scheduling decisions are made with broadcasters in mind. Entire tournaments are designed around commercial opportunities.
Increasingly, the language of finance sits alongside the language of sport. Players are discussed as brands, teams as assets and competitions as intellectual property. The terminology belongs as much to the boardroom as it does to the playing field.
Yet the source of sport’s value remains something far older and far more human.
Consider the FIFA World Cup. Every four years it captures the attention of billions, not because of sponsorship deals or television contracts, but because it speaks to fundamental human needs. Families gather together. Communities celebrate together. Strangers become companions for an evening. People experience a sense of belonging that transcends age, class, language and geography.
In those moments supporters are not consuming a product. They are participating in a shared social ritual. The joy, hope, disappointment and pride they experience are genuine expressions of identity and connection. Indeed, it is precisely because these emotions are real that the tournament possesses such enormous commercial value.
The irony is difficult to ignore. The financial worth of modern sport ultimately rests upon human needs that cannot themselves be reduced to a financial transaction.
Yet surrounding this very human experience is an immense commercial enterprise.
FIFA negotiates broadcasting agreements worth billions of dollars. Sponsors compete fiercely for global exposure. Host nations seek prestige, investment and influence. Media organisations pursue ratings and subscriptions. Betting companies seek customers. Investors seek returns.
The supporters create the atmosphere that gives the tournament its meaning, but the institutions that govern the event increasingly derive their power from their ability to monetise that meaning.
This is the paradox at the heart of modern sport.
The emotional commitment of supporters remains the foundation upon which everything else rests. Without passion there is no audience. Without audience there is no commercial value. Yet the structures surrounding sport increasingly behave as though supporters exist to serve the system rather than the system existing to serve supporters.
Perhaps this is what lies beneath concerns about Test cricket.
The question is not whether T20 cricket is entertaining. Nor is it whether professional sport should generate revenue. Both propositions are self-evidently true.
The deeper question concerns purpose.
Is sport primarily a cultural institution that happens to generate wealth, or is it a commercial enterprise that happens to generate belonging?
The answer matters because the things that make sport valuable cannot easily be measured on a balance sheet. Community pride, social connection, shared memory, belonging and identity rarely appear in annual reports. Yet they are the reasons why people care in the first place.
Cricket’s struggle between Test matches and franchise competitions may therefore be about much more than cricket. It may be one example of a broader tension running through contemporary society. Institutions originally created to serve human needs increasingly find themselves serving economic ones.
The crowd still fills the stadiums. The crowd still creates the atmosphere. The crowd still invests its hopes, loyalties and emotions in the contest.
The question is whether those who govern modern sport still understand that the crowd is not simply a market.
It is the source of the game’s meaning.
And once that distinction is forgotten, something far more important than a sporting format may be lost.
John Frew worked in public education, including as foundation principal at a secondary school for students with Conduct Disorder and Oppositional Disturbance. John has authored numerous books the latest being ‘Neuroscience and Teaching Very Difficult Kids’. Since retiring, he has continued to comment on social issues.