Quote:Sky has offered to pay around £40m a year in broadcasting rights for a Twenty20 tournament with teams billed as cities rather than counties when the new format gets under way in 2017.
The England and Wales Cricket Board chairman, Colin Graves, is known to be set on introducing a city-based T20 series and the additional revenue from Sky would allow for each team to pay big wages to lure international stars similar to those in the IPL and Australia’s Big Bash League and enable Sky to market the broadcasting rights globally.
While the ECB says no final decision has been made, the Observer understands they are close to final proposals that would see a revamp of the domestic T20 competition based around eight city-based teams.
Sky is keen for the tournament to be played in a three- or four-week block at the height of summer, with matches in the evenings so they can be broadcast after the end of any international matches taking place at that time.
Given the recent comments and complaints by the likes of Alex Hales, Tim Bresnan and Jason Roy regarding the current disjointed nature of the T20 Blast in England, I would imagine the players would be receptive to this move, even though the counties are yet to be sold on the notion.
Alex Hales took to Twitter earlier in the week, complaining that changing formats every week is detrimental to skill level and would welcome a format similar to the IPL and CPL.
I would imagine the tournament would start at the end of July/beginning of August to allow for overseas players to finish up playing in the CPL and then fly out to England to participate there. Although given that England are scheduled to play South Africa and West Indies in the summer of 2017, I am not sure how this would all fit together.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/ju...lin-graves