The cricket finance report is here:
https://www.leonardcurtis.co.uk/sport-finance-report/cricket-finance-report-2026 There's a download link. This goes up to 2024 because that's up to when accounts are available, but it puts it all in context of the Hundred, non Hundred hosting counties etc. Basically- things are tough and are going to get tougher.
Here's George Dobell's view (from the Cricketer, paywalled):
https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/county-cricket-premium/county_cricket_mixed_financial_picture_highlights_monumental_triumphs_fears_future.html"The report makes interesting - if alarming - reading in many ways. For one thing, it crystallises the uneven battle between those counties which host Hundred sides and those that do not. It concludes, unsurprisingly, there is a growing gap.
For example, some clubs - and Northants is a decent example - are disproportionately reliant upon the distribution of funds which comes each year from the ECB. Indeed, in 2024, this payment (which was ?4.2million for them) accounted for 70 per cent of their annual revenue.
By comparison, the ?4.09m received by Surrey (and you may very well ask why it's a smaller sum as it is meant, in part, to be performance related) made up only eight per cent of their annual revenue. Warwickshire (13 per cent), Hampshire and Lancashire (both 16 per cent) and Nottinghamshire (22 per cent) weren't far behind..
Other clubs with an unhealthy reliance upon that ECB distribution included Leicestershire (for whom the figure was 67 per cent), Middlesex (64 per cent), Worcestershire (59 per cent) and Derbyshire (56 per cent).
This might, in a previous age, have not mattered too much. But at a time when it is generally accepted that the value of future broadcast deals for international bilateral cricket could decrease, this feels like an alarm.
And remember: the non-host counties will receive a smaller share of the deal for The Hundred in future years. Team owners will receive 80 per cent of the value of the broadcast deal for that competition. That leaves the ECB, the recreational game and the non-hosts to share the rest.
All of which means, clubs that are already struggling to keep their heads above water are going to need to do so with even less money in future.?
