England Women’s gamers are to obtain the identical match charges as the boys’s crew after an exhilarating Ashes summer season boosted their profile.
The England and Wales Cricket Board has introduced funds to Heather Knight’s aspect are being introduced into line with these made to Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and their team-mates within the wake of report crowds and elevated viewing figures.
The enhance will take impact instantly, beginning with this week’s Vitality IT20 sequence towards Sri Lanka.
ECB chief government officer Richard Gould stated: “This summer season’s thrilling Metro Bank Women’s Ashes sequence demonstrated how ladies’s cricket is constant to develop at tempo on this nation, with report attendances and TV viewing.
“Growing the ladies’s and women’ recreation is a key precedence for us and lately now we have significantly elevated funding each in constructing a home ladies’s construction to supply the gamers of the longer term and in growing participant rewards.
“In the years forward, we’ll proceed to speculate forward of revenues. We are presently contemplating all of the suggestions made by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, however equalising match charges is one speedy step we’re happy to make now.
I’m certain it will make cricket an increasingly-attractive sport to women and younger ladies as we proceed to develop the sport
England captain Heather Knight
“We all want cricket to be the team sport of choice for female athletes and – with the investments we are making and increasingly-lucrative opportunities around the world – we are seeing cricketers become some of the highest earning female athletes in UK team sports.
“However, we know there is still much further to go as we ultimately strive for equality across the game.
“As we continue to grow women’s cricket, we will continue to focus on making considered investments that stretch far-and-wide across the women’s cricket structures, delivering a thriving, profitable and future-proofed game.”
A complete of 110,00 individuals watched the drawn summer season sequence, which noticed Australia retain the Ashes in entrance of crowds of 19,527 at Edgbaston, 20,328 on the Kia Oval and 21,610 at Lord’s which set successive new data for a house England Women bilateral fixture, whereas 23,207 tickets had been offered for the 5 days of the Trent Bridge Test.
Broadcast viewing figures of 5.3 million, along with 47 million video views, had been double these in 2019.
England skipper Knight stated: “It’s really important that we continue to drive the women’s game forward and it’s fantastic to see equal match fees for England Women and England Men.
“The direction of travel for the women’s game has always been the most important thing, creating a sustainable product that people want to watch and play and I’m sure this will make cricket an increasingly-attractive sport to girls and young women as we continue to grow the game.
“I would also like to thank the PCA and England Women’s Player Partnership for their support in representing the players and the growth of the professional game.”
The ECB presently funds 80 skilled ladies’s home cricketers along with its 18 England Women’s centrally-contracted gamers.
Last 12 months, the governing physique introduced a £3.5milion enhance in funding for the ladies’s regional recreation to run till the top of 2024, whereas the wage pot per crew was raised to £250,000, that means the typical wage for a ladies’s regional cricketer might be £25,000.
