Acting chief executive Geoff Allardice says International Cricket Council is hoping to bring a greater sense of parity in prize money for winners and various position holders in its men’s and women’s major tournament in the 2024-2031 cycle.
Greater equality in prize money won over the next rights cycle of women’s events in ODIs and T20Is will be a major topic up for discussions at the ICC table over the coming week.
Allardice indicated the same when he was asked to explain a major gulf in prize money awarded to the winners of the ongoing women’s ODI World Cup in New Zealand to the 2019 ODI World Cup in England in the men’s version.
“What we’ve been trying to do over this cycle is bridge the gap between the women’s prize money and the men’s prize money.”
“We are about to start discussions around the next cycle and one of the starting points for that discussion is going to be trying to get parity for the finishing positions of teams in women’s events and comparable men’s events,”
the ICC CEO was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
Apart from that, Allardice stated the ICC finances and allocation of prize money pool is made keeping in mind a thorough eight-year review and projection of the market and the willingness of the broadcasters to concede specific sums on a bundle of tournaments.
To their credit, ICC had raised the prize money for the winners of the ongoing World Cup. The winners of the tournament in New Zealand will earn a huge sum of USD 1.32 million from a total prize money pool of 3.5 million, which is over 1.5 million more than the previous edition of the competition in 2017 in England.
But that is still a pool of 6.5 million less than the 2019 edition of the men’s World Cup, where title holders England bagged 4 million, runners-up New Zealand won 2 million and semi-finalists Australia and India bagged 800,000 each.
The ICC will look to downsize this gap in the next rights cycle of women’s events, featuring ODI World Cups in 2025 and 2029, either side of T20 World Cups in 2024, 2026, 2028 and 2030 and the newly-introduced T20 Champions Cup in 2027 and 2031.
