How many more burgers or beers or betting gimmicks do we need in the name of promoting the game?

SAM MORSHEAD: Is the argument that more and more advertising means more and more money being generated to grow cricket really fair? And how far will the ECB take T20's commercial obsession in the new city franchise competition?

In a single tweet, T20’s commercial obsession was laid bare.

‘Congratulations to Ed Cowan, Callum Ferguson and Usman Khawaja who will make their Amart Furniture Player Rehydration Unit debuts tonight,’ scribbled the Sydney Thunder social media executive on January 24, quite probably not really realising how ridiculous the sentence really was.

Here were three international cricketers, with a combined 48 Test caps and 108 appearances to their names, being congratulated for carrying the water by their own team.

Without even the slightest hint of irony.

But that is the nature of Twenty20. There is little subtlety to the game beyond the paddle sweep - and that lack of nuance applies just as much to marketing departments as it does opening batsmen.

Amart Furniture and their Player Rehydration Unit needed to be namechecked, that’s how it works.

^{Kevin Pietersen and Big Bash fans}

Their money covers the cost of the spectacle which brings in the punters which creates a target audience for advertisers… and so the whole process repeats itself ad nauseam like an endless rendition of Dem Bones.

At some point, though, we need to stop the music and think.

How far does it need to go? How many more burgers or beers or betting gimmicks do we need to staple to the sport in the name of promoting it to our youngsters?

In fact, what is actually being promoted?

Ask a stranger to the game for his instant reaction to the sight of 1,000 pre-teen heads clad in fast food packaging and you’d understand if he asked when KFC began investing in UV protection.

Anyone wanting to catch an hour of Ashes coverage in England over the winter could barely hear themselves think amid relentless pitches for odds-boosting as a gambling company, getting around advertising restrictions through live sport loopholes, waded into unfiltered audiences with an ad which appeared to have been ripped from an X-rated Just William spin-off.

And as Ramiz Raja - perhaps Pakistan’s most virtuous Test cricketer during an era of scandal - finds himself rubbing his head like a flea-ridden feline live on TV in the name of shampoo promotion, the question has to be asked ‘where exactly is the line between dollars and dignity’?

Congratulations to Ed Cowan, Callum Ferguson and Usman Khawaja who will make their Amart Furniture Player Rehydration Unit debuts tonight pic.twitter.com/HzvFKH8DX7

— Sydney Thunder (@ThunderBBL) January 24, 2018

Yes, revenue is generated and some of that revenue will be filtered back into the lives of the young people who are being directly targeted by these advertising campaigns - every child who is inspired to take up cricket or stay active as a result of these T20 circuses is a success story in itself - but is enough going back to the bottom of the game to justify kids being exposed to so much trash so early on (as well as the positive associations that come with the glamour and glory of these eye-catching tournaments)?

Is the argument that more and more advertising means more and more money being generated to grow the sport really fair?

Cricket Australia, whose Big Bash template is being closely scrutinised by the ECB ahead of the launch of the new city franchise tournament in the UK, thanks largely to the way in which the Aussie version has captured the imagination of a new demographic, revealed last year that 12 per cent of its income was spent on grassroots initiatives.

A further 71 per cent went towards the staging, promotion and development of elite cricket with the remaining 17 per cent spent on “the costs of running the game”.

In the financial year ending June 2017, the governing body made total revenues of $313m, while in its annual report Cricket Australia said that participation in the country had reached a record high of 1.4million.

That works out at $26.83 investment per casual cricketer Down Under each year, or slightly more than the cost of a single adult reserved seat at the Adelaide Oval for the Big Bash final in February.

If that’s all this bombardment of advertising gets us, could we at least be a little more particular when it comes to the message we’re pushing youngsters?

Of course, this writer is not so naive as to assume that cricket is able to function without the input of advertisers - the game has been taking money from sponsors for many years and it will obviously continue to do so for many, many more - but right now it feels as though we’ve lost all sense of moderation.

Drinks breaks come with branding, umpires do too and there are official partners for everything from financial services to chewing gum.

We have sponsors of TV replays, sponsors of sixes, heck, the Indian Premier League created a new aspect of the game and flogged it at a price; before T20 a strategic timeout was (admittedly poor) code for a well-timed trip to the loo.

If this isn’t saturation point, what’s next?

In South Africa this winter, organisers have started experimenting with musical interludes between deliveries. Fitting a betting shop jingle or two in instead shouldn’t be a problem.

Teams have long worn the names of sponsors across their chests but there’s a whole raft of  free advertising space yet to be sold. Imagine the Twitter announcement now: ‘Introducing our new crotch and backside partner…’

It’s inevitable that, when the city T20 arrives in 2020, a similar commercial approach to that currently used by the Big Bash and the IPL will be taken by the ECB, and it's all too easy to become something of a money-making machine when you have all the circuitry at your disposal. But how great would it be if the governing body showed truly human qualities in the negotiation of their sponsorship agreements.

They have invested significantly in youth and community initiatives in recent years through All Stars Cricket and Chance To Shine, and through such programmes spread a message which encourages participation, enthusiasm and a love of the game.

And, with cricket returning to free to air TV for the first time in a generation with the ECB’s new competition, those qualities are worth shouting about the loudest.