GIDEON HAIGH: Packer did not embark with the express intention of building a new cricket; he coveted the old cricket, or at least the exclusive broadcast rights to it in Australia for his Channel Nine stations
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Posted by David Rimmer on 11/11/2018 at 18:25
It was an odd time for Cricket. As an impressionable teenager, I was heavily influenced by schoolmasters who portrayed Kerry Packer as the evil money maker or the devil incarnate or words to that effect. Attitudes of playing for your country should supersede all monetary considerations, even though people advocating the traditional game blithely ignored the fact that for most professionals the chance to make money was very important as what followed afterwards was uncertain. That is what Packer played on and he was shrewd enough to know the hold that the Australian Cricket Board (ACB), or for that matter other national governing authorities within cricket, had on players was tenuous at best. It was largely a feudal one-sided relationship and if Packer had not come along, somebody else would have done so. Within England the player's union had only been around for nine or so years ( at that time _ 1977) and pension scheme arrangements were rudimentary at best with the benefit (often weather dependent) being the only hope for cricketers to have something to fall back on. In other countries like New Zealand, Pakistan or India, the game was virtually matter in terms of what money cricketers could make. When WSC took place it was an odd time for the game, as this was of a higher standard than the traditional game. However, results from the traditional game seemed to matter more as it was nation v nation rather than teams organised by a private promoter. For Kerry Packer getting one over the ACB was also a little bit of revenge after his father Frank Packer (later Sir Frank Packer), a newspaper magnate, had to free Don Bradman from his writing contract to play for Australia in the 1932/33 bodyline series.