Cricket Tasmania forced to axe staff as crisis hits the summer sport

The sport appeared to escape the worst of the COVID-19 shutdown, but it was a false dawn as the body has been forced into cutting a big chunk of its staff.

Cricket Tasmania CEO Dominic Baker at Blundstone Arena where an ODI cricket match between Australia and New Zealand will go ahead with no spectators due to fears of coronavirus. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

CRICKET Tasmania has had to cut almost 30 per cent of its staff, but there is a fear there could be more pain to come.

A summer without India or crowds at Hurricanes games would result in further axing of positions.

CT revealed the extent of the COVID-19 crisis on its fiances yesterday, reducing their non-playing staff from 70 to 50.

With filling of vacancies and business restructure, 10 staff will be made redundant across high performance, Hurricanes and commercial, community cricket, communications, and venue and operations.

CT chief executive Dominic Baker said it was an extremely tough day but the decision to lose 20 roles saved 50 jobs.

“Are we saying we won’t’ have to go through any more pain? No we are not,” Baker said.

“But we have done everything in our power with all the knowledge we can gather and all the facts we could glean, we have worked on nothing else for three weeks for what we think CT can do to survive the next two years.”

Cricket Australia funds CT to the tune of $10 million a year, but this has reduced by $2.5 million due to the crisis.

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Throw in the lack of revenue due to the cancellation of more than 60 bookings for Blundstone Arena’s function centre, the axing of the Australia-New Zealand one-day match – the state’s only international fixture – and the absence of four AFL games, and CT is budgeting on a loss of between $4 and $7 million over the next 12 months.

But this is nothing compared to the mayhem that would be caused by the loss of CA’s broadcast rights to the Indian Test series and the absence of fans for the BBL.

“We would be concerned absolutely if India didn’t tour Australia because we would anticipate more hard times to come,” Baker said.

“The BBL is a little different.

“The BBL from my perspective is a revenue stream that is CT’s to control.

“We are very sensitive about playing that game in front of crowds.

“It is one of the things that makes the BBL so exciting.

“We are preparing we may not play before crowds before Christmas but at the end of the day we will be doing everything we can to ensure that given the right environment the BBL will be playing in front of crowds and we won’t be starting until it does.”

Playing lists and payments will not changed by CT as the $6.5 million salary budget — covering the 42 men’s and women’s Tigers and Hurricanes salaries — is funded by CA.

Baker said there would be no change to community cricket structure and funding and that programs aimed to enticing children to the sport would continue.

“Hopefully they (Tigers and Hurricanes fans) will see nothing different on match days,” he said.

“What will be different on the day of match there will be every member of the CT family will be out there activating it.

“We won’t be watching games out there, we will be out there with our sleeves rolled up from me down executing what this business needs to do over the next two years.”