Cricket’s Solow growth story

On a visit to Singapore, after I gushed to him about the beautiful, and very large, museum I had just visited, my cab driver—a man without any personal connection to cricket—said something touching and thoughtful: cricket seemed like a “pan-Indian language.” He’d watched Indian migrant workers playing the sport in parks and public spaces, and felt it was “a way for the Indian workers to keep up their connection with the homeland.”

Academic research confirms what the cab driver observed. Sport provides “diasporic communities with a powerful means for creating transnational ties” while shaping “ideas of their ethnic and racial identities.” Cricket becomes “a significant medium through which local experiences are translated, diasporic parameters reconfigured and national identity complicated.”1​

In growth economics, Robert Solow’s work separates economic growth into two parts: what can be explained by adding more labour and capital, and what cannot. The unexplained part is the Solow residual – the contribution of technology, organisation and ideas once more workers and more machines have been accounted for.23

In economics:

  • Labour is the work people do, and
  • Capital means all the tools and equipment people use to do the work

Applied to cricket, the analogy is:

  • Labour: players, coaches, umpires, support staff, administrators.
  • Capital: stadiums, training facilities, broadcast infrastructure, league investments, media rights.

Cricket’s global rise can be thought of in the same language. There is a visible story of more players, more matches, more money and more stadiums. Alongside these are formats, platforms, new audiences and institutions that are helping the game grow, beyond what labour and capital alone would predict.

This is cricket’s Solow growth story.

The Solow lens: growth beyond inputs
In a standard growth-accounting framework, output Y depends on capital K, labour L and a technology term A. When economists measure growth over time, they first calculate how much extra output comes from increases in K and L. The remainder of growth – the part not explained by these inputs – is attributed to changes in A, the Solow residual. It represents effects like better technology, improved organisation and more efficient processes.

Cricket’s output may be thought of in terms of:

  • Fans and viewership
  • Match attendance
  • Revenue and commercial value
  • Participation and playing nations

Once the contribution of labour and capital is recognised, there is still a large “something else” driving growth: formats, digital reach, women’s cricket, new markets, governance changes and cultural dynamics.

The visible inputs: labour and capital in cricket
Over the last two decades, more players, support staff, and officials have been able to treat cricket as full-time work.45 On the capital side, investment has risen sharply.67 More labour and more capital would, on their own, be expected to expand cricket’s footprint. However, the scale and pattern of growth indicate that additional forces are at work.

Residual drivers
In Solow’s terms, technology is not just gadgets; it is a better way of combining labour and capital to produce more output. In cricket, “technology” may be read broadly: formats, platforms, governance models and cultural transmission.23

Formats here function like a productivity-enhancing technology, since T20s allow the same talent pool and stadium infrastructure to generate more matches, more broadcast hours and more global attention per season than longer formats alone can do.

The second residual driver is how cricket uses digital platforms to reach and retain fans. Digital reach allows cricket to penetrate markets where linear television had limited presence, to offer short-form content to casual viewers, and to collect granular data on fan behaviour.8910

A major structural shift in cricket’s growth story is the rise of women’s cricket, which expands both the playing base and the fanbase. This is more than an incremental increase in labour. Incorporating women fully into the professional game changes the scale and diversity of talent, opens new commercial categories and attracts new audiences.11121314

Cricket’s growth is also being shaped by its spread into new geographies, particularly through structured leagues and global events.1516

Global tournaments amplify this effect:

  • ICC has expanded the number of teams in men’s and women’s T20 World Cups and increased the frequency of global events, providing more nations with regular exposure on major platforms.​17
  • Cricket’s inclusion in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics was confirmed in 2023, with a six-team T20 competition for both men and women approved by the International Olympic Committee.​15

Olympic participation is expected to support recognition and funding for cricket in national sports systems that previously gave it little priority, especially in the Americas, Europe and parts of Asia.​18

Together, these developments act like opening new export markets in economic growth: the same product – cricket – now reaches more consumers in more countries.

A further contributor to cricket’s Solow-style residual is how the game is organised and governed. The franchise model aligns investors, broadcasters and local boards around shared incentives.1920 Long-term agreements for leagues like the IPL, WPL, PSL, BBL, SA20, ILT20 and MLC encourage sustained investment in academies, scouting and marketing.​21

ICC’s governance and commercial approach has also evolved towards a portfolio of global events, with structured revenue-sharing mechanisms and clear qualification pathways, rather than relying solely on bilateral (and my much-missed trilateral) series for income and exposure.22​23 Separate and more tailored media-rights packages for different regions and for men’s and women’s events reflect more sophisticated commercial design, allowing cricket’s governing bodies to capture greater value from diverse markets.​242526

As with economic growth, productivity gains in cricket are not evenly distributed. Franchise leagues and global events concentrate revenues and influence among a small set of boards and investors, widening the gap between cricket’s core and its periphery.27282930 At the same time, calendar congestion reflects a classic growth constraint: more formats and competitions compete for the same finite player time, increasing injury risk and diluting bilateral cricket.3132 Rising output, in short, comes with coordination costs—and not all participants share equally in the gains.

No economist can measure the value of a game that allows a migrant worker to feel briefly at home. But whatever that value is, it compounds enough that the cab driver without any links to cricket was able to feel for it. In economic terms, cricket’s “A” – its equivalent of total factor productivity – is rising. The story of the sport’s future will depend not only on how many people play and how much money flows in, but on how effectively formats, institutions and cultures continue to convert those inputs into sustainable, global growth.

Sources

  1. Cricket, Migration and Diasporic Communities – ResearchGate
  2. Solow Residual: Definition, Example, vs. TFP – Investopedia
  3. Solow Residual: Total Factor Productivity and the U.S. Economy – RSM Real Economy
  4. A Statistical Look at How Cricket Has Changed Over the Past 30 Years: More Runs, Longer Careers, Fewer Breaks – ESPNcricinfo
  5. International Boards, Franchises and the Future of Cricket Contracting – Lex Sportiva
  6. Why Private Equity Loves Cricket: Deep Dive Into CVC Capital’s Investment – LinkedIn
  7. $1.6 Billion for Two IPL Franchises: Does It Add Up? – ESPNcricinfo
  8. How OTT Platforms Are Redefining Cricket Broadcasting During Asia’s Digital Revolution – LinkedIn
  9. Creating Cricket for a Multi-Platform Viewership – Broadcast Pro ME
  10. Biggest Cricket World Cup Ever Smashes Broadcast and Digital Records – ICC
  11. Women’s Cricket in a League of Its Own – LinkedIn
  12. Brand Support Grows for WPL After India’s World Cup Win – Women Entrepreneurs Review
  13. The 2025 World Cup Promises to Take Women’s Cricket to Brand New Heights – ESPNcricinfo
  14. Women’s Global Employment Report 2022 – FICA (PDF)
  15. Cricket Confirmed for the LA28 Games – USA Cricket
  16. MLC Gets Official List A Status from ICC Ahead of Second Season – ESPNcricinfo
  17. All 20 Teams for 2026 T20 World Cup Decided – Kathmandu Post
  18. T20 Cricket Confirmed as One of Five New Sports at LA28 – ESPNcricinfo
  19. IPL Business Model in India: A Comprehensive Overview – Avira Digital Studios
  20. The IPL Business Model: A Deep Dive into Revenue Streams – Chase Your Sport
  21. Leagues like ILT20 ‘Not Good for the Game’ – Graeme Smith Talks SA20 Investment in Local Cricket – ESPN
  22. ICC Global Funding Model Explainer – Emerging Cricket
  23. ICC Launches Multi-Faceted Pathway Events Tender – SportCal
  24. ICC to Sell Next Media Rights for Indian Market and Men’s and Women’s Events Separately – ESPNcricinfo
  25. In-Depth with ICC Media Rights Head Manoharan – SportCal
  26. Women’s Cricket Rights Values and Coverage Levels Entering New Age – SportCal
  27. New ICC Finance Model Breaks Up Big Three – ESPNcricinfo
  28. Enshrining The Might Of The BCCI: Inside the TV Deals That Made Cricket Richer and Less Equal Than Ever Before – Wisden
  29. Cricket’s Imbalanced Financial Structure Continues to Favor the Wealthy – Arab News
  30. ICC Revenue Model Threatens Growth of Game, Say Associate Members – Indian Express
  31. Is Cricket’s Scheduling Problem Beyond Redemption? – Arab News
  32. Cricket Needs a More Equitable Spread of International Fixtures – ESPN
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Author: Finrod Bites Wolves

A blogger.

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