Bentley Forbes Rankings 2021

The prestigious Bentley Forbes Consulting county cricket financial rankings for 2021 are out now!

Rankings for 2020 are: here & if this is your sort of thing you can go all the way back to 2016.

I've ranked the 17 eligible counties (no Hampshire as they are part of Rod Bransgrove's business interests) by the patented* Bentley Forbes  financial strength algorithm**, a mixture of profitability and balance sheet resilience and given a brief (sometimes very brief) write up to each county.  But first a few general comments.

Cricket isn't like championship football or seemingly premier league rugby, loss making and dependent on indulgent and / or dubious owners.    All 18 first class counties came through covid intact and in 2021 the 17 counties in the rankings made an aggregate net profit of just less than £7m.   

That's not to say that everything is perfect, Surrey and Lancashire, made £5.2m of the total profits of £7m and 5 counties were loss making in 2021.  Of those 5, Yorkshire and Essex were pushed into a loss by the financial fall out of allowing racism to pass unchecked, Sussex are redeveloping their ground and Warwickshire and Middlesex just seem to be in a bit of a sad state. 

Finally the financial ructions of the Hundred became apparent with the ECB making an additional payment to the counties to compensate them for playing the Blast during the period when covid restrictions were still in place.  Of course without those payments the counties would probably have demanded that the Blast be played alongside or even instead of the Hundred when restrictions had been removed.   

Sound the bugle - and on with the table.

County	Ranking	Position
Derbyshire	2.5	1
Notts	6	2
Durham	6.5	3
Lancashire	6.5	3
Essex	7	5
Kent	8	6
Northhants	8	6
Glamorgan	8	6
Surrey	8	6
Somerset	9	10
Gloucestershire	9	10
Yorkshire	10	12
Sussex	10.5	13
Leicestershire	10.5	14
Worcestershire	13	15
Middlesex	15	16
Warwickshire	15.5	17

Around The Counties

Derbyshire first alphabetically and first financially.  Not what you would think of as a financial bemouth but a full 3.5 ranking points better than second place Notts.  Derbyshire's rise up the table is the result in a shift in the level of ECB funding.  Prior to the ECB's 2020  - 2024 TV deal, The Hundred and associated £1.3m per annum bribe to each county, the costs of maintaining a county side exceeded the amount distributed by the ECB.  Counties had to make good that difference, through T20, memberships and various business activities.  Derbyshire were always pretty good at running a first team squad on a shoestring and just about making ends meet.  But in 2021 ECB payments to Derbyshire were more than £4m, covering the cost of putting out a county championship team and allowing other income to fall through to a profit (before tax) of £1.1m.

Of course financial stability is necessary for a county to be successful, it's not sufficient.  What constitutes success is, high quality performances, developing England players and fostering  democratic cricket.  Derbyshire have been completely useless at all those things for a number of years. But in 2022, the appointment of Micky Arthur and the emergence of a couple of handy young bowlers, George Scrimshaw and Sam Connors are, perhaps, a sign that money is being put to work.

Durham; the bounce back kids. Once regulars in the relegation zone of the prestigious Bentley Forbes Consulting rankings, Durham have shot up the table in the last two years.  The ECB's bail out of Durham was mean spirited and inconsistent with the more open handed approach provided to other cash strapped counties but it did give Durham some breathing space.  Since then they have followed the Derbyshire approach, kept a strong grip on costs, made some money and paid down debt.  The emergence of Matthew Potts in the England team shows they can still produce Test class cricketers. 

Essex: Racist language used by then Essex chairman, John Farager, at a board meeting and allegations by three former players that they suffered racist abuse whilst at the club led to Essex incurring almost £0.5m in legal costs (including setting up an investigation) which pushed the county into a loss for the period.  

Glamorgan:  They've been both at the bottom of the rankings and towards the top in previous years. With their controversial refinancing behind them they seem to have achieved stability. 

Gloucestershire:  Other counties zip up and down the rankings like a lift in a investment bank, Gloucestershire stay in mid table.  But boring is good in the prestigious Bentley - Forbes rankings, the county generally makes a profit, pays off a little debt and avoids any dramas.

Kent:  Part of English cricket's middle classes.  A bit of debt, but not too much and slowly being paid down and generally make a small profit each year. 

Lancashire:  A profit of £1.8m although the club benefitted from a £2.5m settlement of an insurance claim relating to loss of income in 2020 so would, presumably, have made a 2021 loss if that claim hadn't come through.  Lancashire also have the advantage of being the ECB's favourite child, India's decision to just not bother with the 5th test of the 2020 series could have put Lancashire in serious financial difficulties but "Thankfully the ECB covered the refunds in relation to ticket revenues and the Club was able to retain the ticketing revenue for the game."

It looks as if Lancashire have managed to make their stadium redevelopment work, financially if not aesthetically, but there are so many one offs in the 2021 accounts it's impossible to be sure.  Lancashire has the highest net debt of the 17 counties included in the rankings and is one to keep an eye on.   

Leicestershire:  Still ranked a lowly 14th, but 2021 was a good year financially.  Lockdown meant that 2021 was the first year that increased ECB funding really made a difference and Leicestershire made a profit of £0.5m.  New chief executive, Sean Jarvis seems to be both one of the good guys and a good manager and with Rehan Ahmed in the full England squad Leicestershire cricket is in a pretty good place.  However, Leicestershire's total cricket expense was £2.3m (against ECB funding of £3.7m) and the players' wage bill just £1.5m.    

Middlesex: Welcome back Middlesex who for four long years thought filing accounts with the FCA wasn't something they needed to bother with.  Middlesex also thought paying the correct pension contributions to their staff was voluntary and the 2021 accounts include a prior year adjustment for this error.  It was a costly error to make as not only have Middlesex had to pay the missed contributions they have also had to pay over the investment return that would have accrued to employees if Middlesex hadn't cocked it up in the first place.  And in fact things are a bit worse than that as Middlesex's first effort to quantify the cost of the pension debacle was in 2020 but that was understated and had to be corrected in 2021, requiring a prior year adjustment to the previous year's prior adjustment.  

But Middlesex's financial incontinence was worse still, as note 25 to the accounts reveals, there were also prior year adjustments for errors in accounting for lifetime memberships, sponsorship income and ticket sales revenue.  Sideonview can hardly wait for 2022.  Through all of this D Kendix and M O'Farrell have continued to sign accounts seemingly unburdened by any nagging doubts they might not be the best men for the job.

Perhaps not surprisingly Middlesex has not had a good financial time of it in recent years.  Unlike the other 16 counties they don't own their own grounds being tenants of the MCC.  As recently as 2016 they had a very strong balance sheet with no debt and £1.5m or so in fixed asset investments, a sensible margin of safety that could be topped up in years when ECB funding was high and drawn down in bad times.  Well the bad times have come and the fixed asset investments have all gone, Middlesex stand an ignominious 16th in the prestigious Bentley - Forbes Consulting rankings.      

Northants:  Continue to do well in these rankings.  There is though one point that confuses me.  When a group of members effectively took control of the county they loaned £1m from their corporate vehicle to the cricket club.  That all seemed fine and I've always treated the loan as long term funding and not included it as a real creditor.  But in 2020 and 2021 the Northants cricket club has repaid almost £700k to the take over vehicle taking out an equivalent amount of bank financing.

I should stress no individual has benefitted from this arrangement the repayments haven't gone anywhere, they are just sat as cash in NCCC Holdings, but it seems odd to make the club pay interest whilst the cash sits in the holding company.  One to watch.  

Nottinghamshire:  Consistent financial performers, almost the perfect club combining sensible investment with ongoing profitability.  Up to second in this year's rankings.

Somerset:  Like Notts another successful county and one that has made a real success of county cricket, drawing good crowds to Taunton and with a healthy number of members.  One or two indications of financial problems in recent years but seem pretty steady in 2021.  

Surrey:  The empire strikes back.  Last year's loss replaced by the largest profit of any county in 2021 at £2.2m.  They do have a lot of debt a lot of which falls due in the next 5 years so may have to refinance. 

Sussex:  Slowly sliding down the table.  Have never made profits but could afford small losses as a bequest from a former member and ownership of the pub just outside the ground provided a good base.  They are now involved in a big and complicated redevelopment, presumably on the site of the pub and will be one to watch for the next few years.

Warwickshire:  Bottom of the league and my county, covered here 

Worcestershire:  Continue to be in poor shape with the highest net debt of any non  - international ground county.  Also membership numbers have declined.

Yorkshire:  A bad year caused by the polycrisis of the fall out from the Azeem Rafiq affair and refinancing the loans from vehicles connected with Colin Graves. All covered in this post.

*  Not actually patented

** Not an algorithm