The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) reported £336.1 million in turnover in 2024, while its programmes reached one million children in 2023. These England and Wales Cricket Board statistics also cover governance, international fixtures, recreational investment, women’s cricket, inclusion and workforce pay-gap measures.
Contents
- Governance and organisational structure
- Finance and investment
- England and Wales international fixtures
- Participation and community impact
- Women’s and girls’ cricket
- Workforce representation and pay gaps
Governance and organisational structure
The ECB had 41 members in its 2023/24 governance year. The membership included the chairs of 18 First Class County Cricket Clubs and the chairs of 21 County Cricket Boards representing the non-First-Class Counties. These figures describe the composition reported in the ECB 2023/2024 Annual Governance Statement.
The 2023/24 season was the final year of the ECB’s 2020–2024 strategy, Inspiring Generations. Six directors appointed in May 2023 had settled into their roles by 2023/24, according to the same governance statement. This provides a snapshot of organisational change at the end of that strategy period.
Several governance bodies were established during the year. The ECB’s Cricket Regulator was established in December 2023. In late 2023, the organisation established two new Cricket Sub-Committees: the Professional Game Committee and the Recreational Game Committee. The Performance Cricket Committee followed in May 2024.
Representation on county boards also changed between 2019 and 2023/24. Women accounted for 34% of county-board directors in 2023/24, compared with 11% in 2019. Ethnically diverse directors accounted for 19% in 2023/24, compared with 5% in 2019. The two comparisons use the years and definitions stated in the ECB 2023/2024 Annual Governance Statement.
Finance and investment
The ECB Financial Statements 2024 reported turnover of £336.1m for 2024, compared with £334.0m for 2023. Profit before taxation was £27.9m in 2024 and £21.1m in 2023. Retained profit was £22.8m in 2024, compared with £13.4m in 2023. Year-end reserves were £58.2m in 2024 and £35.4m in 2023.
| ECB financial measure | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Turnover | £336.1m | £334.0m |
| Profit before taxation | £27.9m | £21.1m |
| Retained profit | £22.8m | £13.4m |
| Year-end reserves | £58.2m | £35.4m |
| Cost of sales | £66.6m | £66.2m |
| Administrative expenditure | £248.5m | £248.6m |
The ECB donated £20.0m to the England and Wales Cricket Trust in 2024; the corresponding 2023 figure was nil. Cost of sales was £66.6m in 2024 and £66.2m in 2023. Administrative expenditure was £248.5m in 2024, narrowly below the £248.6m reported for 2023.
Broadcast income was linked to specific areas of cricket development. In 2024, the ECB invested £74.9m of total UK broadcast revenues into areas covered by the voluntary code. The reported amount represented 36% of total UK broadcast revenues. The financial statements also recorded £37.0m for activities supporting the recreational game, £21.6m for activities supporting development of the game, and £16.3m of central costs allocated to those broadcast-funded activities.
England and Wales international fixtures
The ECB scheduled six men’s Test matches in 2024. Three were against Sri Lanka and three were against the West Indies. The schedule also included five men’s One Day Internationals against Australia.
Men’s short-format scheduling included seven IT20 matches. Three were against Australia and four were against Pakistan. The figures refer to matches scheduled by the ECB in 2024, rather than a claim about results, wins or attendances.
England Women were scheduled for six ODIs in 2024. The six-match total was split evenly between New Zealand and Pakistan: three against each opponent. England Women were also scheduled for eight IT20s, including five against New Zealand and three against Pakistan.
| Team and format | 2024 scheduled matches | Opponent split reported by the ECB |
|---|---|---|
| England men, Tests | 6 | Sri Lanka 3; West Indies 3 |
| England men, ODIs | 5 | Australia 5 |
| England men, IT20s | 7 | Australia 3; Pakistan 4 |
| England Women, ODIs | 6 | New Zealand 3; Pakistan 3 |
| England Women, IT20s | 8 | New Zealand 5; Pakistan 3 |
Together, these scheduled fixtures show the range of formats represented in the ECB’s 2024 financial reporting. They should not be read as a complete statistical record of every England match or as a summary of match outcomes.
Participation and community impact
The ECB Impact of Cricket Report 2023 stated that one million children played cricket through ECB programmes, partner programmes or organised play in 2023. The report also measured players’ views of cricket’s wider effects. Eighty percent of players agreed that cricket kept them active in a way they otherwise would not be. Seventy-eight percent said cricket helped them develop useful personal and professional skills, while 92% said it made them feel part of the community.
The same report recorded 83% of players saying that cricket helped them appreciate people from different backgrounds. Among volunteers, 79% said their volunteering had a positive impact on their community. For parents, 83% said their child’s confidence was boosted by All Stars and Dynamos. These are reported survey percentages, so they describe the responses measured in the report rather than an independently verified causal effect.
Access and local delivery were also quantified. In 2023, 526 recreational clubs were funded to improve accessibility and welcome. More than 30,000 players were engaged through urban hubs. More than 3,000 bursaries had helped people from underrepresented groups start coaching cricket since 2021. The ECB invested £1.2m in a network of 100 Cricket Development Officers.
The secondary school girls project involved around 20,000 participants. Ninety percent of teachers reported a positive impact on pupils’ perceptions and attitudes from that project. In the 2023 All Stars and Dynamos programmes, 26,752 girls took part.
Women’s and girls’ cricket
Women’s and girls’ participation expanded across several measures. The ECB Impact of Cricket Report 2023 recorded 717 new women’s and girls’ teams created in 2023. The report described this as 20% growth from 2022. Women’s and girls’ fixtures increased by 22% from 2022 to 2023.
The ECB’s Making Cricket a More Inclusive Sport publication reported that women’s and girls’ club teams were 75% higher in 2023 than in 2019. It also reported that female professional domestic players increased from zero in 2019 to over 80 by 2023. These comparisons use different time points and should be understood as programme and participation measures, not as a single league-table statistic.
Domestic professional capacity was reported in more detail for 2023. There were 87 full-time professional domestic women’s players, of whom 80 were ECB-funded, alongside 18 England Women central contracts. Domestic women’s cricket received an additional £3.5m injection in 2022. More than 110,000 people attended the Metro Bank Women’s Ashes in 2023.
The participation figures sit alongside the 26,752 girls recorded in All Stars and Dynamos and the approximately 20,000 participants in the secondary school girls project. Taken together, the published measures cover clubs, fixtures, professional players, school programmes, introductory programmes and event attendance, with each figure tied to its stated year or period.
Workforce representation and pay gaps
The ECB 2024 Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap Report stated that women made up 36% of ECB staff in 2024, up from 28% in 2017. Women represented 22% of the organisation’s upper quartile in 2024, compared with 24% in 2023.
Across all employees, including players, the ECB’s 2024 gender pay gap was 4.5% on the median measure and 2.7% on the mean measure. The report also separated the upper and lower quartiles. In the upper quartile, the gender pay gap was 18.7% on the median measure and 37.3% on the mean measure. In the lower quartile, it was -0.4% on the median measure and -2.7% on the mean measure.
Ethnicity pay-gap measures showed a different pattern across averages. The 2024 ethnicity pay gap was -4.1% on the mean measure, stated as being in favour of ethnically diverse employees. On the median measure, the gap was 8.6% in favour of white employees. The negative and positive signs therefore matter: they indicate the direction reported by the ECB, while the two measures summarise different points in the pay distribution.
These workforce figures are reported for 2024 unless a comparison year is specified. They should not be combined with the county-board representation figures, because the county-board statistics concern directors and the pay-gap report concerns ECB employees, including players in the all-employee measure.