Hi Dean, you may have sent this to the wrong Richard Jones (there are two in different parts of the university). My address is on here: www.salford.ac.uk/our-staff/ri...

Thanks for sharing this, Bob.

You can read the full research paper at @commsportj.bsky.social >> journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Hi Tom! One aspect of this is that the cost of the Reporters' Network is virtually a rounding error when set against the ECB's full income from Sky (a luxury most sports don't have). There's much more detail in the whole research piece, free to read here. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Thank you!

📚 There'll be much more on this and a lot else besides in my forthcoming book Sports Journalism in the UK, with @routledgebooks.bsky.social next year.

🎓 My full research article is open access and free to read at @commsportj.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🤔 Yet I argue we can’t rely on ECB-funded journalism to expose off-field issues like the Yorkshire racism scandal, and relative outsiders in podcasts and national media are better placed to provide critical, journalistic scrutiny.

🙈 To its credit, the ECB generally doesn’t interfere and even turns a blind eye to intense criticism of things like The Hundred on the broadcasts it funds.

📻 The ECB also returns some of the cash the BBC pays for international radio rights on Test Match Special, so it can be spent on county commentaries.

✍️ The media therefore relies on subsidies from governing body the ECB – its Reporters’ Network provides a journalist at every game with articles available to all media, a model other sports might look to copy.

📰 But press boxes have got emptier, and the @yorkshirepost.co.uk is the only regional newspaper left with a full-time cricket correspondent.