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Cricket Australia rebuffs rival league, sticks by ICC
Melbourne: Cricket Australia (CA) chairman Wally Edwards on Friday stressed that its players earn as much money as proposed by a rival world cricket body, whose establishment is much speculated about in media, and committed his organisation to the ICC.
As details continue to emerge of plans by the India-based Essel Group, founded and owned by billionaire businessman Subhash Chandra, to establish a new world cricket body in competition to the International Cricket Council (ICC), there have been reports of huge potential pay cheques for high-profile Australia players.
According to reports, current Test captain Michael Clarke and opener David Warner could receive offers in the vicinity of $50 million in return for signing a 10-year contract if the Essel venture is to go ahead.
Edwards indicated that as lofty as that figure appeared ($5 million per year), it was not significantly different to the current earnings of Australia’s top players, believed to be around $4 million per annum.
“We are aware of the reports around a rebel league and they remain highly speculative, particularly given the proposed scale and complexity,” Edwards said.
“Australian cricket has never been in better health. Record crowds, TV audiences, grassroot participation and commercial support continue to drive record revenue which means player payments have never been higher and will only increase.”
Edwards added that Australian cricketers are the highest-paid athletes in their country.
“As it stands, Australia’s cricketers are the highest-paid athletes of any team sport in the country and the earnings of our top-ranked players would already be close to the numbers referenced,” he said.
“But our pay structure is broader than that. It’s about supporting professional cricket at both international and domestic level. The success of international cricket directly subsidises the wages of state cricketers. Any proposed rebel league would jeopardise that.”
“Most of Australian cricket’s revenue is reinvested back into the sport, strengthening it for the 1.1 million players at grassroots level around the country,” he added.
Come what may, Edwards said they will be committed to the ICC “to protect the interests of the game globally.”
While other details of the rival entity and launch date have not been revealed, the architect of the hugely successful Indian Premier League (IPL) Lalit Modi has confirmed that he was involved in discussions about the proposal, but opted out of any direct involvement.
The IPL’s founding commissioner, who was subsequently banned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said he was involved in discussions with Essel over several months but pulled out because he did not believe the proposal was viable.
Modi had played a key role in the demise of Essel’s erstwhile Indian Cricket League (ICL), which existed between 2007 and 2009.
In an interview to The Guardian, Modi described Essel’s venture as “a foolish plan at the moment” but warned the ICC not to underestimate Chandra.
“I looked at the plan and discussed it. We had conversations for months but I usually don’t touch something I cannot deliver, and this I cannot. It’s not something you can just do and launch; it will take years and it won’t happen overnight,” Modi said.
“It is not putting a tournament together, it’s about building the sport from the grassroots up. You have to understand Subhash Chandra as a man. If you do, you will know he goes after what he wants and he does not stop.”
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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