County Cricket vs The Hundred: Has the new format strengthened or weakened traditional county structures?
When the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) launched The Hundred in 2021, it promised a revolution.
Branded as a fast-paced, city-based competition with simplified rules and a family-friendly broadcast package, it was marketed as cricket’s gateway to new audiences.
Four years on, the debate over its impact on county cricket remains intense.
Has The Hundred invigorated the domestic game, or has it undermined the very county structures that built English cricket over 150 years?
The truth, as always, sits somewhere in the middle: there have been undeniable successes, but also structural costs that county cricket cannot ignore.
Here, Sports News Blitz writer Ben Phillips analyses the positives and negatives of The Hundred on county cricket, and discusses whether they can continue to coexist.
A new audience, but not necessarily a new fanbase
From the ECB’s perspective, The Hundred has been a clear win in terms of visibility.
Prime-time slots on free-to-air television have placed cricket back in the national conversation in a way the T20 Blast never managed after 2005.
Games regularly attract crowds of over 20,000 at Test venues, while women’s matches played on the same stage as the men have seen a surge in attendance and media coverage.
The competition has also brought in new demographics.
Surveys suggest that families, children, and a more diverse urban audience have engaged with The Hundred, fulfilling its mission to broaden cricket’s reach beyond the traditional county faithful.
But here’s the caveat: while The Hundred has created event-goers, it has not yet created loyal supporters.
Attendance figures are high, but evidence suggests most fans are coming for the spectacle rather than forging long-term allegiances with teams that lack the deep-rooted identity of county clubs.
Unlike Yorkshire or Somerset, the Oval Invincibles or Manchester Originals do not yet carry generational loyalty.
The calendar clash
One of the most pressing criticisms is how The Hundred has disrupted the domestic calendar.
August, once the prime month for county cricket, has effectively been commandeered.
The County Championship disappears for several weeks, while the Royal London One-Day Cup is relegated to a second-tier competition without its England stars.
For county traditionalists, this is an existential problem.
Members who pay hundreds of pounds for season tickets feel short-changed when their counties are forced to field weakened sides.
The 50-over tournament, once a proud breeding ground for international players, is now played largely by fringe and academy cricketers.
While that does give youngsters exposure, it has hollowed out the competitive quality of the format.
Counties like Somerset, Glamorgan and Leicestershire argue that their core fanbase, those who attend Championship matches in April and September, are not being catered to during the peak summer months.
The Hundred may attract casual fans, but it risks alienating the traditional backbone of English cricket.
Financial lifeline or financial stranglehold?
Financially, the picture is complex.
On the one hand, The Hundred has brought in significant central revenue.
Counties, whether directly involved in hosting teams or not, receive distributions from the ECB that have helped stabilise balance sheets in the wake of COVID-19.
Smaller clubs, in particular, have been kept afloat by money generated through the competition.
On the other hand, some counties resent their reliance on a product they did not ask for.
The T20 Blast remains a strong commercial vehicle in its own right, generating ticket sales and local sponsorship that counties can directly control.
By contrast, revenue from The Hundred is centralised, and counties have limited agency.
There is also a long-term concern: what happens if The Hundred plateaus in popularity or if TV broadcasters lose interest? Counties that have restructured their budgets around ECB payments could be left exposed.
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The women’s game: The major positive
If there is one area where The Hundred’s impact has been unequivocally positive, it is women’s cricket.
Before 2021, women’s domestic cricket in England was underfunded, under-publicised, and fragmented. The Hundred changed that overnight.
By aligning men’s and women’s fixtures at the same venues, giving them equal branding, and placing them on prime-time television, the women’s game has received unprecedented exposure.
Players like Alice Capsey, Lauren Bell and Issy Wong have become household names in a way that would have been unthinkable in the county-only structure.
Counties may lament the disruption, but few argue against the enormous step forward for women’s cricket.
In this sense, The Hundred has modernised the sport in a way county structures simply weren’t capable of achieving at the same speed.
Player development: A double-edged sword
The Hundred has raised standards in short-form cricket. English players now rub shoulders with global stars like Rashid Khan, Trent Boult and Steve Smith.
Younger cricketers benefit from the exposure to world-class competition and high-pressure environments.
Yet, there is a growing concern that this short-format focus is leaving red-ball cricket behind.
County coaches argue that the marginalisation of the Championship during high summer is eroding the development of players capable of thriving in Test cricket.
England’s own “red-ball reset” after the 2021/22 Ashes disaster brought this into sharp relief.
While Bazball has reinvigorated the Test side, questions remain about the county system’s ability to consistently produce Test-ready openers and spinners.
The Hundred has only sharpened the perception that England’s domestic game is skewed towards white-ball cricket.
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Identity crisis for counties
One of the more intangible effects of The Hundred has been the identity crisis it has created for counties.
Supporters of the new format argue that counties still have their space: the Championship appeals to traditionalists, the Blast draws regional pride, and The Hundred reaches new audiences. In theory, this is a complementary ecosystem.
In practice, counties feel sidelined. Eight city-based franchises dominate the conversation each August, while 18 historic counties are left to compete for attention with a diluted 50-over competition.
For members at non-Test ground counties, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, and Durham, for example, the message feels clear: their clubs are secondary to the ECB’s priorities.
This has created political tension between the ECB and the counties, with repeated calls for a more balanced calendar and greater autonomy for the domestic game.
So, strengthened or weakened?
The Hundred has undoubtedly strengthened certain aspects of English cricket. The women’s game has been transformed, new audiences have engaged, and financially, the competition has provided stability at a critical moment.
But these gains come at a cost.
County cricket has been structurally weakened by the displacement of its competitions, the dilution of its scheduling, and the perception that it is now a supporting act rather than the main event.
The traditional heartbeat of English cricket, the county circuit, has been relegated in the hierarchy.
For now, the question is one of coexistence.
Can the ECB find a way to balance the event-driven, broadcast-friendly Hundred with the heritage and development value of county cricket? Or will the two continue to exist in tension, one flourishing at the expense of the other?
Without strong counties, the England Test team will suffer.
Without The Hundred, the sport risks irrelevance with younger generations.
The challenge is not whether one format can survive, but whether English cricket has the imagination to make both thrive.
