Packer’s remark sent a chill down the spine of cricket
The name Kerry Packer still makes many in cricket shudder. More than thirty-five years after he launched his World Series Cricket, opinion remains divided as to its effect on the game. A remark uttered by Packer encapsulated the bitterness that existed between his media organisation and cricket’s governing body; it was a bitterness that tore cricket apart but which ultimately helped the game move into the twentieth century.
After a rancorous meeting with the ICC at Lord’s to discuss broadcasting rights for his series broke up in June 1977 without agreement, Packer stormed from the famous old ground, pausing only to bellow at the waiting reporters: ‘Had I got those TV rights I was prepared to withdraw from the scene and leave the running of cricket to the board. I will take no steps now to help anyone. It’s every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’
The remark sent a chill down the spine of cricket, and for the next two years Packer caused the sport no end of hellish problems.
The genesis of what came to be called the Packer Circus began in the mid-1970s, a time when cricket in Australia was riding a wave of unprecedented financial success.
Australia’s five state cricket associations grossed AUS$1.9 million in the 1975/76 season, an increase of $400,000 on the previous season, and Australia’s six home Tests in 1975 grossed almost $1 million in gate money. Yet despite this surge in profit the players were being paid a pittance. In that same 1975 season they were earning just $400 a Test.
Players such as the fast bowling duo of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson, wicketkeeper Rod Marsh and the Chappell brothers weren’t happy; it was their talent, their charisma that brought in the crowds – and the cash – but it was the Australian Board reaping the benefit. Into this discontent swaggered Packer, at the time an Australian media entrepreneur and owner of Channel Nine. He had already revolutionised coverage of Australian golf and now he wanted to do the same for cricket, but for that to happen he had to secure the broadcasting rights then held by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). When the Australian Board refused to negotiate with him Packer was convinced he had been the victim of the old boys’ network and vowed to set up a rival international cricket brand.
To do that meant signing up the cream of world cricket to play in a series of Supertests between an Australian XI and a World XI. This proved easier than he imagined because of the anger felt by the players at what they were being paid. The first player to sign was Dennis Lillee, who put pen to paper in January 1977 in a deal worth $105,000. It was riches beyond the wildest dreams of international cricketers, and within months thirteen of the seventeen members of the Australian squad chosen to tour England that summer had signed up with Packer.
Packer’s remark sent a chill down the spine of cricket
Other international stars followed, among them West Indies captain Clive Lloyd, the dashing Pakistani all-rounder Imran Khan and England captain Tony Greig, who signed a three-year deal worth $100,000.
Packer came to London in May 1977, arriving with the hope of reaching an amicable agreement with the ICC for his World Series, but negotiations broke down, and what followed was ugly and unedifying for anyone who cared about cricket. After a series of court cases Packer was forbidden from calling either his matches Tests (so he called them Supertests) or his team Australia. The MCC also reminded Packer that they held the copyright to the Laws of the Game.
Undeterred, Packer launched his World Series Cricket on 2 December 1977 with a match between an Australian side and the West Indies at an Australian Rules ground in Victoria; at the same time in Brisbane, an official Test match got under way between Australia and India. The cricket was better in Victoria, but the crowds were bigger in Brisbane.
Packer was convinced he’d been the victim of the old boys’ network
The crucial factor for Packer was the reaction of the Australian public. Would they throw in their lot behind him or remain loyal to the official Test team, a side of young inexperienced players led by the veteran Bobby Simpson, who had been coaxed out of retirement to lead Australia through the most turbulent season in their history? The public chose to support Simpson and his boys, as did the newspapers, who gave Packer a bad press. As the series with India unfolded into a thrilling rubber, so the crowds began to dwindle at the World Series matches.
In desperation Packer switched the emphasis from Supertests to one-day matches, introducing such concepts as coloured clothing and white balls. But it was the introduction of floodlights that brought the public back to Packer. The first day-night match was staged in Sydney on 28 November 1978 between the Australian and West Indian teams. Nearly 50,000 turned out – not just diehard cricket fans but women and children and people who thought it would be fun to watch cricket under lights.
The World Series was back, and this time the Australian Board couldn’t look to their Test team for help – they were being thrashed by England in one of the most one-sided Ashes contests in history.
By now Packer, the Australian Board and ABC were feeling the financial pinch, and in May 1979 a truce was declared. Channel Nine won the rights to broadcast Test cricket, and the WSC players were welcomed back into the fold. The real winner, however, was the cricketing public.
In a short space of time Packer had revolutionised the game, and many of his innovations were quickly incorporated as one-day cricket caught on. Reflecting on the impact made by Packer in a 2012 article for the ESPN Cricinfo website, broadcaster Mark Nicholas described how the Australian ‘changed the game irrevocably’. He continued: ‘It is often overlooked that Packer loved cricket deeply, and that beneath the bluster was an unseen pastoral care for its roots and its people. He took the history of the game and revamped it for the future. His cricket was played with a shocking, gladiatorial intensity and at an immensely high standard.’
That’s Packer for you, a devil to some, a deity to others.