Forbes' Rankings

I found an old article on the Internet showing the revenues and profitability of cricket boards. (You need to scroll down to the Approximate Valuations slideshow.) Forbes does something similar for professional teams in the North American leagues as well as some football (soccer) teams globally. I've avoided going by value, for reasons concerning the methodology. Sums are in millions of dollars, but I expect the renewed strength of the dollar may have altered them badly.

Revenues
England & Wales CB          $138
Cricket Australia             53
Board of Control, India       45
Cricket South Africa          40
New Zealand Cricket           15
Pakistan CB                   11
Sri Lanka CB                  10
Bangladesh CB                  7

They don't give figures for West Indies or Zimbabwe, althought I found a revenue figure of $17 million for the West Indies. It's very clear that there's a large gulf between the Big Four and the rest. Sri Lanka's accomplishment, of constantly staying up there with the big boys, deserves wider acknowledgment than it gets. The biggest surprise to me was the relative poverty of the Pakistan board.

Now for the profits, again in millions:

Profits
England & Wales CB      +$17
Sri Lanka CB            +  6
Board of Control, India +  1
Bangladesh CB           +  3
Pakistan CB             -  1
New Zealand Cricket     -  4
Cricket Australia       -  8
Cricket South Africa    - 16

Again, some surprises. Who'd have thought Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa so extravagant? Look at the profitablity of Bangladesh! My West Indies' figure suggested a profit of about $4 million, but I don't believe that.

Of course, we now learn Pakistan is possibly worse off than it was in 2006. The security situation hasn't helped, and things don't look likely to get better in the short term.