Cricket SA reports R440 million loss but remains confident on 2027 World Cup hosting

Cricket SA reported a R440 million loss for the 2025/26 financial year at the conclusion of its Annual General Meeting held in Johannesburg on September 27, 2026.

Despite the significant financial shortfall, the board expressed strong confidence in the country's ability to host the 2027 Cricket World Cup, which is scheduled to run from October 4 to November 21, 2027, across South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

"I'm very comfortable where we find ourselves. People have asked a lot of questions about World Cup 2027, and we have deliberately created a separate company to ensure independence of the process and to make sure that all those things — and does it not complicate the whole CSA structure. So they're operating quite well. We are very confident that the World Cup in 2027 will be a big success," CSA President Rihan Richards said, as quoted by IOL.

What is Cricket SA's current state of World Cup readiness?

South Africa is contributing eight of the 12 host cities for the 2027 Cricket World Cup, with Zimbabwe and Namibia providing the remaining venues. More than R300 million has already been committed to stadium upgrades in preparation for the tournament. The separate company established by Cricket SA to manage the hosting process is designed to operate independently, ensuring that World Cup logistics do not interfere with the broader organisational structure of the board.

The Proteas men's team played only three home T20 Internationals during the 2025/26 season, a thin schedule that was a contributing factor to the financial loss recorded at the AGM.

How is Cricket SA planning to address its revenue challenges?

Chief Executive Pholetsi Moseki acknowledged that changes in the broadcast landscape have significantly reduced the income generated from home tours.

"The two tours that we're hosting this year, of the so-called two of the big three, Australia and England — in the past, those tours would have generated so much money for us as an organisation that it would have been a very, very profitable year. But with the changes that have happened over the last few years, unfortunately, despite hosting both England and Australia in one year, unfortunately, the amount of money that we're going to be making is not necessarily where it was a number of years ago. And it's a combination of a lot of factors, but the broadcast side has been probably the major, major impact on that. So again, that obviously has necessitated us to see how else to actually diversify revenue, and it's something that we're taking very seriously," Moseki said, as quoted by IOL.

Moseki outlined the broader strategy for financial sustainability, noting their harder push for sponsorship revenue, while also mentioning the good relationship they have with India.

"I think we are fortunate that we do have a very good relationship with India and we constantly work hard to maintain that. But having said that, it's important that we are really, really focused on diversification of revenue as well. Hence, the last few years, we've seen that we've basically been going hard at getting more sponsorship. Sponsorship revenue is quite important as part of that diversification journey. But also creating new revenue models is something that we're really, really focused on," Moseki added.