Cricket’s commercial transformation did not begin with franchise leagues. It began with the realisation, in the late 1990s, that a broadcast right is not a fee — it is an asset with a maturity date.
What changed
Boards that treated rights as annual income built budgets that collapsed the moment a cycle ended badly. Boards that treated them as capital built reserves.
The distinction sounds academic. It is the difference between a board that can absorb a lost tour and one that cannot.