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PurposeThe purpose of this study is to critically examine the financial health and performance of the English and Australian cricket networks. This includes the county cricket clubs (CCC) and state and territory cricket associations (STCA) affiliated to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket Australia (CA) respectively, as well as the ECB and CA themselves. The authors apply resource dependency theory to understand if there are any financial dependencies within the networks of cricket in England and Australia.Design/methodology/approachThe data for this research was obtained from the financial statements of the ECB, the 18 affiliated CCCs, CA and the six affiliated STCAs. This sample covers the last 5 years of financial information (2014–2019) for all the organisations at the time of writing. Ratio analysis was conducted on all organisations within the sample to assess financial health and performance.FindingsBoth CCCs and STCAs show signs of poor financial health. There is a clear dependence on the financial support they receive from the ECB and CA respectively and this dependence appears more prominent in Australia. The ECB and CA have better financial health which ultimately allows them to financially support the CCCs and STCAs.Originality/valueThe ECB and CA are facing difficult financial decisions to remain financially secure themselves due to the impact of COVID-19 but also to support their affiliated clubs. The affiliated clubs do not generate sufficient revenues and must diversity their revenue streams if they are to become financially self-sustaining. This financial structure and distribution mechanism will be vital in safeguarding the future of some of England's and Australia's most important cricket organisations.
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[...]in Oregon and Florida, consumers can purchase CBD in their coffee.2 Following declassification of hemp as a Schedule I drug, a recent Gallup poll found that one in seven Americans use hemp-derived CBD products (although CBD derived from marijuana is still illegal under federal law and will not be addressed here). "3 CBD products are available at a variety of mainstream retailers including CVS, Walgreens, GNC, Kroger, Ulta Beauty, Abercrombie & Fitch, and American Eagle Outfitters.4 Industry research firms estimate that by 2024, CBD sales will exceed twenty billion dollars in the United States.5 Another study projects a twenty-five percent compound annual growth rate in the CBD edible market between 2020 and 2027.6 Many consumers rely on CBD to treat anxiety, pain, and insomnia.7 Other common usages include over-the-counter treatment for depression, muscle contractions, skin conditions, and digestive concerns.8 A third of pet owners have purchased CBD-infused treats, food, or other items for their cats and dogs, and purchases of CBD pet products are rapidly increasing as pet owners begin to return to the office following the nationwide lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.9 Considering this clear market demand and the likelihood that states will continue to ease restrictions on sale of CBD and other hemp-derived related products, franchisors may find entering the CBD market an irresistible opportunity-either through creating a new franchised system that primarily sells CBD products or by adding them as a new or additional product line in an existing system. [...]Section IV addresses many of the unique challenges associated with franchises selling CBD and proposes best practices for both franchisors and franchisees. "25 Guy believed a cannabis product with low levels of THC but high levels of CBD would be appealing for these users.26 By the late 1990s, several Northern California cannabis growers were cultivating high CBD/low THC strains and distributing both the seeds and their research about its effects at marijuana shops and fairs on the West Coast.27 In 2010, a group of medical marijuana researchers and cannabis growers founded Project CBD, a nonprofit corporation with the goal of collecting and promoting medical research regarding the benefits of CBD.28 In August 2013, CNN aired Dr. Sanjay Gupta's documentary Weed, which contained a segment describing the successful use of a CBD oil developed by the Stanley Brothers, called "Charlotte's Web," to reduce seizures in fiveyear old Charlotte Figi.29 After the segment, the wait list for the oil grew to 15,000 people, families moved to Colorado with the hope of using the oil, and the Food and Drug Administration fast-tracked trials of GW Pharmaceutical's CBD-based medication, Epidiolex.30 Popular culture acceptance and demand for CBD has continued to increase in the last decade.
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Purpose>This paper analyses the effectiveness of UEFA's Financial Fair Play (FFP) under the break-even requirement.Design/methodology/approach>Data was collected from English and French football clubs competing in the English Premier League (EPL) and in Ligue 1 (L1) for the financial years 2008–2018. Our sample includes 395 club-year observations. Relevant statistical tests have been conducted with the aim of analysing the effects of pre (2008–2012) and post (2012–2018) FFP enforcement under both profitability and cost-efficiency assumptions.Findings>In the EPL, an increase is observed in clubs' profitability through both operating and break-even results. In L1, this improvement is only significant for break-even results of clubs not participating regularly in European competitions (non Euro-oriented clubs). Player expenditures, measured through two wage-to-revenue ratios excluding trading activity for one and including it for the other, have significantly decreased in the EPL except for the Euro-oriented clubs for this latter. Conversely, in L1, this decrease is only significant in both wage-to-revenue ratios for non Euro-oriented clubs and for the whole sample when trading is included.Practical implications>In addition to evidencing contrasting results in FFP effectiveness across countries, our results suggest it is not the sole cause of such an improvement in clubs' finances. We suggest that UEFA should pursue its efforts to scrutinise the level of clubs' player expenditures and that there is a need for a wider look at the FFP regulations.Originality/value>This article provides further contribution to empirical studies on FFP effectiveness that have often been focused on a single country.
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By mid-February 2021, the outlook for the franchise sector had improved greatly, with IFA predicting that the number of franchised businesses would grow by the end of the year to offset 2020 losses and the number of franchise jobs would grow more than 10%, almost recovering fully from the 11.2% decline in 2020 employment, provided that COVID19 was managed.2 In July 2021, a fourth wave of COVID-19 swept through the United States fueled by the more transmissible Delta variant.3 The new surge in cases led businesses to delay their plans to require employees to return to the office starting in September 2021, creating concern that the economic recovery could be negatively impacted.4 At the time of this article's publication, the Omicron variant has just been discovered, with conflicting reports about its transmissibility and severity.5 When the influence of the pandemic recedes from the economy, the abatement may not benefit all sectors. [...]franchisors may become more aggressive about pursuing claims against franchisees for potential violations to try to enforce quality controls and preserve goodwill if the franchisees have fallen behind in compliance with brand standards due to the economic stresses of the pandemic, in which case the franchisors will seek to recover their lost future royalty streams to compensate for the loss of revenue until they can install a new franchisee to service the terminated franchisee's service area. [...]it is likely that the pandemic's long-term impact will cause an overall increase in franchisor-franchisee disputes and litigation. [...]for some claims, the onset of the pandemic might serve as a functional barrier on lost profit damages available to a plaintiff in a franchise dispute. "11 Thus, for a plaintiff to establish that it is entitled to an award of lost profits, it must prove not only that the underlying breach was both the "but-for" cause of its lost profits, but also that the conduct was a "substantial factor in bringing about the harm" and that the lost profits were caused by the breach and not some other factor.12 Moreover, if a plaintiff cannot prove that its lost profits were attributable specifically to the underlying breach where there are other potential causes of their loss, that lost profits claim should be rejected.13 B. Proving the Amount of Lost Profits Given that an award of lost profits necessarily requires an evaluation of potential events that ultimately did not come to pass, courts must weed out claims for damages that are too remote or speculative.14 Claims for lost profits are subjected to a heightened burden and must be proven with "reasonable certainty," or they will be deemed "too speculative" and will be rejected.15 Unfortunately, this "reasonable certainty" standard is not well defined, and courts have observed the difficulty in determining the precise quantum of proof needed to meet this standard.16 When making this evaluation, courts seek to balance the possibility of awarding a windfall to a wrongdoer by applying too high a bar to the recovery of lost profits, but also prevent that wrongdoer from becoming an unwitting guarantor of profits for plaintiffs.17 To carry its burden, a plaintiff must present evidence that is sufficiently persuasive not only to prove that it should be granted relief on its underlying claim, but also to prove that it meets this heightened "reasonable certainty" standard required for an award of lost profits and do so without the benefit of bright-line rules about what that standard requires or how it will be applied.
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Cooperation between government and social capital is an important starting point in the supply-side reform of public services. It is also an effective practice in public governance innovation. Based on policy diffusion theory and event history analysis (EHA), this study analyzes panel data from 282 mainland prefecture-level cities in China from 2004–2020 to explore public–private partnerships’ critical diffusion factors. The study reveals that motivation factors, resource/obstacle factors, and external factors affect government and social capital cooperation policies to different extents. The main driving forces for local governments to adopt these policies are population size, level of economic development, government financial resources, the learning mechanism, and the imitation mechanism. This study proposes the following arguments: firstly, that the ultimate goal of policy innovation is to solve social contradictions and meet public demand;secondly, that economic resources can help to adopt policy innovation and proper diffusion;thirdly, that the public–private partnership (PPP) model has been continuously developed by using experience from other projects or cities through a learning mechanism;and finally, that policy publicity and public opinion expressed via the mainstream media are not only an inducement for policy innovation and diffusion, but also a powerful guarantee. The experience of local governments in China can help to verify whether the “positive factors” that are traditionally considered to be conducive to the cooperation between the government and social capital are effective, and to reveal the internal logic of the innovation diffusion of public policies of local governments in China from a more multidimensional perspective.