Explained: How Pakistan Cricket Board is set to recover only a fraction of its expenses for ICC Champions Trophy

It’s been a week since the the ninth edition of the ICC Champions Trophy concluded with India pulling off a four-wicket victory over New Zealand in the final in Dubai and winning their second ICC event in as many years. The Rohit Sharma-led Men in Blue were among the title contenders despite the absence of star bowler Jasprit Bumrah, and ended up living up to their favourites’ billing.

The 2025 Champions Trophy also marked the first global event taking place in Pakistan since the 1996 ICC World Cup. And despite the BCCI refusing to send the Indian team due to security concerns, the matches in Pakistan largely went off without a hitch. Other than a couple of washouts and the Afghanistan-Australia game ending in a No Result of course.

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The tournament certainly will have boosted Pakistan’s image as a cricket host; the country had become a no-go zone for six years after the Sri Lankan cricket team bus was attacked in Lahore in 2009, and it took years of coaxing for teams such as Australia and England to finally pay a visit.

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Was the 2025 Champions Trophy a financial success for the Pakistan Cricket Board though? That might be a difficult question for chairman Mohsin Naqvi to answer.

PCB receive 1.68 billion PKR in hosting rights

The board had spent a fortune in renovating its three venues for the tournament – Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium, Karachi’s National Stadium and the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. And though the board faced its fair share of criticism for construction delays, failing to get the venues ready by the original deadline of 31 December, it did hand them over to the ICC in the nick of time before the tournament opener between Pakistan and New Zealand on 19 February.

When it came to the total expenses, a majority of which were spent on the Gaddafi and National Stadiums, the total bill was estimated to be 14 billion PKR – well above PCB’s original budget for the tournament, with the board taking an overdraft of 3 to 6 billion PKR for the current fiscal year last month.

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According to Pakistani newspaper The Daily Jang, the board will recover a fraction of that cost – $6 million, or 1.68 billion PKR – in hosting rights for the Champions Trophy. It will also receive gate money for the 10 matches that were held in Pakistan across the three venues, as well as a portion of the gate revenue for India’s matches that were held at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

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The exact details of the gate revenue from the three Pakistani venues and from the Dubai Stadium are yet to be disclosed as of now. However, it is unlikely that the PCB will be able to fully recover their expenses for the tournament.

So while the tournament did help boost the PCB’s chances of hosting more multi-nation events in the future, it will certainly be forced to undergo cost-cutting measures in order to fill its coffers back to its pre-Champions Trophy levels.