Re: The reason for low crowd turnout (40 rupees for a car parking, food items sky-rocket)
Thing is that cricket boards are far behind other sports in understanding the market.
Cricket boards (at least in Pakistan, India etc) seem to have figured that the real money is in broadcast rights and not in the stadiums. So while they have successfully marketed to the tv audience (all that flashy technology) they kinda give a step-child treatment to stadium audience. This is all fine and dandy, till one day they will figure out that filled-out stadiums not only give the sportsmen their impetus to perform better, but also help TV audience appreciate the game. Watching a game on TV where stadiums are all empty makes the TV viewer look stupid in his own mind, and may be in the next series, that TV viewer will not even bother ordering the test series (this process has already started). This will bring down the broadcasting revenue, in the long term as well.
Blacking out TV in the local market till stadium is filled is another suggestion, but I really dislike it. Its like penalizing people for not showing up. However, the crux of the matter is that all the stuff that I mentioned can only work if the game itself is interesting i.e. spectator sport. The sort of test match thats going on in Lahore, will bring no one to the stadium. Its test cricket at its worst. I had hoped cricket, overall, has gone away from such insane displays of boring cricket. I guess not.