No consensus among states after Queensland Cricket sided with Cricket NSW in opposing the current plan
Cricket Australia will reassess plans to immediately explore selling equity stakes in the Big Bash League clubs to private investment following Queensland Cricket’s decision to reject the current proposals.
QC yesterday informed CA it does not support the current plans, joining Cricket NSW in rejecting the private ownership model presented by CA.
South Australia remains in favour of a “hybrid” model with heavy caveats on investment, while Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania are firmly in favour of allowing private investment.
That left the governing body without the consensus it wanted to proceed now with testing the market and securing valuations for the interested franchises. Five of six states agreeing to the proposals would have seen CA immediately move forward with its plans.
CA chief executive Todd Greenberg today said he believed some form of private investment into Australian cricket was “inevitable” but the governing body would now look at alternatives to try and reach a consensus among States.
“There may be a world where some want to do this and some don’t, or some want to do it now and some want to do it in another time frame,” Greenberg told reporters today.
“Option A for us has always been that we do it at the same time to extract the maximum value in the market.
“But clearly we’re not at that point. So we now have to reassess what comes next.”
Greenberg added those next steps could include a closer analysis of a potential mixed-investment model.
“We would have to get some deep analysis to understand the impacts on Australian cricket, because if you get back to the very objective that we started with, to do this it needs to benefit the entire sport,” Greenberg said.
“We have to look at that lens in the decisions that we make. And we’ve now got some analysis to do if that’s the case or not.”
While CNSW proposed an alternative self-funding model backed largely by increasing the sport’s share of gambling revenue, Greenberg said that was not a viable option.
“Our view is that that’s not a step that the sport would accept,” he said. “To back itself on wagering is not a not a way to fund the game. That’s been very clear from the CA Board.”
But CA will not walk away from attempting to find an acceptable model to welcome private investment into the Big Bash, the only major domestic T20 tournament that does not have private investment.
“I do think at some point in our lifetimes the private capital will come in. I think if we’re going to compete with the rest of the world, it is inevitable,” Greenberg said.
“Our whole project has been about balancing the risks that come with that and making sure the controls are in place for Australian cricket to be able to bring private capital in but continue to operate the way the game has been governed and should be governed, and what we keep sacrosanct.”
