New Zealand won’t join forces with BBL as state associations weigh up one of Australian cricket’s biggest ever decisions
Cricket Australia has not closed the door on expanding the Big Bash League despite New Zealand announcing its intention to go it alone on a franchise T20 league, right as Australia’s state associations weigh up a similar decision.
CA’s chief executive Todd Greenberg, fresh off meetings with his state counterparts who will have a major say in whether stakes in Big Bash teams are sold to private investors, said today that “history will be the judge” of NZ Cricket declining CA’s offer to field teams in a beefed-up Big Bash.
NZC said its Board “thoroughly debated” the merits joining forces following discussions with CA. Instead, NZ is now working towards launching its own privately-owned franchise T20 tournament, which could launch as early as January 2027, to replace the long-standing Super Smash.
“I certainly wasn’t surprised,” Greenberg told reporters in Melbourne on Monday. “We’ve had a couple of conversations (with NZC). We wanted to make sure they knew that they were welcome to join.
“There was an opportunity for them to do so, but clearly they decided to go in another direction, that’s completely on them. History will be the judge.
“I think expansion is really important because it shows ambition, it shows a level of ambition about growth. I don’t think we’ll be short of opportunities for expansion.
“It felt like New Zealand were a pretty natural fit, given our two countries and the scale and size that we can have.”
But expanding the Big Bash into Canberra, the Gold Coast or even Singapore instead now remains on the backburner as state bodies weigh up whether to give the green light to sell stakes in their T20 teams.
Under the existing licensing agreement, CA owns the BBL and WBBL teams but the states hold long-term leases on them.
Cricket Victoria chief executive Nick Cummins today labelled CA’s proposals on privatisation as a “compelling offer”.
But there is not uniform agreement on whether all six states will ultimately be in favour of privatisation, a decision Greenberg has flagged as one of the biggest decisions cricket administrators have ever made in this country.
Detailed financial projections have been provided to states. If there is approval to proceed, CA’s next move would be to have the clubs valued. Only then would a final call on whether to sell off the teams – and how much of them should be put on the table – actually be made.
The ECB last year collectively raised more than £500 million (close to A$1billion) when it sold stakes in Hundred franchises. Yorkshire and Lancashire sold 100 and 70 per cent respectively, while the other counties sold 50 or 51 per cent of their clubs.
There is consensus in Australian cricket that the Big Bash risks falling behind leagues like the Hundred, and losing its best players to big-money opportunities abroad without significant investment in the sport.
Beth Mooney’s recent purchase for almost A$400k – almost four times what the top WBBL overseas players made last season – in the first Hundred auction since its cash injection highlighted the threat is not only to top men’s players, nor is it coming only from India’s IPL and WPL.
Greenberg is bullish on the values of the Australian leagues: “Fifteen years of the Big Bash have shown enormous growth – I think we’ve got an amazing product.
“It’s highly profitable, and the decision that rests on Australian cricket is what we do next,” he said. “It’s a big decision, but I’m less worried about what everyone else is doing and I’m really worried about what we’re doing.”
The decision from NZ to pursue setting up their own franchise league leaves Australia as the last major cricket power not to have some form of private investment in its domestic leagues.
South Africa and the UAE both run men’s T20 competitions that pay more than the BBL and overlap with it, while NZ could soon offer higher salaries than before.
But there is a belief within Australian cricket that it does not need to necessarily match what those rival leagues offer; merely being in the same ballpark could be enough to lure players to a proven, well-run competition with teams in desirable locations that play at world-class venues.
“There’s no doubt that the landscape is much more competitive,” said Cummins, a former Sydney Thunder general manager during the BBL’s early years. “We had the window to ourselves, there was no (external) pressure.
“Someone like Kevin Pietersen would gladly come and play in the Big Bash. If Kevin Pietersen was playing now, he would have a range of decisions – one of them would be not to play at all (in the summer window) because he could earn enough money elsewhere.
“So we really need to be cognisant of that. I think we’ve got a lot to be proud about with the BBL. I think us and the IPL are the only T20 comps that actually make money, and we want to make sure that we stay at the front of the pack.
“When we make this decision, we’ve got to make sure that we’re thinking about the next 50 years, not just the next five, but we’ve also got to be aware of the environment that we’re working in.
“At the moment, I think we run the risk of being priced out of our own market.”
Cricket NSW’s chief executive Lee Germon has stressed the need to explore other revenue streams.
”Cricket NSW believe we owe our members, our fans, our cricket family that we can look them in the eye and say we’ve gone through every aspect of this decision,” Germon said last week.
”We believe there needs to be alternative proposals considered. We may well end up at the first proposal, which is selling all the clubs, but we need to do the due diligence. The more we have dug into this, the more complex it has become.
”The more we’ve got our heads around it, the more complicated it has become.”
It is hoped the states formalise their intentions next month.
