Perth Scorchers gamers have a good time their win after the Massive Bash League T20 last between Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers on the Optus Stadium in Perth, Australia, on January 25, 2026. (AFP)
SYDNEY: As Twenty20 cricket competitions explode around the globe, Australia’s Massive Bash League is struggling to chart a imaginative and prescient for the long run, after plans to privatise its franchises stalled.
Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg is adamant that outdoors funding is important to shore up the sport’s monetary future and preserve tempo with a growth in different well-funded leagues performed in an analogous time slot.
They embrace the UAE’s ILT20, South Africa’s SA20, and New Zealand’s privately-backed NZ20 scheduled to start out in December 2027, all bidding for the perfect native and abroad gamers.
“If those salary caps (of other leagues) are significantly higher than ours over the coming years, and players can earn more in those areas, then players will follow those. That’s a real risk to us,” Greenberg instructed native media.
“I want to make sure that for Australian cricket, our ambition is to have a league that runs at the key part of the year for us, which is the December-January window, and it’s the best T20 league in the world at that moment in time.
“To do this, we now have to have a big amount of cash in our wage caps to draw not solely the perfect gamers from abroad, however to retain and appeal to our personal greatest gamers.”
He added: “The idea of bringing non-public capital to cricket is inevitable in some unspecified time in the future.”
While not a direct competitor as it runs in a different window, the benchmark Indian Premier League has seen massive success thanks to wealthy benefactors, with England’s The Hundred also on a roll after an influx of private capital.
But it is a thorny issue in Australia with an initial proposal to sell stakes in each of BBL’s eight teams stalling last month amid concerns about a loss of control for the game’s local custodians.
While the Victorian, Western Australian and Tasmanian cricket associations voiced support and South Australia said it was open to the idea, New South Wales and Queensland rejected the move.
Queensland Cricket, which controls the Brisbane Heat, said it was worried about player payments skyrocketing to unsustainable levels, and that private owners may not be as invested in the grassroots game.
Cricket NSW, which operates the Sydney Sixers and Sydney Thunder, was similarly concerned that it could be detrimental to how the sport is governed and how local players are produced.
‘Sugar hit’
There are also fears about an Indian takeover, with the most likely buyers seen as the rich IPL team owners who have invested in other short-form competitions around the globe.
Former Australian captain Greg Chappell is in the “No” camp, arguing that the BBL belongs to the states and communities that have built it into a successful and well-attended product.
While acknowledging the commercial realities, he said selling it off was not the answer.
“The second you introduce non-public possession at scale, you introduce a set of priorities that will not all the time align with the long-term well being of the sport,” he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Non-public buyers, nonetheless well-intentioned, reply to shareholders, to not Australian cricket.”
Andrew Jones, a former head of strategy at Cricket Australia who was instrumental in the launch of the BBL, is similarly unconvinced.
Despite scepticism, Greenberg remains confident and is now eyeing a hybrid ownership model.
This would allow the BBL franchises keen to sell stakes to do so while allowing those against to maintain complete ownership.
“If we find yourself not going collectively on the similar time, can we nonetheless extract the identical stage of income, and might we extract the identical stage of worth?” he said.
“I feel we will, however I’ve acquired to do the work to fulfill a suggestion that might finally go to the members and our board.”
