It is understood CA can proceed with privatising the BBL even if some states decide to opt out of selling their individual club altogether. Part of the discussions in the meetings over the past two days have been about what it could look like if some states wish to opt out and others choose to open up for private investment, but details of how that would work are still to emerge.
Discussions over privatisation have been going for close to nine months and CA has now provided detailed proposals to the states that includes revenue projections from prospective sales and the distribution model that would follow.
States now have roughly a month to take those proposals back to their boards and make a decision on whether they wish to proceed to the next phase, which is to explore the market as to what a stake in their club might be worth to a prospective private investor, depending on how much of a percentage stake they are wishing to sell.
It is understood each of the six state associations, who run the eight BBL clubs, were comfortable with both the documentation and timeline provided by CA. There are a number of outcomes that are possible, ranging from none of the states agreeing to proceed to all of them proceeding and everything in between.
There are two states, Victoria and New South Wales, who run two BBL clubs each. Victoria has Melbourne Stars and Renegades while NSW runs Sydney Sixers and Thunder. It is understood that neither of those states are likely to decide to sell one club and not the other. They would likely be all in or opt out completely once they reach a decision. But it is possible they could sell different percentage stakes in each club.
The other element to the privatisation discussion regards the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA), which is the players’ union. They have a pay deal with CA that is locked in until 2028. A decision to privatise the BBL will mean the current MOU would need to be renegotiated. CA and the ACA have already held informal discussions, but they won’t proceed with any formal negotiations on restructuring the MOU until a decision is made by the states.
The decision to proceed with privatisation is a complex one. There are concerns about the ramifications of opting to take private investment in the same manner the ECB did with their Hundred franchises.
There are some who believe there may be other ways to raise revenue without selling stakes in Australian cricket to private investors, but all states are in agreement with CA that further investment of some kind is needed in the BBL to keep pace with other leagues around the world. NSW have been one of the major voices in pushing to explore all avenues.
“We’re at the point where we believe that there need to be alternative proposals considered,” Lee Germon, the NSW CEO said earlier this week. “We may well end up at the first proposal which is selling all the clubs, but we need to do the due diligence.
“We want to invest in BBL. We want to lift it. We want to have the best players playing it. Are there alternative ways we can do that without necessarily going straight to selling the clubs?”
New Zealand Cricket is also discussing the prospect of setting up an NZ20 league with privately owned franchises to replace the Super Smash. It is understood that CA’s timeline regarding the BBL is not being influenced in any way by what is happening across the Tasman.
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at ESPNcricinfo
