Cricket Australia finds itself in a quandary after Queensland Cricket informed the governing body on Wednesday that, like Cricket NSW, they don’t support its private ownership model for the Big Bash League (BBL).
Three other big entities, however, agreed with Cricket Australia’s plans, and they are Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania. South Australia, on the other hand, is in support of a hybrid model with several restrictions in place. Out of six, if five entities had given their approval, CA’s private ownership model would have carried through.
CA chief executive Todd Greenberg on Thursday said, although sooner rather than later, the league will have to take that direction, right now they were trying to look at other alternatives to have a peaceful solution.
“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.
“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 told reporters.
“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.
“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,” he added.
There are legit fears for sure!
There are fears that the private ownership model will take control away from Cricket Australia, as well as its associations. Although Greenberg didn’t dismiss it, he was of the opinion that privatisation was inevitable. “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.
“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,” he said.
Greenberg also dismissed the self-funding proposal from CNSW that revolves around gambling revenue. “Our view is that that’s not a step that the sport would accept. To back itself on wagering is not a way to fund the game. That’s been very clear from the CA Board,” he said.
