Cricket Australia must put the squeeze on star players to play in the BBL, writes Ben Horne
The players want to help, the game needs the help - so why is Cricket Australia so reluctant to take this simple step to fix the BBL?
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It’s time for Australia to put the big squeeze on the big players to play the Big Bash League.
Permanently blanking out an exclusive BBL window of no international cricket for the last three weeks in January is a massive game-changer for the beleaguered league, but on its own it is not enough.
Cricket Australia need to go one step further and write it into the contracts of centrally contracted players that, if fit, they must play some part in the BBL every summer.
Even three to six games from the Australian headline acts drafted evenly across all teams and paid out of a central pool could be enough to reignite the magic that’s been lost.
Until now, Australia’s best have been powerless to help out the BBL even if they wanted to, given the clashes of the international schedule.
Look at Steve Smith, who put his hand up for a couple of games for the Sydney Sixers, only to be farcically told by Cricket Australia to stay at home.
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But by fencing off three weeks in January, that madness can stop and Cricket Australia has finally given itself a golden opportunity to change everything.
Have as many fireworks as you like, have bails that turn blue or electric gold, have bat flips instead of coin tosses, but big time sport is about watching superstars play.
You only have to watch the difference when Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis take the field for the Melbourne Stars.
And it’s not that hard to achieve.
Cricket Australia doesn’t have to apologise for requiring players to play the BBL when it is allowing them to go overseas during the year to boost overseas leagues like the IPL and England’s Hundred.
And they won’t get much push back from the players, because by saving the Big Bash they will be saving themselves.
If the BBL flops at the next TV rights deal it is the salaries of future Australian cricketers that will take a hit.
The players want to help.
It is now or never because broadcasters are fed up and the BBL is on its last chance with only two years to run on the current TV deal.
Revamping the contract system with provisions put on availability for BBL and home white ball internationals will restore broadcasters with confidence that they will get value back on their investment and not be struck out by Australia’s high performance unit every time.
It is an inescapable reality that players need to be rested from time to time for their physical and mental wellbeing, but for the sake of the game’s future, Cricket Australia need to try and ensure as much as possible that this happens off Broadway when the team is overseas and not in the home summers.
Pursuing overseas names to be the BBL’s headline stars doesn’t really work because there’s not many Kevin Pietersens or Chris Gayles out there who are going to come over as household names.
It is the stars of our own Australian cricket team that people identify with and want to watch. And it’s a quick fix.
CRICKET AUSTRALIA’S DESPERATE PLAN TO RESCUE BIG BASH
Cricket Australia is set to permanently jettison white-ball internationals out of January in a desperate attempt to save the dying Big Bash League.
But the long-term rescue plan, which will guarantee the unprecedented availability of Australian stars for a large chunk of the tournament, can’t kick in until 2024 – leaving CA in a perilous position heading into a BBL season broadcasters are telling them will make-or-break the next TV rights deal.
As it stands, CA is powerless to change three ODIs against South Africa scheduled for the middle of January next summer, as well as an Australian Test team likely leaving for India before the BBL finals.
It is a scheduling double blow which once again decimates the star power of the competition in a summer where the heat is on like never before to deliver with only two summers to run on the current $1.8 billion TV deal with Channel 7 and Fox Sports.
As revealed by News Corp last month, the BBL has lost on average 450,000 viewers per game since 2016 and has been in decline for six consecutive years on Channels 10, 7 and Fox Sports.
“They’ve basically got this summer to sort it out otherwise it’s not going to be worth what it was worth. It’s just not,” one industry source said.
But CA executives are listening to the damning feedback and in Dubai last week held crucial talks with the International Cricket Council about permanently fencing off the last three weeks in January following the Sydney New Year’s Test to make it an exclusive BBL window.
It’s a potentially watershed moment for the Big Bash, because it will guarantee all Australian Test and white-ball superstars would be available every summer for a significant stretch of games, including finals – something which has never happened in the history of the competition.
But the billion dollar question is will it be too late to save cricket’s next TV rights deal from disaster?
Even if they stick with Test cricket, Channel 7 has no interest in bidding again for the BBL, and there is no sign Channels 10 or 9 would be interested in weighing in.
It’s estimated the BBL represents up to $80 million of the $186 million Channel 7 and Fox Sports are paying each year for the cricket rights – but that figure is in grave danger of shrinking dramatically and closer to the $20 million a year Channel 10 had it for in the previous TV deal.
Both Seven and Fox have told Cricket Australia executives in no uncertain terms that this coming summer is do-or-die for the BBL before negotiations for the next deal commence.
The networks want less gimmicks and more genuine star power and would be happy with fewer games if it meant better quality.
Cricket Australia have responded by nutting out an arrangement with the ICC to ensure that from 2024 when the next Future Tours cycle starts, white ball internationals in Australia are played either at the start of the summer in October and November, or in February … but never in January.
It should guarantee all Australian players are free to play in the last three weeks of the tournament.
Sources expect CA to make it a contractual obligation for all centrally contracted players that they must play some part in the BBL.
“They should be allowed to play and quite frankly, made to play,” said an industry source.
It would be a potentially game-changing breakthrough for the Big Bash League, given never before in its history has it had access to Australian international stars outside of small, random pockets.
But the tricky thing for Cricket Australia will be convincing broadcasters to take a leap of faith that the Big Bash is ready to turn a corner from 2024 under the proposed scheduling revamp, even though over the course of this six year TV deal the product has been in steady decline.
Broadcasters feel the BBL is in no man’s land.
It’s no longer the attractive entertainment product it first set out to be, and nor is it a functional development or feeder system for producing talent.
Ben McDermott, far and away the best player in the most recent BBL failed to get a bid at the Indian Premier League auction, and at last year’s World Cup not a single breakout BBL star was able to get anywhere near cracking the Australian XI.
Tim David was the pick of the Aussies at this year’s IPL auction, yet he got his million dollars largely courtesy of his work in the Pakistan Super League – now considered a superior competition to the BBL.
The farcical decision to block Steve Smith from making cameo appearances in the last BBL spotlighted how lost the competition has become.
News Corp understands Cricket Australia is highly unlikely to reduce the current 14-game home and away season, but are looking at crunching it all into six weeks to start just before Christmas and finish at the end of January.
Administrators are set to try and finally introduce an overseas player draft which has been delayed by Covid – and while big name internationals are important, both networks agree there is no substitute for having Australian stars headline the tournament.
There is no other T20 competition in the world that is competing against itself like the BBL, with the successful leagues in India, Pakistan and England all given a window uninterrupted by their international teams.
But Cricket Australia’s breakthrough talks with the ICC in Dubai has provided some long-awaited light at the end of the tunnel.
If all 11 Test players and 11 specialist white-ball internationals are playing BBL at the same time and spread evenly across the teams – there is suddenly genuine star power to lift the profile of every game and improve the languishing standards of play.
Another idea that’s been floated is whether the BBL schedule could move more to a football code model where games are played on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays to create a more concentrated big hit for ratings and crowds – but it’s unclear how effective that would be when it’s school holiday period anyway.
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