‘Carrot and stick’: Bold bid to expand BBL and shake up Cricket Australia

A multimillion-dollar battle is being waged behind the scenes of Australian cricket, as Cricket ACT pushes to join the six states as co-owners of Cricket Australia and enter teams into the men’s and women’s Big Bash competitions.

This masthead can reveal that Cricket ACT has made presentations to both the federal government and Cricket Australia’s board about entering BBL and WBBL teams in future editions of the tournament as well as ownership of the game in Australia.

Greg Boorer, the wealthy Canberra businessman who has chaired Cricket ACT since 2021, told a parliamentary standing committee the federal government had the option of threatening to withdraw funding from cricket if Cricket Australia and the states did not recognise the ACT and Northern Territory as full members.

CA paid nearly $112 million in distributions to the six member states in 2022-23, per their annual report.

CA’s state association owners have remained implacable in their opposition to adding the ACT or the Northern Territory to full membership for decades. The ACT is projected to have a population of more than 850,000 in future years.

“I think it’s a carrot-and-stick sort of approach,” Boorer told the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories on June 20 – a hearing conducted in Canberra while the first Ashes Test was being played at Edgbaston. “There’s a lot of goodwill across Australian cricket, but, as in any federated model, someone would need to give something up in order for someone else to gain that sort of improved position or change the status quo.

Manuka Oval is key to Canberra’s BBL bid.Credit: AAP

“That’s where I think conversations like this could be very important because it’s not unusual or unprecedented for the federal government to step in and encourage governance reform. It’s happened in football previously. A huge amount of government funding goes to Australian cricket.

“It wouldn’t take a huge stretch of imagination, and it certainly wouldn’t cost the federal government any money – just a little bit of time and effort – to appropriately encourage the board of Cricket Australia, and therefore the shareholders of Cricket Australia, to perhaps consider reform in that space.”

CA declined to comment on the bid for Canberra BBL and state teams when contacted by this masthead, but both Boorer and Cricket ACT’s chief executive Olivia Thornton were guests of the governing body during the New Year’s Test in Sydney.

“As we stand today, all it would require would be four of the six states to agree, and also four of the six states to agree for Canberra to have a first-class team or a BBL team,” Boorer told the committee.

Greg Boorer, Cricket ACT chair.Credit: Mark Nolan

“Naturally, everyone is concerned about the cost, which would mean, in their view, potentially dividing the pie, whereas I think it’s more of a question of growing the pie for everybody to participate on an equal footing.”

Boorer’s testimony to a committee that includes the likes of ACT independent senator David Pocock, as well as senators and members of the lower house from both major political parties, was concluded with a very clear message about what he was trying to achieve.

“Having a team in the national competition is number one,” Boorer said.

“It’s not just men’s BBL; it’s also women’s BBL because it’s very difficult for the elite-level females to remain in Canberra when there’s the carrot of playing first-class cricket and BBL in other states. That’s one.

“The second would be changing the governance. You might have to do one or the other – priority one or two – to make either actually happen.”

Following Boorer’s appearance, Cricket ACT answered questions on notice from Pocock that included queries about the likely effects of CA being pressured to broaden their governance via the reduction of federal funding.

The Cricket ACT submission argued, among other things, that inclusion of an extra team in the BBL, in particular, would potentially increase national revenue for the game through broadcast rights.

“Cricket Australia’s strategic plan (2022-27) is underpinned by the ultimate belief that cricket is truly a game for all, a belief that Cricket ACT also shares,” Cricket ACT stated in its response.

“In saying this, however, the current governance structure does not truly reflect this belief, in that the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory are not officially recognised in Cricket Australia’s constitution.

“If cricket is genuinely a sport for all that makes Australians proud (Cricket Australia’s vision), then Cricket Australia’s governance structure should be truly representative of the entire Australian population via representation from all eight state/territory jurisdictions.”

Similarly, the submission argued that inclusion of additional teams would provide greater opportunities for players both in Canberra and around the country, with Manuka Oval already a venue that had proved its capacity to host a number of matches via its use during recent COVID-affected BBL seasons.

“There is a perception that the introduction of a seventh male elite program would dilute the quality of the playing field/competition,” Cricket ACT wrote.

“We do not subscribe to this theory as there is enough ‘talent’ to spread across seven jurisdictions (noting that 30 per cent of the 2021-22 contracted list did not take the field).”

The ACT did have a team - the Canberra Comets - in Australia’s domestic one-day cricket competition for three seasons in the late 1990s. Former Australian Test players Merv Hughes and Mike Veletta played for the Comets in that era, and Brad Haddin got his start with the team before later becoming Australian wicketkeeper.

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