In 2011, the original state-based Big Bash League was replaced by the format we have today, with 8 city-based franchises. The consensus among the esteemed wise men at my cricket club was that this was a mistake. The new structure failed to utilise state-based parochialism, and instead created 8 new confected brands that nobody would care about. To make matters worse, fans in Melbourne and Sydney were to be arbitrarily divided in two, and expected to choose one of two brands on the basis of nothing in particular, except maybe the colours or the recruited players.
Fourteen years on, I don’t think we were entirely off the mark. The competition itself has no doubt been a success, and has transformed the structure of the Australian cricket summer. Yet I still don’t really have a team, and I suspect that many cricket fans my age are in the same boat. But we need to acknowledge that we are probably not the target audience. When CA develop their BBL marketing campaigns, they are not pitching them at fiftysomething test cricket watchers. They are targeting the young fans, the families, the people who aren’t necessarily rusted on to a particular sport – the sporting equivalent of swinging voters. That is where the growth is, and that is ultimately what this is all about – attracting and retaining viewers.
To the extent that T20 is a gateway drug to the much more intense and strongly addictive form of the game that is test cricket, then I wholeheartedly support this strategy. And while I might be largely ambivalent about these brands masquerading as teams, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the current form of the competition is now fourteen years old, and as such, there are people in their twenties who have a much deeper connection, who don’t really remember a time before the BBL. Their connection is based on having watched the competition in their formative years.
Cricket Australia would do well to keep this mind as they contemplate the privatisation of the code, particularly if that privatisation necessitates a rebranding of the teams themselves. Speaking to Dan Brettig in September this year, Kolkata Knight Riders CEO Venky Mysore explained that IPL investors would be seeking to rename and rebrand the teams in line with their IPL equivalents, and perhaps more troublingly, they would be seeking an exclusive window to ensure that the reconfigured BBL is not played at the same time as test matches in Australia. There might be some ambit in these claims, but it stands to reason that the more that Cricket Australia are willing to accommodate them, the higher the price they will be able to achieve.
Australian cricket fans seem largely oblivious to this matter, but should something like this eventuate it is unlikely to be well received. Test cricket fans will strongly resist any compromises to the test summer. Australia and England are unique in world cricket in that test cricket is still the biggest show in town in both nations. In addition to this, many Australian fans would see this is a hostile takeover. Those who are attached and loyal to their teams will not just happily accept them being renamed after teams in foreign cities. There is a persistent, and perhaps resurgent xenophobia in Australia, and if Pauline Hanson is furious about fragile shopping bags, she will be apoplectic about cricket teams rebranded with Indian names. Or at least she will pretend to be. Those who claim that sport and politics don’t mix are quick to blend them when it suits their agenda.
On the other hand we need to be cognisant of the changing face of Australian cricket fans. As we have seen over the last two summers, a large proportion of the people who attend cricket in Australia are from Indian backgrounds. IPL rebranding of BBL teams might bring more of this cohort to the competition – even more so if it meant that Indian contracted players were finally permitted to play in the competition.
Cricket Australia’s somewhat inexplicable financial predicament seems to have made this sale even more urgent. Like cash strapped Governments desperate to balance a budget, the lure of a quick injection of funds through privatisation of assets is hard to resist. But you can only do it once, and then it is gone forever. No matter what preconditions are put in place, the private owners will always prioritise their own profits over the intrests of the customers/citizens/fans. When Governments are seeking to make such unpopular decisions, they typically engage a private consulting firm to provide a façade of independent endorsement of their proposal. The terms of reference will tell the consultants the answers they are supposed to come back with, and sure enough, the Government gets what it pays for. Cricket Australia have followed this strategy to perfection, commissioning renowned cricket experts the Boston Consulting Group to produce a report recommending what CA have apparently already decided.
But it might not be that simple. As Jonathan Steffanoni has pointed out, “The Big Bash teams are essentially brands of the various state associations, and don’t have a legal personality like a company that could easily be used to facilitate investment… The Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades are registered as business names of the Victorian Cricket Association. The Sydney Sixers and Sydney Thunder are registered business names of the New South Wales Cricket Association. There’s no existing legal entity that could easily be sold, or issue shares to attract investment (although private companies could easily be incorporate and business names transferred to the new companies).”
This is in contrast to the recent sale of teams in The Hundred competition by the ECB. Under that model, 49% of each of the eight teams was sold by the ECB, with the money raised distributed across all of the County Clubs, many of which were in dire financial straits. The remaining 51% was left to the Counties that owned the teams, with the option of retaining it, or selling it as they saw fit. Cricket Australia will have noted the enormous sums that have been generated by these sales.
Cricket Australia must proceed with extreme caution. Rather than relying on the views of the Boston Consulting Group, they would do well to commence meaningful consultation with cricket fans. They need to explain exactly what they are contemplating, and why they are doing so. They need to explain what would be done with the money they would raise – that it wouldn’t simply be squandered, that it would be properly invested in grassroots participation, and so on. They need to protect the test summer schedule, and they need to somehow deal with the potentially divisive issue of rebranding the teams. If they do not do this, and the public are blindsided, they can expect a serious backlash.
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