Private Eyes

The BBL and some of its franchises are up for sale.

Are you surprised?

A little bit, but then again, not really.

I've been intrigued with how it's playing out, and I defer to you.

You're all over the cricket, but...

It's so interesting, isn't it, that you've got New South Wales and Queensland, one position, and then you've got the total opposite with, you know, three other states saying, yeah, we're on board.

New South Wales and Queensland, no, we don't like it.

South Australia, somewhere in the middle, hooky, almost saying, let's test the waters.

Yeah.

So clearly, no one knows how this is going to land.

I think at its best, the upside's great.

And we heard Pat Cummins and Travis Head.

And that in itself was really interesting because they did it away from the SCG because cricket New South Wales are against it.

And so you've got this, you know, really – fascinating position potentially could be great for players more money you know great exposure better players better better competition but on the flip side you know the hundreds going through some massive issues with this and if it goes into the wrong hands ownership it could be a total disaster so i don't know it feels like to me it could go either way um we're just going along for the ride

Yeah, there's some great inconsistencies with the messaging around all of this.

So the argument that's put is, well, it's more money into the game, and so therefore we can sign some of the best players in the world.

Except we just signed Ben Stokes on an enormous contract.

And I would argue that there's not too many bigger names in world cricket right now than Ben Stokes.

And we've signed him without needing all of this extra external revenue.

Then I've heard the argument that this is all about being able to pay the players more, the best players more.

Yet Cricket Australia is absolutely adamant that they're not going to change the terms of the split of payments out of general revenue into the player payment pool, that they're adamant that that should stay at 27.5. And all of this money isn't for the players.

It's supposed to be going back into the game in general terms.

And then I hear this argument that, yeah, well, we're gunning for...

January to be a pure BBL window.

But they also then at the other side of their mouth say that test cricket's the best thing for the BBL because it gives them great eyeballs for people watching cricket, watching the test cricket before they lead into watching the BBL as well.