There is an irony in Cricket Australia planning the 150th Anniversary Test at the MCG for March 2027, while a parallel plan to privatise the BBL in the same year has become increasingly chaotic. Fifty years ago the game celebrated the history and tradition of Test cricket at the 1977 Centenary Test, though there is selective memory about the pageantry of it, given that private money was also about to disrupt mainstream cricket, albeit in a different way.
During that game, Kerry Packer, as the private-money investor, had an employee walk into the Australian dressing room to distribute “theatre tickets” to the likes of Greg Chappell, Rod Marsh and Dennis Lillee, which were actually a disguise for sign-on bonuses for the rebel World Series Cricket. It would shake the foundations of Australian and global cricket months later, leaving it completely fractured for two years and irreversibly changed thereafter.
The roles have changed in 2026. It is CA now trying to court private investment to bring large amounts of money into Australian cricket and change its course significantly. It is New South Wales holding the line trying to keep private investment out, while Queensland and South Australia are keen to explore options beyond the initial CA privatisation proposal.
But ultimately the goal is still the same as Packer’s in 1977. CA is trying to pay its players to play in their T20 league while also attempting to grow its own coffers and protect its future.
It is a goal that not a lot of people understand and that seems to have got lost among some poor messaging from both sides of the argument. There has been plenty of fear-mongering about the long-term cost of privatising the BBL and of not doing so, but there has been scant detail on what is being sold and why. And there has been equally scant detail on the alternative proposal from NSW, beyond the suggestion that CA needs to better optimise current revenue streams.
The Australian cricketing public wants detail. They are not a public that does blind faith. Eight years since Sandpapergate there is still frustration about the lack of detail on how that unfolded.
“Australia’s white-ball players vented collectively when the inaugural BBL overseas draft took place in 2022 and they saw overseas players pocket up to six figures more than they were earning to play a single BBL season, even when they were the defending T20 world champions”
There is a view that Australian cricketers are already paid extremely well and the need to pay them more is understandably met with heavy skepticism both within cricket circles in Australia and outside. But framing their pay relative to the average punter in the cost-of-living crisis Australia is facing is not the debate here.
The BBL pays its top players, both local and overseas, well below the rate of the global franchise market, even before you consider Australia’s high tax rate. CA CEO Todd Greenberg, a key driver of the privatisation campaign, is acutely aware of this having been CEO of the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) prior to his current role.
The worry is not that the BBL pays far less than the IPL. That will always be the case. CA is fortunate in many ways that the IPL, which is by most metrics the second biggest sports league in the world, pays its players only about 18% of total revenue, compared to the NFL paying 48% and the EPL paying north of 70%. CA only pays its players 27.5% of its revenue. Australia’s two major football codes, the NRL and the AFL, pay roughly 40% and 31% respectively.
The concern is that the gulf between the BBL and its summer competitors – the SA20, the ILT20, and possibly, the soon to be developed NZ20 – will become so large that Australia’s players, their top international talent, best domestic campaigners and future stars, might easily be courted by those competitors.
When Dewald Brevis and Aiden Markram were bought for R16.5 million (A$1.3 million or US$940,000 approximately) at the SA20 auction last year, three to four times more than the top Australian contracts in the BBL, Australian domestic players took screenshots of the figures and sent them to BBL list managers. Part of the reason for those salaries was auction dynamics, and the bottom-end SA20 players earn far less than the bottom-end BBL players. Each SA20 team also has a “wild-card player”, whose earnings sit outside the salary cap. But even with those caveats, the salaries on offer still caught the attention of Australia’s best.
There was already anger amongst Australia’s best players about the BBL’s decision to initially pay overseas players A$340,000 (about US$233,853) via a draft to try and attract better foreign talent, a number that has since grown to A$420,000 (US$303,000). Australia’s white-ball players were on tour together when the inaugural BBL overseas draft took place in 2022, and vented collectively as they saw overseas players pocket up to six figures more than they were earning to play a single BBL season, even when they were the defending T20 world champions. The top Australian earners at the time were only earning roughly A$200,000-250,000 (US$144,000-180,000) and though those top earners are now between A$300,000 and 400,000 (US$216,000-290,000), it is still only a few local players in that bracket.
There has been an argument that losing overseas players such as Finn Allen and Tim Seifert from the BBL, if pay scales aren’t increased, is no great loss to the competition. CA knows that homegrown players move the needle with fans far more than any overseas players ever will. Those two New Zealanders are a good example, however, just not for those reasons. Allen and Seifert have not played in New Zealand’s Super Smash since January 2024 because they have been paid more to play in the BBL. If the proposed private-franchise NZ20 provides enough money to bring them back, that is understandable. But what if they take some Australians with them?
Australian players are looking at their options and noting what they forego in earnings by playing both the BBL and for Australia. Pat Cummins, Australia’s Test and ODI captain, recently articulated player concerns around playing two Tests against Bangladesh in August this year while letting go the chance to earn upwards of A$675,000 (US$485,000) to play in the Hundred.
It seems his concerns have been heard loud and clear by CA, with the Age reporting on Thursday that he has been offered A$4 million (US$2.9 million approx) per season for three years to play for Australia, with much of that guaranteed. That money, like all CA contracts, is separate to pay for the BBL, though centrally contracted players are able to negotiate additional deals to play in the BBL (as Steven Smith and Mitchell Starc did last summer).
“The lessons of history are very clear. The players will go where the money is. The arguments are the same in terms of getting rewarded for market worth. The only thing that has changed is where the decimal point sits.”
It’s worth noting that since June 30, 2024, Cummins has played more games for Sunrisers Hyderabad (18) than he has for Australia (ten Tests and two ODIs) and more matches in the MLC (6) than white-ball internationals for his country. He has played one 50-over match for NSW and zero games in the BBL since 2019.
Cameron Green has not played in the BBL since 2020, and Travis Head hasn’t played since January 2023. Both opted to rest last season despite being available, to spend time at home ahead of what loomed as a four-month stint in India with Australia’s T20 side and then the IPL.
Those arguing against privatisation would say the BBL is doing well enough without those players. But the concern isn’t those players not playing – though that would diminish the broadcast value. The concern is those players being paid to play in another T20 franchise league overseas at the same time. And it’s not just the top talent.
Cooper Connolly has lit up the IPL this year for Punjab Kings, on a salary of roughly A$450,000 (US$325,000). He also has an MLC deal worth A$170,000 (US$123,000). Those two deals are much more than his combined domestic deals with Western Australia and Perth Scorchers; those two domestic deals are estimated to be less than his IPL deal alone. He does not currently have a CA deal.
It is not a case of Connolly crying poor for earning what he does across the year. But what if an IPL ownership group, with franchises in the IPL, the Hundred, the ILT20 – which is moving to November – and the SA20, offer a player like Connolly A$5 million (US$3.6 million) to play across all those teams year-round and forgo playing for Australia and in the BBL?
What if that same offer is put to the likes of promising fast bowlers Mahli Beardman or Callum Vidler in a year or two? What if Ollie Peake stars in his first MLC outing this season, following a break-out BBL and U19 World Cup? Grinding to average 26 on difficult Sheffield Shield pitches when he could potentially be playing global franchise cricket for five to ten times his current wage might not be a difficult choice.
Trent Boult remains one of the best T20 bowlers in the world. But New Zealanders have seen him play two matches at home since 2022, and none since February 2024, because of a year-round commitment to the Mumbai Indians franchise and its affiliates.
There has long been a suspicion that cricket is heading the way of club football around the world, where the best homegrown talent rarely plays at home.
This is why CA’s initial privatisation proposal suggested that the BBL salary cap increase dramatically. ESPNcricinfo understands CA proposed to lift the combined WBBL and BBL caps by A$2 million (US$1.4 million) per club from the current combined tally of A$3.88 million (US$2.8 million). The current BBL cap is A$3.1million (US$2.2 million) for 18 players, including overseas, while the WBBL cap is A$762,222 (US$550,000) for 15 players.
That means an extra A$16 million (A$2 million for each of the eight clubs, or US$1.4 million) needs to be found per year to allow for top-end talent in the BBL to earn closer to A$600,000-800,000 (US$433,000-578,000), and top-end WBBL talent to be paid more, ensuring the decision to play overseas for a fraction more during the December-January window is not as enticing. It is likely that a vast majority of Australian players would remain home for slightly less than what they could earn overseas, but that loyalty would be challenged if the gap in earning capacity became too large.
Under the current MoU struck between the ACA and CA, the players get 27.5% of CA’s revenue, although that is set to be renegotiated if a privatisation move is ever finalised. If that percentage does stay, hypothetically that means CA needs to generate roughly A$58 million (US$42 million) more per year in revenue to pay A$16 million (27.5%) more to the players. The idea was to grow a future fund sourced from the BBL club sales, and share future revenue from that, on top of broadcast and commercial revenue. ACA wants to raise the revenue-share percentage in the renegotiation and is believed to be prepared to do so while forgoing a lump-sum share from the sales of the BBL clubs. But the idea of a higher percentage has not been well received by CA and the disagreeing states while they debate the game’s future.
Meanwhile, there have been suggestions that Australia’s highest-profile international players are quietly pushing for their own bigger share, which could come at the cost of the lower-end domestic players, who are paid exceptionally well by global standards. CA’s decision to hand out only 21 men’s contracts for 2026-27, when the MOU allows for up to 24, is an example of creative accounting to pay their best players more from a fixed pool. But there is a view within the ACA that stalling domestic pay could push young players to choose franchise cricket sooner over staying in the system longer and remaining committed to striving to play Test cricket for Australia.
Either way, with a TV deal locked in until 2031, how CA can generate that kind of money without an influx of private capital is hard to fathom, despite NSW suggesting it could optimise revenue better through “line items, including broadcast, ticketing and commercial partnerships” and “receiving fair value for its [wagering] product fees”.
Regardless of the arguments, most people in Australian cricket, even within the dissenting NSW, agree that the status quo is not an option.
The lessons of history are clear. The players will go where the money is. There are ex-players from the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s who currently sit on state boards. They might argue that the decisions of Chappell, Lillee, Marsh et al were ones of necessity, given they were not full-time cricketers when they signed with Packer, and that the current players earn a handsome living already. All of that is true.
But it is hard to believe that those ex-players would not be considering the same choices as current players now to maximise their career earnings, particularly if they saw overseas counterparts earning exponentially more money. The arguments are the same in terms of getting rewarded for market worth. The only thing that has changed is where the decimal point sits.
Even after the WSC schism was resolved, player pay was still an issue in Australia to the point where a group of players decided that playing a rebel tour in apartheid South Africa in 1985-86 was a better option for them financially. In 1997, the ACA also had a bitter pay dispute with the administration. There was another in 2017. History might not be repeating exactly, but it is rhyming.
Nine months after the Centenary Test, Chappell, Lillee and Marsh, among others, chose to play in front of a handful of fans at an empty football stadium in Melbourne’s east while a group of Australian domestic players, led by a 41-year-old Bob Simpson coming out of retirement, played the December Test against India at the MCG. It was the start of a decade of upheaval and poor results in Australian cricket until a rejuvenation in the late 1980s.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that 50 years on from then, Australia’s best and brightest talents could be playing in South Africa, the UAE or New Zealand during the Australian summer if the current issue is not resolved.
