The boundaries of franchise cricket investment have been redrawn once again, circling another of the sport’s big three markets.
Cricket Australia (CA) has confirmed plans to offer stakes to private investors in the eight teams from its domestic T20 competitions, the Big Bash League (BBL) and Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL).
Last week the organisation announced that its member bodies – each representing one of the six Australian states – could make their own decisions on selling shares under a ‘self-determination model’. The hope is that this raises up to AUS$1 billion (US$710 million) in fresh capital, most likely from groups with financial interests in Indian Premier League (IPL) teams and elsewhere on the global T20 circuit.
It comes after last year’s UK£520 million (US$700 million) round of partial and full team sales in the Hundred, England’s unique short-format competition.
CA will begin by seeking outright buyers for the Melbourne Renegades, who are set to go into the 2026/27 season under caretaker management. That follows a push by Cricket Victoria (CV) in June to merge the team with its other Big Bash outfit, the Melbourne Stars, with a view to selling the Renegades licence once CA gave its blessing.
CA is looking to thread a line through the split opinions of the state boards. Cricket New South Wales, whose opposition scuttled an earlier bid to sell stakes on a league-wide basis, said it was ‘disappointing’ the venture was proceeding ‘without alignment across Australian cricket’.
Other boards are more supportive of this profound strategic shift.
The city-based BBL arrived in 2011 as the successor to the state-based KFC Big Bash, with the WBBL introduced in 2015. Those tournaments were first designed to serve CA’s own audience-building needs after data showed interest in cricket falling among younger demographics.
CA will kickstart the privatisation of the BBL by seeking buyers for the Melbourne Renegades (Image credit:
A sticky wicket
This is CA’s second attempt this year to open the Big Bash Leagues to private investment.
Initially, it floated a uniform scheme to sell 49 per cent stakes in most BBL teams and 100 per cent of one team each in Victoria and New South Wales – where Melbourne and Sydney host two sides apiece.
At that time, it targeted a windfall of up to AUS$600 million ($427 million) to bolster its finances, improve Australia’s competitiveness in T20 cricket, and commit to future-facing projects. Needing a consensus, CA withdrew that proposal after failing to convince New South Wales and Queensland before a mid-April deadline.
The subsequent opt-in approach still needs the approval of another key stakeholder. CA is currently in negotiations with the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) for a new memorandum of understanding (MoU).
The existing deal, which runs until 2028, gives the ACA a 27.5 per cent share of all Australian cricket revenues. The players’ union believes it is entitled to that much of any proceeds from BBL franchise sales and has offered to forego that lump sum in exchange for 33 per cent of revenues under the next MoU. Conversely, CA insists the ACA would only receive 27.5 per cent of the interest earned on money reinvested from team sales.
Both parties are receptive to independent guidance. ACA chief executive Paul Marsh and his CA counterpart Todd Greenberg maintain an open dialogue, and Marsh says the ACA is “committed to exploring the privatisation of the Big Bash Leagues”, but each concedes a deal is some way off.
“Despite today’s announcement Australian cricket cannot proceed with the sale of any teams without the ACA’s agreement,” Marsh told Cricinfo.
While those matters are still to be addressed, CA will likely retain contact with potential bidders for the BBL and WBBL franchises. CA officials met with IPL and Hundred investors during a UK visit this summer, with City AM reporting that ownership groups for all eight Hundred teams would consider BBL opportunities.
CA could also engage other Australia-focused private equity groups and high-net-worth individuals. In August, Sweden’s EQT bought a majority stake in National Rugby League side Melbourne Storm.
The CA process will be managed by Raine Group, which fulfilled the same role for the Hundred.
Changing the game
Comparisons with the Hundred are inevitable but bear some useful insight.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) took cues from the BBL and WBBL in designing its first franchise property in the late 2010s. It wanted to emulate CA in building a distinctive space that incoming audiences and brands could call their own. By spinning up new men’s and women’s team assets, it also made it possible to bring money in through sales.
Now, CA is set to follow the ECB in cashing in on the BBL and WBBL to raise capital for the broader Australian cricket ecosystem.
The move is a response both to the ECB’s success and to stiffer competition for elite talent in a crowded calendar. Last month, the BBL updated its formula for the payment of marquee players, essentially giving teams scope to offer fewer, bigger contracts to elite stars.
Former England captain Ben Stokes will headline the foreign contingent in 2026/27 but in some respects, the BBL may be a trickier sell than the Hundred. The Australian league enjoyed a strong 2025/26 campaign, with streaming partner Kayo Sports recording its most-watched season to date and cumulative attendances up above one million for the first time in four years.
Ironically, financial health could dull some states’ appetite for a sale. The two Sydney teams are both profitable, partly explaining why Cricket NSW would rather protect future income streams than sell up.
Scheduling is another issue. Played in the evenings, BBL games effectively serve as complementary programming to Australia men’s Test cricket. Consequently, homegrown multi-format stars are unavailable through much of the season.
That is a clear point of difference from the Hundred, for which a dedicated three-week window has been sealed off during the UK’s school summer holidays. This allowed the ECB to position itself as selling ‘the month of August’ – a quieter period in cricket elsewhere – to overseas investors.
CA chairman Mike Baird has already insisted that five-day games would not be moved to placate new BBL owners, and that the governing body would still control player availability as well as the salary cap and branding proposals.
“We’ve got a really unique position here, where actually the Big Bash games that follow the Tests are some of the highest rated,” he argued.
The celebrated Boxing Day Test in Melbourne and New Year’s Test in Sydney are guaranteed in media rights contracts until 2032.
These factors have apparently generated friction among prospective buyers, with one IPLougher to negotiate with.”
The global context
If the CA initiative goes through, the Big Bash Leagues will join a wave of consolidation in T20 franchise cricket.
The likes of South Africa’s SA20, Major League Cricket in the USA, and the ILT20 are buttressed by support from IPL team owners. The Caribbean Premier League, meanwhile, secured its first Indian investment back in 2015.
There are clear incentives for this from an Indian perspective. These connections offer a chance to export IPL brands, internationalising commercial partnerships and potentially stimulating overseas media rights interest.
The IPL boasts one of world sport’s richest broadcast deals, but analysts are predicting a plateau in the next cycle. That has hastened a search for other
It has long been speculated, meanwhile, that several IPL owners are interested in developing annual global contracts that tie leading players to franchises across multiple short-form leagues.
Local market responses can be mixed. Despite stronger squads – and no competition from the late-starting Premier League soccer season – overall Hundred crowds dipped from 580,000 to 550,000 this year, with the decline more pronounced at some venues. However, average broadcast audiences on Sky Sports and the BBCwere up 7.5 per cent as fans adjusted to life with MI London, the Manchester Super Giants and Sunrisers Leeds.
BBL and WBBL teams are older but the prospect of rebrands has already been explored in Victoria, where CV could rename the Melbourne Stars to avoid alienating any Renegades fans who switch allegiances.
More tangible commercial factors are also at play. The Guardian reported in August that CA was considering an expansion to ten teams if the franchise sell-off is successful.
High-profile criticism of CA’s strategy is not difficult to find. In extended comments made on LinkedIn, the organisation’s former general manager of strategy Andrew Jones – in post when the BBL emerged to replace the KFC Big Bash – described privatisation as ‘mad’, ‘naïve’, ‘short-sighted and sad’.
Nonetheless, global integration between T20 leagues is only gathering momentum.
In July, during a state visit to Australia by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was confirmed that this year’s BBL season opener will be held at Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium. Reigning champions Perth Scorchers face the Renegades on 12th December in the first game played by a foreign T20 league in the sport’s biggest market.
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The two governments have billed this one-off arrangement as a symbol of strengthening bilateral economic, diplomatic and cultural ties. But CA will hope it puts Australia on course to host reciprocal IPL games – or even to welcome Indian players to the BBL – if the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) were to permit it.
Much like sponsorship and media rights markets, capital flows have come to reflect a defining feature of cricket in the 21st century: the financial pre-eminence of India. Their effects, however, will carry right across the global game.
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