What Private Investment Really Means for Cricket Australia
Issue No 45
On 8 September 2026, Cricket Australia did something it had resisted for over a decade: it opened the Big Bash League to private ownership. The Melbourne Renegades — men's and women's licences together — will be sold in full, with bids invited from investors across Australia, Europe, Asia and, unsurprisingly, India. New owners are targeted to be in place for the 2027-28 BBL and WBBL seasons, with CA running the club in caretaker mode through the coming summer.
It's a landmark moment for a competition that helped invent modern franchise T20 cricket, and it puts Australia on the same path that England (The Hundred) and South Africa (SA20) have already walked. The question worth asking isn't just "will this happen" — it's already happening — but "does it work," and for whom.
Why now: the money behind the decision
This isn't a purely ideological shift toward privatisation. It's also a balance-sheet problem. Cricket Australia reported a net deficit of A$11.3 million for the 2024-25 financial year — a shortfall that arrived despite a revenue boost from hosting a five-Test series against India, cricket's single richest market. If CA can't turn a profit even with India in the calendar, the pressure to find new capital elsewhere is obvious.
The structure CA has landed on is deliberately cautious. It's being sold as "self-determination": each state association decides for itself whether and when to sell a stake in its club, rather than a single top-down float. Cricket NSW (Sixers, Thunder), Brisbane Heat and Adelaide Strikers are, for now, staying out; Hobart Hurricanes, Melbourne Stars and Perth Scorchers have shown interest in following the Renegades' lead. CA has kept hold of the levers that matter most competitively — international scheduling, player availability, salary caps and media rights — while handing over ownership economics.
The case for private capital
1. It's a genuine injection of money, not a loan. Early estimates cited by the players' union put prospective Renegades-style franchise valuations in the region of A$200 million. Even a partial sale of one or two BBL clubs could bring in more new capital than years of incremental broadcast deal growth.
2. It buys competitiveness against richer overseas leagues. BBL has to compete for the same players, sponsors and eyeballs as the IPL (total league valuation around $10.9 billion), SA20, ILT20 and now The Hundred. Cricket franchise valuations globally have become serious money — the implied valuation on a single IPL franchise, Rajasthan Royals, was reported at roughly $1.63 billion in a 2026 stake sale. BBL clubs, by comparison, have been valued closer to the tens of millions. Private capital is one of the only realistic ways to close that gap.
3. Comparable leagues have already tested the model — and the money has shown up. The ECB's sale of stakes in all eight Hundred franchises closed at a combined valuation of £975 million, with buyers including Reliance Industries (49% of Oval Invincibles) and Chelsea owner Todd Boehly (49% of Trent Rockets). That's a real, executed transaction, not a hopeful projection — it's the clearest evidence yet that non-Indian franchise cricket can attract serious global capital.
4. Players stand to gain leverage, not just clubs. The Australian Cricketers' Association has already flagged that under the current agreement, players receive 27.5% of domestic revenue, and it intends to argue that capital raised from franchise sales should count as shared cricket revenue — using the privatisation moment to negotiate a bigger cut and new contracting terms.
The case for caution
1. Recent BBL numbers don't scream "crisis," which cuts both ways. After a COVID-era collapse to 7,171 fans per game in 2021-22, BBL attendance has recovered steadily: 20,039 in 2023-24, 21,431 in 2024-25, and 24,748 in 2025-26 — still short of the 2016-17 peak of 30,122, but trending firmly upward, and TV audiences hit record reach figures in early 2025. That's a reasonable argument for selling from a position of relative strength rather than desperation — but it also means CA is giving up equity in an asset that's already improving on its own, at a moment when its bargaining leverage (and the eventual sale price) should be higher, not lower.
2. A A$11.3 million deficit is a governance signal, not just a cash need. Selling a whole domestic franchise to plug a shortfall of that size raises the question of whether privatisation is solving a structural cost problem or just delaying it. If CA's spending outpaces revenue growth generally, one club sale buys time, not a permanent fix.
3. Fan identity and control are genuinely at risk. Renegades' name, colours and branding can change under new ownership, subject to CA approval — but "subject to approval" is not "guaranteed unchanged." The Hundred's equivalent experience has already produced friction: Manchester Super Giants drew criticism for a promotional video that appeared to be AI-generated, a small but telling sign of what happens when a club's public voice shifts from a cricket board to a commercial owner.
4. Competitive balance and conflicts of interest are unresolved. If Indian ownership groups end up holding stakes across BBL, SA20, ILT20 and the IPL simultaneously — as is already the case in South Africa (see below) — questions about player allocation, scheduling favoritism and genuine inter-league competition become harder to wave away, even with CA formally retaining scheduling control.
5. State associations are split, which could produce a two-tier league. With NSW, Queensland and South Australia's associations currently declining to sell, BBL risks an uneven structure: cash-rich, privately backed clubs (potentially Renegades, Stars, Scorchers, Hurricanes) competing against traditionally-run, member-association clubs with a shallower pool of investment. That's a real competitive-balance risk the self-determination model doesn't fully solve.
AI can build faster. Can your team decide better?
AI can draft the PRD and prototype the idea. Jira Product Discovery helps teams decide whether it belongs on the roadmap. Bring feedback and ideas together, prioritize as a team, and keep your roadmap connected to delivery in Jira.
The SA20 test case: what the numbers actually say
South Africa's SA20 is the model CA and the ACA keep referencing, because it's the closest real-world precedent: a T20 league where all six franchises are owned by existing IPL franchise owners (Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings, Sunrisers, Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals and Lucknow Super Giants groups). Three-plus seasons in, the numbers genuinely help the pro-privatisation argument:
Attendance growth: Season 3 (2025) drew more than 400,000 fans across six venues — its best-attended season ever — with a 70% rise in sold-out fixtures and the league's one-millionth ticket sold mid-tournament.
Broadcast growth: Nielsen Sports SA recorded a 47% rise in SuperSport viewership in Season 3, following a 36% rise the season before that and a 24% rise the season before that. Growth has been compounding year over year, not a one-off spike.
Season 4 (2026) kept climbing, if more modestly: SuperSport unique viewers per match up 17%, total local consumption up 30%, local media reach up 120%, and international live viewership up 11% across the broadcaster network — a sign the growth curve is maturing rather than plateauing.
Commercial infrastructure followed the money: major sponsorship (Betway as title sponsor), a stable SuperSport broadcast deal, and enough financial confidence to lift prize money to roughly $890,000 by 2024, split across all six teams.
That is a strong data set for the "private, IPL-linked capital works" argument. It shows sustained multi-season attendance and viewership growth in a market that, like Australia, competes for cricket attention against the IPL's shadow.
What complicates the comparison — and what should temper how far CA leans on it:
Concentrated ownership is the whole design, not an accident. SA20's success is inseparable from every team being run by the same small circle of IPL owners, who share players, scouting networks and commercial relationships across leagues. Australia's self-determination model — a patchwork of privately owned and state-owned clubs — is structurally the opposite. SA20's numbers are evidence for what a fully privatised, IPL-aligned league can do; they're weaker evidence for what a partially privatised, mixed-ownership league will do.
SA20 started from a much smaller base. A 47% jump in a developing broadcast market is a different achievement than growing an already-record BBL audience of 24,748 fans per game. Percentage growth rates aren't directly comparable across leagues at different maturity stages.
Valuations are still modest in absolute terms. Independent estimates have put SA20's overall league value in the same low tens-of-millions range as BBL's — nowhere near IPL or Hundred territory. Four years of strong attendance and viewership growth haven't yet translated into franchise valuations that rival the IPL or even the post-sale Hundred, a reminder that fan growth and franchise price are related but not the same thing.
The IPL-ownership model has a structural risk of its own: if the same six-to-eight conglomerates end up owning stakes across IPL, SA20, ILT20, The Hundred and now BBL clubs, that consolidates enormous influence over global player calendars and bargaining power in the hands of a very small number of owners — a competitive and governance question CA will have to answer explicitly, not just point to strong attendance figures to dismiss.
What it means for each stakeholder
Cricket Australia: gains capital and reduces balance-sheet pressure, but gives up permanent revenue upside from any club it sells and takes on the reputational risk of the first sale (Renegades) setting the tone for whether other states follow.
The Big Bash as a competition: likely gains marketing spend, stadium experience investment and possibly bigger overseas signings at privately owned clubs — but risks a widening gap between "have" and "have-not" franchises if only some states sell.
Players: stand to gain from the ACA's push to treat sale proceeds as shared revenue under the existing 27.5% domestic revenue split, and from clubs with deeper pockets competing harder for talent.
Fans: get the SA20 promise of higher production values and bigger stars, at the real risk the Hundred has already shown — name changes, ownership disputes, and a club's identity becoming a negotiable brand asset rather than a fixed community fixture.
The bottom line
The SA20 numbers are the strongest evidence available that private capital, correctly structured, can grow a T20 league's audience for multiple seasons running. But SA20 is a fully privatised, single-ownership-model league — the opposite of the patchwork CA has just approved. The real test of Australia's bet won't be the Renegades' sale price. It will be whether a competition with some state-owned clubs and some privately owned ones can hold together competitively and financially once the first cheque clears — and whether "self-determination" turns out to be a sustainable middle path, or just a slower route to the same full sell-off SA20 and The Hundred have already completed.
This year, reading Bat Ball Business can help us honour Kenroy Williams.
Every dollar of advertising revenue generated by the newsletter between now and PMCF Cricket will be donated to the Kenroy Williams XI, as we chase our Season 3 goal of CAD $10,000 for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.
So keep clicking, keep reading, keep sharing, and when a sponsored link genuinely interests you, click for Kenroy. Small actions can help us carry his legacy forward.