When Cricket Sells Its Future, What Do the Players Get?

When Cricket Sells Its Future, What Do the Players Get?

Issue No 47

When Cricket Sells Its Future, What Do the Players Get?

Australia's BBL privatisation dispute raises a bigger question about who benefits when cricket's revenue becomes private capital. The Caribbean offers an interesting comparison.

Cricket is entering a new era of private investment. Franchises are being bought, sold and incorporated into global sporting portfolios. Investors are placing increasingly significant values on cricket teams, not simply because of what those teams earn today, but because of what they believe they can earn tomorrow.

As the value of cricket's assets grows, a fundamental question is emerging.

Who should benefit when the value created by cricket is converted into private capital?

That question is now at the centre of a dispute between Cricket Australia (CA) and the Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA), one that could influence how cricket handles private investment for years to come.

While Australia debates the answer, the Caribbean offers an interesting comparison after more than a decade of privately owned cricket franchises changing hands.

Cricket Australia has been exploring private investment in the Big Bash League, with the Melbourne Renegades among the franchises attracting interest. With reported valuations approaching A$200 million, the potential financial injection into Australian cricket is substantial.

The difficulty is determining what happens to that money.

Under the existing revenue-sharing framework between CA and the ACA, players receive approximately 27% of defined Australian cricket revenue. The ACA argues that proceeds from BBL privatisation should be recognised within that arrangement.

Cricket Australia disagrees, distinguishing the sale of a franchise as a capital transaction rather than ordinary cricket revenue.

On the surface, that position has merit.

Australian cricket and its state associations have developed the competition, funded its operations, carried financial risks and created the commercial platform investors now want to buy. Players have been compensated through contracts, match fees and revenue-sharing arrangements.

Why should selling an ownership stake automatically entitle players to approximately 27% of its value?

The counterargument is equally compelling.

What makes a franchise worth A$200 million in the first place?

Its valuation reflects expectations of future revenue from broadcasting, sponsorships, ticket sales and commercial partnerships. Those opportunities depend heavily on the players who create the entertainment product.

The franchise's value therefore represents more than infrastructure, branding and intellectual property. It also reflects confidence in cricket's ability to generate future income.

If income previously generated within a shared revenue system is repackaged as private capital, should players lose their economic participation simply because the ownership and accounting structures change?

That is the issue that makes Australia's disagreement far more significant than another argument over player compensation.

One of the most interesting developments is the ACA's willingness to consider an alternative to receiving an immediate share of franchise-sale proceeds.

Rather than distribute the capital among players, the association has proposed allowing Australian cricket to retain those funds in exchange for a greater share of ongoing revenue. Reports suggest the proposed revenue-sharing percentage could increase to approximately 33%, although the precise scope of that arrangement remains subject to negotiation.

I believe the principle behind this approach deserves serious consideration.

Private investment should provide cricket with capital to improve facilities, strengthen grassroots programmes, develop talent, invest in women's cricket and create new commercial opportunities.

Distributing a substantial portion of a franchise sale immediately to players could reduce the funds available for those investments.

Equally, excluding players from the future economic benefits of privatisation could create a different problem.

Imagine Cricket Australia sells a franchise for A$200 million. The governing body receives the capital, while the new owner acquires rights to future revenue generated by that franchise.

If income that previously contributed to the players' revenue-sharing pool now flows through a privately owned entity, players could find themselves participating in a smaller portion of the same economic activity.

Cricket has become more valuable, yet the players' economic position may have weakened.

That outcome is not inevitable. It depends on which commercial rights are sold, how much revenue continues to flow through Cricket Australia and the protections negotiated in future agreements.

Players shouldn't necessarily own 27% of cricket's assets, but privatisation should not leave them economically worse off because shared revenue has been converted into private capital.

The solution may lie in preserving capital for cricket's development while ensuring players participate fairly in the future commercial growth they help generate.

Australia's potential privatisation offers an interesting contrast to the Caribbean Premier League, which has operated with private investment since its inception in 2013.

Over the past decade, several CPL franchises have changed ownership.

The Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel became Trinbago Knight Riders following investment by the owners of Kolkata Knight Riders in 2015.

The Barbados Tridents were acquired by a consortium led by Manish Patel in 2019, before Royals Sports Group purchased a majority stake in 2021. The St Lucia franchise also changed ownership, eventually becoming part of the Punjab Kings ownership group's portfolio.

The Jamaica Tallawahs underwent ownership changes before their franchise rights were sold back to the CPL in 2023. Even the league's parent company experienced a significant ownership transaction in December 2024, when Denis O'Brien acquired full ownership of Cricket Sporting Investments Limited.

These transactions were not identical. Some involved existing franchise stakes, others concerned operating rights, while the 2024 transaction involved ownership of the league operator itself.

Taken together, they highlight an important development.

Caribbean cricket has spent more than a decade creating assets that private investors can acquire, trade and potentially sell for substantial capital gains.

The question is how much of that appreciation has flowed back into the cricket ecosystem that makes those assets commercially relevant.

The Caribbean's ownership model is fundamentally different from Australia's.

CWI did not establish and fund the CPL as a wholly owned competition before deciding to sell franchises to private investors. Private capital helped establish the competition, with investors assuming considerable operational and financial risks from the beginning.

Those risks should not be dismissed.

In 2024, CPL chief executive Pete Russell reported that the league and its franchises had accumulated close to US$40 million in losses over approximately 11 years.

He also outlined substantial financial contributions to regional cricket, including close to US$17 million in sanction fees paid to CWI and US$27.7 million in salaries paid to Caribbean players since the competition began.

That represents meaningful financial support for West Indies cricket, particularly given the financial pressures facing the regional game.

Investors who absorbed those losses have a legitimate claim to the capital appreciation that may eventually reward their risk.

The issue is whether the wider cricket ecosystem participates sufficiently in that growth.

Public reporting does not establish that CWI or Caribbean players received direct proceeds from the individual franchise ownership transactions. It also does not provide enough information about the underlying agreements to conclude that they received nothing.

CWI has benefited through sanctioning arrangements and has reportedly held an equity interest in the CPL structure. Players have benefited through professional contracts rather than Australia's broader national revenue-sharing model.

Consequently, the Caribbean transactions do not establish a precedent that Australian players should receive no share of privatisation proceeds.

They raise a different question.

Have we concentrated so heavily on negotiating annual revenue that we have overlooked opportunities to participate in long-term capital appreciation?

CPL investors helped create a commercially valuable league. Caribbean players, cricket culture, established fan bases and the credibility of West Indies cricket helped make that investment attractive.

Both contributions matter, even if they do not automatically carry the same financial entitlement.

Have We Been Negotiating Revenue While Others Build Equity?

For years, discussions about the CPL's relationship with CWI have focused on sanction fees, player salaries, development commitments and the tournament's wider economic impact.

Those are important measurements, particularly for cricket boards operating with limited financial resources.

They are not, however, the same as participating in the increasing capital value of cricket assets.

There is a meaningful difference between receiving US$1 million annually from a commercial arrangement and owning a percentage of an asset that could eventually be worth US$100 million.

Neither arrangement is automatically superior. Annual revenue provides predictable income without necessarily requiring the recipient to assume investment risk. Equity provides exposure to potential growth, alongside the possibility of losses.

The challenge is ensuring that governing bodies negotiate agreements suited to both the present and the future.

Could future cricket partnerships include revenue-linked royalties, equity participation or payments triggered by changes in ownership?

Could player agreements protect existing economic benefits when franchises are sold, relocated or incorporated into larger global ownership groups?

These mechanisms should not become automatic taxes on every franchise transaction. Excessive obligations could discourage investment in smaller markets where external capital remains essential.

The objective should be to negotiate commercial arrangements that recognise how cricket's value is created while allowing investors to earn appropriate returns.

For CWI, that means asking whether the next decade of franchise cricket can generate more than annual distributions and player employment.

It means considering how the region might participate in the long-term value of the commercial assets built around its cricketing identity.

Cricket's Next Big Ownership Question

The IPL demonstrated that cricket franchises could become enormously valuable sporting assets. The CPL demonstrated that smaller cricket markets could attract international investors and create globally recognised franchises.

Australia is now confronting another stage of that evolution: introducing private ownership into a competition whose players already participate in an established revenue-sharing system.

Each model has different financial foundations, contractual arrangements and investor risks.

The common challenge is determining how the benefits of commercial growth should be distributed.

Players should not automatically receive the same returns as investors who provide capital and carry the financial risk. Investors should not automatically capture every benefit generated by an ecosystem that depends on players, administrators, broadcasters, supporters and cricket's wider development structures.

For Australia, the priority should be protecting the players' existing economic interests while retaining sufficient capital to strengthen the domestic game.

For the Caribbean, it should be examining whether future commercial agreements provide greater participation in the long-term value of cricket's expanding franchise economy.

Cricket's ownership structures will continue to evolve as more private capital enters the sport.

The agreements governing those structures must evolve alongside them.

Players do not necessarily deserve 27% of the proceeds every time a franchise changes hands. They should, however, be protected from losing the benefits of revenue-sharing arrangements simply because ownership structures change.

Private investment should grow cricket's economic pie, not become a new way of dividing the existing one.

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