Back in January we sounded alarm bells on this site when we penned “Will Big Bash Save Australian Cricket?”
In that article we stated how Cricket Australia believed that the Big Bash League would generate $300million. CEO Cameron Sutherland believing that the BIG Bash League will be bigger than Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket back in the 1970’s.
Cricket Australia have ploughed ahead with this money making scheme at a time when the IPL is losing some of its lustre and some would say floundering if it wasn’t for the television deal that was signed originally.
The Players representative body aired their concerns that too much Twenty20 would “kill the Golden Goose.” It certainly will not help the test players, and that is the most important side of the game.
What is a concern is that Cricket Australia who have put so much into the Big Bash League being a success have allowed other fixturing to go head to head with their new tournament.
A trial game has been arranged leading up to the start of the Test Match series against India for December 18, the same day that Melbourne Renegades open their campaign against Adelaide Strikers and Perth Scorchers host the Hobart Hurricanes. This trial game could well see some franchises weakened in their opening games.
To compound this, the Big Bash League’s Final is currently scheduled to be played on the last day of the fourth test in Adelaide.
If Cricket Australia see this as the Cash Cow that keeps them afloat at a time when participation numbers are down and viewing figures on television are at an all time low, surely you would ensure that you do not have games clashing so that you can maximize the exposure of both formats of the game.
There are many attached to the game who are very concerned that so much money is being invested into the Big Bash League, and the fixture clashes have made them extremely uneasy, that this could be a gamble which will not give the game the return that it is projecting.
Time will tell.
