Sam McClure

But there is a gap between the deficit that CA is force casting and the

three states agreeing with that forecast and other states disagreeing with that forecast.

Basically, it's been put to me that it's a debate between pessimism and optimism in terms of where Australian cricket will be by the end of 2031, which is when the new TV rights deal will kick in.

There is optimism in some states that,

that the deficit is not going to be anywhere near as bad as CA are forecasting for that period.

And therefore the changes that CA are proposing to do now are not necessary because other mechanisms can be, other levers within the P&L sheet can be pulled to fix whatever smaller deficit they believe is going to be at that point.

And then CA saying, no, we're going to get to that point and we need an injection of cash and private capital before then to ensure that the competition is strong, the BBL that is, so that when we go to the next broadcast rights meeting,

where we want bidders and bidding a higher price than we've got or the current price that we've got.

We need a competition where the best Australian players are playing in it.

It's strong.

It's competitive.

It's got huge viewership.

People are interested in it.

So we need to build that right now between 2026 and 2030.

So when we go to market, a bit like the NRL are doing at the moment, we can get a whole heap of bidders and our numbers are good.

value for it i just think it could have been done ages ago yeah i mean the hard part with that is i have some sympathy there's board seats of voluntary right board positions at state level and at ca level they're voluntary right so you are dealing with volunteers who have a passion for the sport and as we mentioned before they're mandated to look after their particular patch

it's not necessarily their job to look beyond that, but I guess they probably should be.

You probably should be looking at the

at the wider world and what's best for Australian cricket, but people just have different views on it.

There are views out there that are suggesting the players don't need to be paid more.