Whateley
BBL privatisation update | The Wisdom & Experience of Robert Craddock (15.06.26)
15 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are the latest updates on BBL privatisation?
On a cricket front crashes a meeting today of the chairs of the State Cricket Associations with Cricket Australia. It was going to formalise what plans are for BBL privatisation, but it feels like the Players Association has stepped in and gazumped the whole thing.
Exactly. And it's become very embarrassing for Victoria. Let's be honest about it, Gerard, because here's the thing. The players wanted privatisation. Like, they were really eager to make progress.
Chapter 2: How has the Players Association influenced BBL privatisation plans?
And for them to say, sorry, Victoria, this won't work, that is an absolute gobsmack for it. And I think even... And I don't think the chairs will approve it today, but even if they did, it's still stuck in quicksand. So... It's just left the Big Bash competition this season coming up in a terrible state because what do you do?
Do you revitalise the stars and the renegades after previously, you know, basically putting in the compost heap? I mean, you know, it cheapens the whole product. And, Gerard, the other point that no-one's making is this. How would you be if you're a private investor looking on? I mean, it's got to be damaging the price of the product, surely. And I know that for a fact, that some, you know...
large companies looking on saying, why would you bother trying to own a team in Australia when you've got five, when the players aren't aligned with the board who aren't aligned with the States, you've got everyone fighting. Like it's a bad look for any big company, isn't it? So I agree. I think it's, you know, this Victoria just went too hard too early and have paid the price.
They've got a stiff arm and the whole thing's back to square one. So what does happen next? Do you think? Well, I think they will have to. See, the thing is, because this has consumed so much time, they haven't even really thought about next year's Big Bash, barring that extraordinary statement about the first game of the year is going to be in Chennai.
Well, when I saw that, I thought that's like saying I'm renovating my holiday home on the Gold Coast. But it's just a shame my current home is I've just put a foot through the balcony. You know what I mean? Like, get your house in order. So I think that they'll have to go back. And there is a chance that the Melbourne Stars could be in this season's competition.
And the Renegades or some sort of form of them may have to live on because they must produce two teams from Victoria to give them an eight-team comp. So, you know, they've got to ā You know, as I said, there's been no draft for next year or anything like that. So they put so much time squabbling with each other, the fundamentals of the competition have been really blurred.
So it's really up in the air.
It is. It feels like this is the worst case scenario and how it gets navigated from here. Imagine if Cricket Australia does get the chairs today to agree to, you know, the tiered path towards privatisation only to have the players have already said no against that backdrop. So...
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Chapter 3: What challenges does the Big Bash competition face this season?
It's a big call by the players because they've been sitting and watching quietly all this. And they very rarely take a stance until they have to. And they wait and they wait and they watch. But for them to come out and tell all their accredited agents and all the players, sorry, we just don't support this. It's a shocking blow for it.
Because if there's one thing I know about Australian cricket, Gerard, nothing happens without the player's approval. They're tremendously powerful for the last 25 years. They don't always get what they want, but they're masters at blocking things that they don't want. They're a bit like John Coates in the Olympics.
He doesn't always get what he wants, but if you take him on in something, you're batting about zero out of 100. So that's why I think this project is on starvation rations at the moment. And it's a shame because if they'd have gone through the right protocols and just showed a bit of patience, they might have got this up.
But now, as I said, in a sense, what happens today is inconsequential because the players don't want it to proceed.