Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's Stuart Waitley. Thanks for listening to the podcast.
Chapter 2: What is the significance of privatisation in the BBL according to Cricket Victoria's CEO?
In this episode, Cricket Australia CEO Nick Cummins as privatisation in the BBL becomes a reality. The eminently sensible Phil Davis, legendary broadcaster Bruce McIverney, Australian test opener Jake Wetherald and Brad Blanks in New York ahead of the NBA finals. You can get in touch at any time. Waitley at sen.com.au. Thanks for listening. Enjoy.
Wednesday morning. This is your town. This is your station.
This is Waitley. Good morning. Whatever cricket ends up looking like 10 or 20 years into the future here in Victoria, it will date back to the events of yesterday. The revolution is at the door. Cricket Victoria will be the first over the parapet to explore and exploit privatisation in the BBL.
And to do so, it will sacrifice the teams we have followed for the past 15 years in the Stars and the Renegades. There are big questions this morning, and the Chief Executive of Cricket Victoria, Nick Cummins, is with us to field them. Nick, appreciate you being on the program. Welcome. Thanks, Gerard. You're speaking directly to those who would have barracked for the Stars and the Renegades.
Can you explain to them why their teams will soon be abolished? Yes, I can. We've thought about this very deeply in the context of BBL's sale, which has been widely reported over the last few months. Cricket Victoria has decided to sell 100%. of one of the teams, we're cognizant of the fact that when that team is sold, their name is likely to be changed.
So if we use the Renegades as an example, the Renegades would change their name to another team. We were concerned that the Renegades fans in this instance then may not support the new team, but then also because they'd spent the last 15 years hating the Stars, wouldn't support the Stars.
So what we felt would be most appropriate is to go back to where we were when the Big Bash first started, which is that we had a Victorian team, a team that played in the blue and white and represent all the Victorians. So that's our intention is to go back to the original BBL team that we had and have a team that is for everyone in Victoria. that Where's the Big V plays there.
It would still be called Melbourne. It's a city-based team, but ultimately a team that all Victorians connected to Victorian cricket can get behind. Do you have the right to close these teams and to make these choices without public or member consultation?
No.
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Chapter 3: Why are the Stars and Renegades being abolished, and what does it mean for fans?
And we believe that there's a great story there. And when we launch the new brand and the new kit, I think that will excite fans. But it's hard to ask them to get behind something when they don't even know what it looks like. Will they be the Bushrangers? Look, we haven't decided on the name yet.
The Bushrangers is in play and that's something that holds a lot of emotion and heritage for a lot of fans. What we need to consider though is that the Bushrangers is fairly gender specific and as opposed to when the Bushrangers existed previously. Now we've got a WBBL team as well as a BBL team. So we are mindful of that. So we're just working through that at the moment.
We've got a few boxes we need to tick with Cricket Australia. Is this an old idea that you're reintroducing for what we understand is a young fan base in the BBL? Are you sure that the fan base will understand the heritage of what this is? Some will, some won't. I mean, we've been talking about this for five months. So while this is new to a lot of your listeners, it's not a new concept.
This is something that we've been socialising amongst different groups for a while. And as I said, you get the range of reactions. When I quoted it with my children who are Stars and Renegades fans, they initially hated the idea. But then I floated it with other people and they absolutely love it. So like all ideas in sport, you get the full spectrum of reactions.
But ultimately, I think it's what the team stands for when they take the field. If they take the field and they're terrible and they finish last, well, clearly the decision is going to be that it was a bad idea amongst the fans.
If they take the field and win it, then I think the view will probably be, well, imagine if we had been a unified Victorian team for the last 15 years, we probably would have won the Big Bash every year. And I think that's the reality of sport. It's up to us to fulfil the promise.
Is there an acceptance here that you haven't been able to make the two-team model work in this town over a lengthy period of time? It depends on what metric you use. I mean, obviously, I think that we would have liked the Victorian teams to have won more titles, considering how successful both the men and women's team were when they played as Victoria. then going into a split model.
But from an attendance perspective, from a membership perspective, from a sponsorship perspective, the teams have been incredibly successful. You only have to look at the derbies every year to see that we get the biggest attendance game every year. It shows the level of passion for the Big Bash and what that's been built over 15 years by my team, but also the people before us.
So, yeah, it depends on what measure... You use, if it's titles, it hasn't been as successful as we'd like. If it's any other metric, I think it's been unbelievably successful. That's the counterintuitive measure is the four biggest crowds in BBL history are derbies. There's obviously the 88,000, which stands even to be marveled at now.
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Chapter 4: How does Nick Cummins address concerns about fan loyalty after team changes?
So even with the Scorchers, If they sell 49% of their organisation, that'll be a new organisation. The contracts of the Scorchers will need to be novated over to that new entity. Now that this is public, Nick, if it doesn't go ahead before the next season, before December, how difficult will it be to navigate a period where both teams will be lame ducks?
Well, I don't think the Victorians... I don't think either team will be a lame duck. I think that we will have to have an interim management around... that may have to play under the Renegades brand. That's obviously not ideal. But as we go into the sales process, we'll have a very clear idea of the prospective buyers as to what their intentions are for this summer.
So we'll know very early on whether they want to change the name, appoint the coach, you know, or whether they're saying, look, it's all going to come too quickly and we'll let it run this season and then look again next season. We'll have a clear idea over the next few months. It's complicated.
This is a complicated thing, a private sale, but we need to be organised and ready for it and then keeping everyone in the loop as to what's happening. Nick, through the debate around privatisation, I feel like nobody has stood forth and explained the why. Why is this a desirable decision to make now that you have committed yourself to it? Could you make that case publicly for us?
I think it's twofold. From Cricket Victoria's perspective, it's been well publicised the challenges that Cricket Australia have had financially. A lot of that is debt that they incurred during COVID that's been hard to unwind through the vagaries of the international calendar. So we believe that this reset is required in order to ensure that Australian cricketers are on strong financial footing.
If we don't do that, then we suffer or we'll face the prospect of quite significant funding cuts, which then endangers the things that we regard as being important. So that's specifically being community cricket, but also our high-performance program. We want to protect those things. We want to ensure that they're strong for the next 100 years.
So we think that that is really, really important and why we are supportive of privatisation. The second part is... The reality is there's enormous pressure on us to keep our players playing in Australia when there are other tournaments being played at the same time, the SAT20 being the most obvious, ILT20 recently, although it has moved into November.
So we need to ensure that we are competitive in terms of our salary cap compared to those other leagues. Otherwise, players will either go and play in those other leagues or there's a possibility that they don't play at all, that in fact they earn enough money throughout the rest of the year that they may actually spend Christmas time just sitting on the couch playing
watching the tests and having a break with the family. That's real. There are lots of examples I can give where we're seeing that tension come through. So to reiterate, it's about ensuring that the financial position of Australian cricket is strong well into the future, but also to ensure that the Big Bash is competitive globally. How active is the market for the licence that you will sell?
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the new Victorian team structure for Australian cricket?
Look, I mean, we've had interest out of Switzerland. So, you know, there are territories that we wouldn't have even thought necessarily were interested in cricket that have turned out to be. So... Yeah, nothing has surprised me now. I mean, the interest in cricket is global and it's not just the South Asian diaspora that's driving that.
There are people who have had very little connection to cricket who are interested in what the Big Dash is doing. If you secure $180 million and north thereof Australian, how transformative for Victorian cricket and how prescriptive is your plan to make sure that it does transform cricket here for generations to come and not just a one-off cash grab? Yeah, that's going to be really important.
And I think it's important for listeners to understand that when we have funding cut, which we will as part of balancing the books, we'll need to supplement the cuts with the proceeds that are generated out of investing that money. So this is not going to be a case that we have an inflow of money and then every cricket club across Victoria has gold taps in their bathroom.
I think that would be an irresponsible management of that money. What's important is that we have... that come in every year that we then invest into Victorian cricket, whether that's through facilities, whether that's through participation, whether that's through high performance. But ultimately, that's the most important thing.
The Big Bash is important and we love it, we love watching it, but what really matters in cricket is the game that everyone plays on the weekend. That's actually cricket. And so we'll be using any funds that we generate out of the sale to protect the sport of cricket, not necessarily the Big Bash. the Sheffield Shield or the WNCL. It's to protect the game that everyone plays on the weekend.
Do you accept at the moment that if we polled the public, I feel like you would get a span of attitudes towards privatisation that went between sceptical, suspicious and hostile? Yes, yeah, that is... Possible. I mean, we have had privatisation in sport for a long time. It's just that people don't recognise it. So the reality is our broadcast is privatised.
So what Kerry Packer did during World Series cricket was privatisation and is actually extreme. I think everyone would agree that that's been enormously transformative for Australian cricket to the better. That wasn't the view at the time, for those of us who were alive at that time, that was viewed with all of those emotions you've just described. So, yeah, there are upsides of privatisation.
There are downsides of privatisation. There are a lot of sporting teams across Australia that have it already. And, you know, the very fact that we have media companies involved in our sport is a form of privatisation. So, yeah, it's not the panacea to all the world's problems. It's not also the cause of all the world's problems. And we go in with our eyes wide open in that regard.
So the new team that comes in is, so it'll be a competitor to Cricket Victoria, yes? A really well-resourced, given if they can pay the dollars we're talking about, they'll be an incredibly well-resourced competitor to Cricket Victoria. Are you prepared to, well, you clearly are prepared to introduce the Apex Predator? Yeah, we welcome it.
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Chapter 6: What challenges do Cricket Victoria face in the privatisation process?
Because if there is a cultural divide, there's going to be massive problems, I think. And I think that's the high risk of it all. But if the money's used correctly, then I'm supportive of the decision. Because it hasn't felt viable at times either. So, yeah, that's my, It's complex. You've done a good job on that front.
Bonnie and Clyde is one who says, Stars fan since inception and over time, this has become a Stars family of five with three children, also adopting a love for the team and sport. Tune in to every BBL game throughout the summer. I'll not be watching another BBL game post-merger. There is a similar view held by others I have already spoken to since last night. Blackie is in Doreen.
Hello, dear Blackie. Gerard, I just wonder what the real end game here is. Obviously, the money is a massive factor, and the game here could do with the money, and it is coming at the expense of the BBL. But let's fast forward. The new franchise comes in.
I suspect it probably is going to be Indian money, whether it's out of India or out of other parts of the world like the US, it will still be Indian money. Um, and, and obviously cricket, Victoria's realized that selling the renegades in that scenario, you're going to lose a whole bunch of fans, which they don't want to do. So let's merge two teams and let's look 10 years down the track.
Hey, the Melbourne Bush Rangers or Melbourne, whatever they're called. are the next ones to be sold. And we have the same issue again. A buyer coming in, changing the name, alienating everyone. Because you know what now, Gerard? Why would I follow that New Melbourne team thinking... And this is how I think. If this...
sold off franchise work and gets them all this money, how are they going to resist $300 million in 10 years' time? Yeah, I think it's more likely that they would then sell 49% of the establishment team rather than sell it holus bolus. But who's to say, Blackie? Matt, Christian, and a whole heap of texts to come. This is Waitley for Hyundai.
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Interesting. I saw one of the names going back to the Bushrangers as a potential, which is nice. That's what I grew up watching. Yeah, I think there's no secret that Victoria are pretty keen to sell at least one of their teams. So it makes sense that they can hold on to one and the other team opens up for investment. So yeah, I wasn't overly surprised.
Yeah, someone said before, I mean, stars never win a trophy, which that's quite funny. You know, already, you know, clubs are kind of working. BBL clubs are kind of jostling with different states towards the end of the state season to work out which players are going to be available for Big Bash and things like that. So I think you can sort it out. You know, I think the world has changed.
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Chapter 7: What are the expectations for the new team in terms of branding and fan engagement?
Again, like in Europe, we've seen the main culture pool of clubs is, you know, you're Croatian, Greek, you're Spanish, and that's really big in the NPL as well. And the previous caller said the same thing about how Melbourne Victor and Melbourne City haven't really had that main drive because it's not culturally attached to anything.
And I guess I was going to ask, do you give this a real chance to be the direction that Cricket Australia is going to go with this second licence? It's impossible to answer that just for the moment, knowing that the market is broad. So Nick mentioned Switzerland. So you try to run that through. What would that look like? The idea that the Renegades roster is part of the sale, which is curious.
So nevermind the fan bases, the players on the field. And I know what's been happening in Sri Lanka has turned heads. Rajasthan Royals have created an identity here. In Melbourne and the US, the San Francisco side of things has been very real for Cricket Victoria already. So might just hold on that and see where it ends up being sold. Christian, thank you. I'll read your texts as we go.
Want to have your say?
Ring Gerard on 1300 736 736. Now, back to Waitley. No matter how you slice this, this is Ash, this decision is about taking the goodwill of the Melbourne cricketing public for granted. Now they will have to manufacture a rivalry within a local derby. Strange world we live in. Wow, Gerard, this is so exciting and well done. Cricket Victoria, you are forward thinking.
I feel this is one thing that can unite all Victorians that feel their state has been the laughingstock. That's Richard from Hurstbridge. The stars and renegades aren't merging. The stars are changing their name and the renegades are getting sold. This is weird. It's going to be a Victorian team versus a team based in Victoria. That's not a Victorian team. Goodbye, BBL.
Not sure about the privatised team as an enterprise, but Nick was excellent in explaining it. I'm intrigued now where I wasn't before. As a diehard Vic Cricket fan, I'm open to this change. I had lost interest in the performance of the Stars and Renegades and felt a change was necessary. Pat, it will work, Gerard. Stop the dribble, which is then immediately followed by piss poor and weak, Gerard.
You're paid to have an opinion. Now have one. Stop sitting on the fence because it makes you uncomfortable. Pathetic. Stop the dribble and pathetic. So as long as you're upsetting both sides of the debate, you're probably navigating a reasonable course.
This is your town. This is your station. This is Waibley.
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Chapter 8: How does the NBA Finals connect to the broader sports culture discussed in the episode?
It's not stable, which would be concerning and off-putting for a lot of people. But to answer your question directly, Joe, I would choose Carlton. I think it's more stable. And if I was a first-time coach, I want stability. If I've got the advantage of time, I would be thinking, you know, maybe I take on Essendon.
But I said it last week, and having lived through the Giants and Gold Coast entering the competition and what it did for Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, where you start at the bottom and the dog is somehow circumnavigated the way out of it, but you just miss so many draft picks along the way. And Essendon are really deep in there. Carlton are less, like they're there, but it's not as bad.
So I think that's the other factor. I think it's A, I take Carlton because I feel like they're more of an identity of where they're going. They've still got lots of work to do. And secondly, I don't think that the Tasmania introduction is going to be as impactful to them.
It's an Essendon home game at the MCG, so I can't imagine we don't see some visible demonstration of the mood of the people and that particular demeanour of the Essendon community, which Kevin Sheedy gives voice to, and it seems to be all the way through to the rank and file that only Essendon people get it.
And there's something so admirable about that, Jared. Sometimes I look and I go, wow, like just the passion of the fans. I said it last week. I think Eston fans are amazing. Like the passion, the loyalty, they show up, they're committed. And that is incredible.
But the catch-22 on that is when you think that your way is the only way and the concept that, for example, only James Hurt can do it because only he gets it and only Eston people because they're the only ones capable that actually get it. Culture can be taught. A good organization can teach culture and can teach the importance of things. You look at the All Blacks.
That's become such an institution over there. If you read the book Legacy... what they're able to do about like institutionalizing what it means to be an all black is phenomenal.
And so the concept that Essendon only gets Essendon people to me, reduces an opportunity to learn, to instill what it means to be an Essendon when you show up and you don't always have to go to the world to get Essendon people. Because if you use that outside of the draft, you just never get new talent in because someone else is always like a slightly used by other football clubs.
And the last element in the Essendon discussion is Kel Toomey reported last night at AFL.com.au that the Bombers have begun discussions with the league about an assistance package at the end of the season, given their long-term occupation at the bottom of the ladder. What's your view there?
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