Thank you for ignoring the Big Bash

Hilarious! "You kids git orf mah lawn!"

Not silly at all. If West Sydney was differentiated from Sydney, it would sould like West Sydney is Sydney's lessor not worthy for the rest of the whole Sydney market. Keep the names as such. The locations of home stadia will help determine the fan centers. It has worked itself out in the In the baseball market. Two market teams arn't regionaly specified within the market. The team names are not North Chicago Cubs vs South Chicago White Sox, nor West New York Yankees(Bronx) vs East New York Mets(Queens), nor North Los Angeles Dodgers vs South Los Angeles Angels(OC). The team names sound ridiculous, and In those markets it is generally understood where the georgraphical boundaries lie without sounding so forced in its team name. In basketball there is a class divide more so than geographical with the LA Lakers and LA Clippers. Sydney and Melbourne have the demographic to share the market and support two teams. In time when the league matures and fans will grow into their allegiances, will it be clearer weather the market division is geographical or class based. As of now it seems Sydney is geographical whilst Melbourne is a class split. The league is young, we will see.

Have CA really spent that much time, effort and money on marketing to create a strong domestic scene in Australia? They definately havent recently (BBL T20 aside) and if they had domestic cricket (in all forms) would surely be in a much stronger position than it currently is. Regardless the nic names/logos have been around for almost 20 years. The cloured uniforms even longer. The numbers are a more recent ploy but how much money and effort does it take to designate and chuck a number on the back of each uniform? And all of these initiatives were made well before T20 was even thought of and were done primarily to strengthen the domestic one day brand which still operates under the 6 state system. T20 has a very short history under the 6 state structure. CA have just created a new platform for that version of the game to play from. The two older forms and 'brands' of cricket remain untouched and the marketing initiatives that you have run off were made long ago with the specific goal of strengthening 4/1 day domestic cricket. Neither the previous marketing initiatives based around pushing the older forms of the game nor the current marketing initiatives based around pushing a new domestic league for a version of cricket still in it's infancy have been a waste of time.

Good article Mak. There are a lot of comparisons between the A-League and the BBL. Fair enough, and similar to the Super Rugby, they are recently manufactured competitions. The difference is that the A-League and the Super Rugby either replaced an existing market or grew where none previously existed. With the BBL there are now parrallel domestic cricket competitions (Sheffield Shield, One Day Cup and BBL) where one of them has completely different teams, but made up of primarily the same players. Cricket Australia has spent a lot of time and effort promoting the six state teams in the last 10 years, especially in the one day cup - giving them new nicknames, colours and numbers on their back. Now they are throwing all this work away by introducing eight new teams and mixing the players around. Cricket Australia are either saying that all the previous marketing was a waste of time or they're saying that this new marketing is a waste of time. Either way how can the fans take it seriously?

Free to Air will do nothing to crowd numbers for Reds or Roar, but increase them greatly. Just like it does for the Broncos numbers, who average the highest tv coverage and crowd numbers. The simple fact is people go to the Broncos games because they love the Broncos, and why is that? Because free to air has allowed everyone to be saturated by them. I couldn't name more than 4 players for either the Roar or Reds, and that's because I might go to one or two games a year and have really have no idea who the players are, therefore I care a lot less. Of course as a Queenslander I support all QLD teams, but really have little interest in the teams or players, which if given the opportunity to see a few games on tv, would allow me to gain knowledge and passion for the team/players/comp - eg, I would be able to actually yell the guys name who's made a break. And hence the big bash league will mean zero to me until its on free to air. But i must say, I'm not at all surprised with the elitist attitude of a rugby fan. If you don't have the money for pay tv or tickets to the game, nor live in a capital city rugby union doesn't want your support. That's why the peoples (central/north eastern) sport is league and always will be.

Interesting read JD. I think the point that the article misses is that the setup CA has presented us with in season one is a structure for the future. Sure at the moment it's basically what we had with 2 extra big city teams, but the foundations have now been established for CA to build from and create a much broader competition down the track. I think it was a good idea giving our 2 largest population centres a 2nd team initially. They both already have excellent 'non traditional' oval venues to base teams out of. And instead of these large cities having only 3 or 4 BBL games a season they get 7 or 8. Over time strong local rivalries can be established and the derby games have the potential to be massive. My understanding with regards to teams based in regional centres is this; CA is dead keen for teams in Geelong and the Gold Coast. They would have loved to of had a 10 team comp including these teams from day one but they'd already stitched up their stadium deals with the venues that we see first class cricket being played from at the moment. Other regional centres like Canberra and Darwin are on the radar but not before Geelong and the Gold Coast where they already have 2 excellent venues that are ready to go for night cricket. Further on down the track id invisage places like Newcastle and Townsville popping up on the CA radar if they can get adequate venues together. It's not a strong point for the BBL at the moment but there's huge potential for it to be pushed beyond the capital cities which will be a great result for Cricket in Australia. Completly agree with your and the articles comments re: NZ teams. Im very suprised our cousins over the Tasman are keen to go it alone considering the size of their market and the limited potential they have to build a strong league that's a big bread winner. I think teams from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch would be great additions to our BBL. 3 teams of kiwis plus the 2 international stars would be a good money spinner for them while still putting up a strong pool of local talent at the top T20 level.

Queensland Super Rugby fan and I'm against it being on FTA, it would kill the crowds. Because it's on Fox it means it gets very high ratings for Fox whilst still being able to pull big crowds. I look forward to seeing 40000 people at every game next year. IMO having it on FTA would turn the Reds into your average sydney NRL team - big ratings on TV but no one rocks up to the game and it's souless. Same applies for the A-League. Their is a time to put these on FTA and that time is when interest at home games is big enough so that a lot of people can't access tickets as a result of stadium filling.

You've missed the point mate and have totally gone off in another tangent from the original article. It's easy to make comments such as the "the stars 23k will beat combined total blah blah" Let's see if the stars are able pull in excess of 40'000 to a game. I still don't understand how there will be enough talent to cover more teams...they're already struggling at 8. With that said...the crowd at the GABBA tonight looks enormous!!

The Big Bash doubled in crowds within a few years to 18,000 average, but went back a little last year in the midst of a home Ashes series. I wonder how many would have gone to see Wurley at the G if it was Vic v NSW... Or how many more might have tuned in from outside of Melbourne or Sydney if they felt like they had a team to follow. A Trans Tasman T20 - now there's an expansion with decent potential. Anyway, my thoughts expanded here, from Inside Sport Dec 2011; http://jeffdowsing.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/big-bash-for-cash/

Matt, no I was suggesting that there was no reason CA couldn't have kept the existing teams and added franchises in Melbourne and Sydney, outside those related to player contracts. If NSW was not representative of NSW playing at the SCG then that was always the case. It is, largely, just a name. But it was one that a small group of fans did identify with, and that has a certain value. Assuming the NSW brand was a positive one, stripping out all association with it is destroying value. The only conclusion we can make from CA's approach is that they don't believe the existing state brands had a positive value: meaning cricket's traditional base drives away certain demographics. That may well be true - there is a lot of snobbishness on view here for instance - but disassociating yourself from your traditional base of support, in the hope of attracting a group that has expressed little interest in (domestic) cricket to date is a risky strategy. It is somewhat akin to introducing Coke Zero and removing Diet Coke from sale. All I'm suggesting is they could have kept both.

My issues not so much with your article, or people criticisng the BBL. I went to the Sixers game and it was a bit of fun, but it doesn't come close to test cricket, and if the saixers had lost I wouldn't have cared too much (that may change in a few years but who knows.) If people don't like the T20 concept then that's all good but some of the reasons people are usingt to criticise are just blatantly wrong. 1. Crowds were regularly 30k+ That's just plain wrong. Some teams may have had that 3 -4 years ago but last year only 2 games got over 20k. Interest, at least in terms of crowd size was dropping. 2. We all loved our state team, but not these new ones! Then these people have ample opportunity to watch their state teams in the other tournaments. The fact that nobody does makes it very clear that people don't care about their state teams at all (at least outside of T20 which begs the question, do they like the state team or T20?) The way some people (not you but others) have gone on about it you'd think that Shield games were watched by 20k crowds every day! I don't mind criticism but it has to at least have some element of fact.

As I've said before, you have to look beyond the first round and see it as a long-term thing. CA believe that the tournament will expand and they believed that it would have been very difficult to put in new teams when the states cover almost all of the territory. People will never develop emotional attachments for a team after one game (though outide of T20 nobody really had an attachment to the old state teams anyway) it takes time. Again it can only be judged in the medium to long-term. Whether the new teams will succeed or not is all just pure speculation right now, but one round isn't exactly a large enough sample size to make a judgement. The TV ratings are the highest ever so far for the BBL so clearly there is interest. Whether it's novelty value or actual interest we will soon find out. Crowds were dropping quite a bit over the past few seasons as the T20 novelty wore off (similar to how the A-League crowds dropped after season 2/3) and we'll never know how they would have gone this season. Its difficult to judge the SYeey and Melbourne crowds because they now have an extra team each so we have to wait and see how those teams draw before making judgements, but comparing them to last seasons numbers, they havn't dropped too much, if at all. The main issue is more that CA put out some stupid predictions which were so far off it was laughable. I'm still not sure how they got it so wrong!

Thanks for your reply Mark. Shifting games to the regional centres is an idea, however I think places like Brisbane and Melbourne deserve a full compliment of games rather than sending the odd game to the Gold Coast and Geelong respectively. Likewise with the great boutique venues that exist in these regional centres, it presents CA with an excellent opportunity to push the game at the elite level into places that have previously been neglected. Placing teams that play exclusively in these cities means their residents can really identify with their local team and get behind them as their 'own' as opposed to a capital city based team with a state name paying them a visit here and there. Id suggest there's a significantly greater opportunity to generate revenue by increasing the number of teams playing in the league compared to increasing the number of venues that the state teams play out of. As for increasing the number of games per round, you cant get away from the fact that there'd still be just 6 teams. Could be a bit repetitive if teams were playing each other 2/3 times in the small T20 window in order to increase the number of games played. 6 teams in a modern professional sporting competition doesnt exactly conjuer up the impression of a highly competitive league. More like a school sports day. I was actually going to add in my original post that the one area that the new BBL lets itself down with is the colours. I conceed that the franchises should have gone for something that reflects where they come from and dare i say more 'traditional' for their location. No beef with nic names though and as ive said i totally get the dropping of the state names. Re; NRL future. I actually wrote an article a few months ago about what id do to sort threw the issues as i see them in Sydney to put the game/clubs in a stronger position financially. Reduce and expand- the way forward for the NRL. I wouldnt rationalise exactly in the way that I think you're suggesting. Take a read some time. Id say it would still run counter to your ideas but id be interested to hear your thoughts. Cheers Mark

I stand corrected.

Mark The A-league was created to reach out more towards a mainstream audience. The majority of NSL clubs were ethnic based and therefore could only reach a limited audience in that respect. There was definitely a purpose to it. The one city concept was to bring people of all ethnic backgrounds (as well as all Australians) to support their local regional/city team, and therefore maximise crowd support to make the sport sustainable. By the way agree with you about this new league. Should have just stuck to state teams and then expanded to ACT, NT and NZ.