Big Bash should build state rivalries

Wouldn't it to be true once you factor in overseas players and oldies over the hill who are used for their promotional value , its the same number of places as in 6 teams of other forms of cricket. You don;t have players like Shane Warne and Brad Hodge in those forms and none of those overseas players.

Is it really a surprise that people are going to the BBL? People want to go to the cricket in January while they're on holiday and CA have conveniently priced the ODI and Test matches out of the market. The BBL is cheap and fun, so of course people will go. That, however, does *not* mean that they did it the right way. There were similar numbers going to state based T20 games. People knew who to barrack for and weren't choosing their team based on the pretty colours. They've scheduled a heap of the matches in December when people are busy and we're trying to pick test teams. Everything about the teams was designed by the marketing department, as evidenced by the surveys they sent me about names, colours etc. You can't simply use crowd numbers as an argument that CA haven't done anything wrong or that the BBL is perfect. They did, and it's certainly not.

If the 50-over format dies-out in the near future, possibly as early as 2015, I think a short state-based T20 tournament would be interesting if played between the BBL final and T20Is to give it context (club-state-international). Perhaps the 6 state teams, an ACT/NT team and an indigenous team (including Dan Christian, Josh Lalor and Imparja Cup players). 2 conferences (WA, SA, Tas, Indigenous) and (NSW, Qld, Vic, ACT/NT), the winner to play in the final.

Didn't Nathan Lyon announce himself in the T20 comp?

Agreed ... And Dan Christian and Clint McKay showed that the niggle is not limited to overseas players.

I'm hoping 10 make a big play for the the broadcast rights, tests and ODIs on the main channel and Friday night Big Bash, semis and GF on One HD. Nine's coverage has been so cringeworthy it's starting to have a detrimental affect on the sport. As for Brad McNamara, perhaps George Bailey should ask him how many games he played for Australia.

And decrease the potetnial audience by 65%, only around 35% of households have pay TV and that has been flatlined for a few years now. Not that its an option anyway, home Tests, ODIs and T20s, plus away Ashes, are on the anti-siphoning list and can not be Fox exclusive. Sadly, I suspect Nine will be the only ones to make a realistic bid for the home summer. It would be so much better if CA could tell them they won't get the rights as long Slater and ealy sare in the comm box, and mid-over cross-promotion runs rampant.

Let's hope Fox can take all the cricket off those donkeys at nine in the process. Whose this Mcnamara clown think he is, telling Baily he'd be flipping burgers if it weren't for them. You're talking to the captain of the Australian bloody cricket team (stand in or not) pal, show some respect.

I think CA would be quite happy with how the BBL is going. The best part for them is the success in Hobart. This bodes very well for expansion to other regional centers such as Canberra. Hobart averaged just under 13,000 spectators per match. In just 4 'days' of BBL play over 51,000 people turned up in Hobart. This was more than the Adelaide, Perth and Hobart tests. TV networks love seeing crowds at the grounds as it makes good tv at home. This can only help CA get a good deal with a combo of FTA and Pay TV. Last night's game would be icing on the cake. 369k rating is akin to NRL which is a pay tv powerhouse. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

I'd also point out that the BBL final sold out in 12 minutes today. This is a strange article - i'd have expected it a month ago but you'd have to say that when all's said and done BBL season 2 gets a pass mark. There has been a major improvement in both the quality of the cricket and the general level of interest as the season has progressed. It's a shame that it's coming to an end, it could have easily gone for a couple more weeks and sustained decent interest. The TV audience last night was massive - to put 369k in context it's substantially more than every A-League game over the weekend......combined. Not bad for a game with a long rain delay. But with an off season of over 10 months the tough bit is maintaining any sort of momentum that was generated over the past few weeks.

all anti BBL people just felt a chill down their spines last night i can guarenty u that much WACA crowd of 17,903 yesterday was better than any day of the aus v sa test d1 - 15961, d2 - 17053 d3 and d4 were poor

Did the Packer years hurt state cricket, or just the expansion of international cricket generally. The expansion of the limited overs game can be taken back to the Packer influence, but did it produce the explosion n international cricket or merely bring it forward? The "WSC was great" stuff has been over the top this summer on Nine (the rights being up for grabs is just a coincidence of course, and not a cynical ploy to remind CA how good Nine hasbeen for the game at all), but laying the drop-off in interest in Shield cricket at WSC's door seems a bit rich to me. Interest in Shield cricket has declined largely because there is now more international cricket and people don't tend to watch second tier when the top level is available, and the best players rarely play a Shield game.

don c mate u have hit the nail on the head that last para are my exact thoughts. Bitters like Haigh, R Hinds, mal Conn are just burning at the BBL's success and r being made to look like idiots i think these shitters should take lessons from the wonderful BretT Mackay

The Big Bash in its current form isn't a state rep comp, it's a club competition. Football clubs, in every code, don't select only local players to represent the local area. Using the A-League as an example, very few Melbourne Victory players are Victorians - they recruit players from all over the world and interstate, the best they can find. At the same time, there are Victorians playing for other A-League clubs and overseas. That's what the Big Bash is creating. They're not rep teams, they're clubs.

Didn't the cricket folks all try the rebranding exercise with the team names in the early 1990s already? That achieved next to nothing as well. Victoria used to be just "The Vics", now it is the "Bushrangers" and split in two, the "Renegades" and the "Stars". If it turns out to be good for cricket then so be it. Personally, I preferred what worked for 150 years, the oldest national "league" in the country. Funny how state cricket's interest dropped off since the Packer years. Everyone in cricket was patting themselves on the back during the year about how great WSC was for the game. Was it? It killed off the state game and now we have this contrived muck.

I don't think that "expansion" was the reason why. Half of Sydbey being worth many, many more times the value of the whole of Tasmania to pay-TV was more liekly the reason. Double the Sydney and Melbourne games was an important factor. From the players point of view, being tied by a state contract based on First Class cricket made little sense with a potentially more lucrative T20 competition around. There is little doubt that players would prefer to be able sell their abilities in the shortest game to the highest bidder - given their state contract will be based on the lowest income (but most important) competition. I doubt players on state contracts liked seeing guys come in and play a few T20s on deals lasting a few weeks and worth more than a state contract. I wish the BB had been retained as a state based comp, and CA tried to leverage that support into the other forms. It would have been better for cricket, but probably not for the players or commercially. As for new teams, they seem unlikely any time soon.

What it actually means is that the national selectors select teams from an incredibly small base, based on a very small number of games, and where young players of potential are not able to play amongst good cricketers for long periods because of lack of opportunity, and instead come up from grade cricket. This is particularly the case with spinners who regularly get dragged up with one or two games behind them, but afflicts fast bowlers as well. It hasn't been a problem, because grade cricket actually develops cricketers reasonably well. But the Shield isn't doing its job, and hasn't for a long time, given the number of players historically dragged into the test side with less than a dozen games behind them. Also, recruiting 30 players from over 100 grade clubs, is probably not that hard. The 120 players an expanded Shield would draw from is much much closer to the 90 is does now than the 1500 playing at the level below. Suggesting 8 teams is glorified grade cricket is a pretty big failure of mathematics.

I think one of the things that has made the Australian four day competition one of the best over a long time, was the fact it was limited to 6 teams. It meant to play it you had to be very good to stay in a team. Expanding to include one more full time team means at least another 15 players minimum from somewhere to form a squad. Taking them from the existing 6 would mean those 6 then need to recruit from somewhere. And I believe the quality would diminish remarkably. In effect its glorified Grade Cricket you're describing. A Canberra team might the next entrant. Perhaps taking a Best XI from the Futures League and play them out of Canberra would be an idea, with each State team playing them once.

Josh, I can't fathom what you mean by not having "the player levels"? The way talent is distributed, there are few stars, and a comparatively many players that are only slightly, or not even better than the best grade cricketers. Spread the talent further and teams become more even, because instead of having 4-5 stars they end up with 3 or fewer, and a higher percentage of each team is made up of journeymen. That has a slight effect on overall quality, but not a massive one given that even with 12 teams it would be comparable to county cricket and much better than Plunket Shield.

There have been some thrilling contests, some one side but electrifying displays, some turgid messes, but last night's was by far the match most deserving of the term thriller. And arguably the greatest for crowd passions, too. Many of us had been there for that debacle in the rain against the Stars first time around, or had watched it.