T20 Big Bash League (from 2011/12)

[redback_original]

By more stars I mean anyone and everyone. Drop the $1m salary cap and the two player international limit - have a mandated local/junior list like the IPL does.

And yeah.. you're right - it's still the 'gabba.. my mistake. It seems I've just been infiltrated by the recent push to rename:

http://www.thegabba.com.au/gabba/media/ ... -F_WEB.pdf

[redback_original]

OMG. The Heat had a win.

[Boba Fett]

Huge amount of thunder in Sydney last night. Except for on the field at Homebush...

[Merlin_Wiese]

Might be a bit early but the BBL is already looking at expansion for next season:

Geelong to be considered as part of Big Bash expansion
Malcolm Conn From: News Limited newspapers January 12, 2012 12:00am

GEELONG is in the running to have a Big Bash team next summer as the reinvigorated Twenty20 competition continues to explode.

With ratings and crowds surging ahead of expectations, Big Bash boss Mike McKenna said planning has started for a 10-team competition years ahead of the original timetable.

Gold Coast, Canberra and Newcastle are also being considered for teams.

"We put in place a 20-year plan around the Big Bash with some milestones looking at expansion of the league, with one option more teams and another option more games," McKenna said.

"Geelong, Gold Coast, ACT and Newcastle have populations which are attractive to us who aren't served by international cricket.

"There is definitely scope to look at expansion in the near future."

News Limited Newspapers revealed that Channel 9 was interested in the Big Bash if all the Australian players were involved with a smattering of overseas stars.

But McKenna said the Fox Sports ratings were so good that industry experts believed they would translate into the million free-to-air viewers Nine wants.

"We believe that the Big Bash is already exciting with the players we have," McKenna said.

Fox Sports ratings for the Big Bash have almost doubled from an average of 165,000 to 288,000.

Last month a match between Shane Warne's Melbourne Stars and Chris Gayle's Sydney Thunder attracted 472,000 viewers, an extraordinary number for Fox Sports.

Veterans such as Matthew Hayden and Stuart MacGill coming out of retirement have added an extra dimension, but the Warne factor has been enormous.

The ratings and crowds attracted to Melbourne Stars games make him worth the $500,000 package assembled to get him back on the park for as few as seven games.

Four of the six best crowds in the competition have been to see Warne's Stars, including the competition high 40,000 who turned up last Saturday at the MCG for the Melbourne derby against the Renegades.

Warne was responsible for the first Big Bash sell-out in Hobart of almost 14,000 last Monday, which compares with a daily average crowd of 6000 for the Test against New Zealand last month.

CA optimistically budgeted for an average crowd of 16,000 a game in the new eight-team, city-based competition.

But with the crowd average almost 19,000 and ratings taking off, McKenna said "people are wanting more".

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/crick ... 6242121074

In terms of the 4 suggested locations - Geelong, Canberra, Gold Coast and Newcastle, the logical choice would be Geelong. Considering they just missed out on a team this season, primarily due to a lack of lighting, you would assume any expansion would include them. A 30K seat stadium and a population of around 160K; they would probably draw around the 10-15K mark, similar to the Renegades or Hobart Hurricanes. Canberra would probably work and with Manuka only holding 15K they should get close to a full house nearly every match. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe they have lighting? If not then I doubt they'd get a team. Gold Coast might work for a season or two with all the razzle-dazzle of the comp, but I doubt they would have long term success. Does Newcastle or the Hunter/Central Coast region have a cricket ground large enough to cater for a team? A bit out there but I would have though North Queensland might have been a possibility. Townsville has Tony Ireland Stadium which holds 10K and hosted a T20 last year, while Cairns has Cazaly's which holds 12K and has hosted Aussie test matches in the past. You could split the 4 home games between the two cities which I'm sure would ensure sellouts for both venues if you only had a limited number of games.

[Rob]

You can't play cricket in North Queensland in summer. Every second game would be rained out, and the other half would be rain affected.

But I would have thought Canberra is the most obvious place for an expansion team of they can get lighting.

[Boba Fett]

Comparatively it's been the smaller cities that have gotten better crowd support that Sydney or Melbourne. The Thunder and Renegades have only averaged crowds in to the low to mid teens (apart from local derby games).

I'd be putting a lid on an expansion talks for a couple of years at least. This year has had the novelty factor - let's wait and see how things pan out after a few seasons. The disastrous expansion of the A League should serve as a warning for CA not to get too carried away with their encouraging start to the revamped BBL.

[Jeffles]

I've seen Manuka with lights for the only Raiders game they played there. I don't know that lights would be a big problem there. People don't live as close to there as they do to Bellerive but you might get an Adelaide Oval argument about beauty and stuff, which would be pretty weak IMO.

[Rob]

Comparatively it's been the smaller cities that have gotten better crowd support that Sydney or Melbourne. The Thunder and Renegades have only averaged crowds in to the low to mid teens (apart from local derby games).

I'd be putting a lid on an expansion talks for a couple of years at least. This year has had the novelty factor - let's wait and see how things pan out after a few seasons. The disastrous expansion of the A League should serve as a warning for CA not to get too carried away with their encouraging start to the revamped BBL.

I tend to agree, although I wouldn't take too much from what's happened in the A-League. They overestimated the popularity of their product, whereas CA can have confidence in knowing that cricket has a decent following in whatever city they expand to.

[the crow]

It's good to see Warner bring T20 to the test arena today in Perth.

[Boba Fett]

Actually a fairly poor batting display all round apart from Warner, Cowan and Kohli.

[bazza]

Decent crowd at the SCG of 20k for Sydney 6ers v Perth last night

[Jeffles]

And it went down to the wire again. It's as though it was written into Brett Lee's contract.

Shouldn't have got to that. Henriques bowling two no balls for full tosses that went for 4 and 6 was dreadful.

I went out there again. The SCG did a much better job this time. Queues moved well. The music wasn't as loud nor as frequent.

[Simmo79]

So how's this thing doing this year. Caught bits and pieces of some games but the crowds don't look as big as last year's.

[Boba Fett]

Crowds seem significantly down this year. Only 9k at the Sydney v Perth game last night. And the Thunder only pulled a bit over 7k...

Maybe crowds will improve once the holidays start?

[Rob]

Yeah, they wouldn't be happy with some of the crowds. Although I still can't believe they scheduled a game in Perth at 5pm on a weekday. When you do sh*t like that then it either shows they don't give a stuff about crowds and/or they're a bunch of morons.
TV audiences are pretty solid though, consistently over 200k. Poor old A-League has had it's audiences take a massive fall since the BBL started.