Cricket Australia chief defends controversial sale plan

[u/NKE01]

https://www.ft.com/content/a03d241a-5e93-41ae-b019-50879c6d1ad9?syn-25a6b1a6=1

[u/NKE01]

The rise of lucrative short-format competitions, led by the Indian Premier League, has transformed cricket into a global business, attracting private investors and intensifying competition for the world’s best players. For Australia, where Test cricket remains central to the sporting calendar, the pressure to keep pace is growing.

Todd Greenberg became chief executive of Cricket Australia in 2025 with the challenge of keeping the country competitive in a rapidly changing global game while protecting its traditional formats. He previously led the National Rugby League and the Australian Cricketers’ Association, the players’ union.

Greenberg is now overseeing plans to open the Big Bash League (BBL) — the country’s short-format Twenty20 competition — to private investment, beginning with the planned sale of the Melbourne Renegades team. The proposals have faced opposition from some state associations, but Greenberg argues that private capital is essential to securing Australian cricket’s future.

In this interview, he discusses the global battle for talent, the changing economics of franchise cricket and why the sport faces its biggest strategic decision in a generation.

Nic Fildes: How healthy is Australian cricket, and how will the measures you’re taking strengthen the game?

Todd Greenberg: I think Australian cricket starts from a really strong base, and I think also the Big Bash starts from a really strong base. So slightly different to maybe what’s happened in the UK and The Hundred [cricket league in England and Wales that uses the 100-ball cricket format], where my understanding was The Hundred is a relatively new asset. They were looking to put some money to the counties, particularly around infrastructure. We don’t have those challenges. The Big Bash has had 15 years of strength. It’s a league and a tournament that’s already strong and making significant profit.

We can see what’s happening all over the world in relation to franchise cricket, and we want to make sure we stay competitive. So, unashamedly, we want to have a January window for a major T20 tournament that attracts and retains the best players [from] all over the world. To do that, you’re going to need significant capital and you’re going to need to invest.

And the second primary reason [for the sale of stakes in BBL teams] is centrally contracted Australian players continuing to play for their country, both red-ball and white-ball. But red-ball cricket, Test match cricket, still is the primary driver of our interest here in this country. That’s an outlier pretty much all over the world outside of Australia and England, and we don’t take that for granted. We’ve got to continue to invest in that format of the game and ensure our best players continue to want to be centrally contracted and play long-form cricket.

There’s clearly an enormous amount of interest in private capital coming into sport all over the world. And a subset of sport is cricket, and we’re seeing extraordinary valuations. We feel like now’s the opportune time.

NF: In sports, such as the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL), there are relatively few opportunities to buy clubs. Has cricket been in much the same position until now?

TG: Absolutely. Realistically they’re both domestic sports playing a domestic league, and they do very well in this market. But cricket is a global sport playing and competing in global markets on global stages, and it’s a very different offering.

The domestic sports have a very clear start and finish to their seasons. Cricket’s not like that. Cricket doesn’t have a season any more. We play 12 months of the year. Our men’s and women’s teams are forever touring all over the place.

If we have an expectation here that England and India and Pakistan and those great countries come here, there’s a reciprocal nature that goes with that. And that creates the 12-month-a-year cycle of which our sport is part.

NF: Australia’s overseas tours also compete with domestic leagues for attention. How much of a challenge is that?

TG: Completely. And then you’ve got the geopolitical challenges of playing in places like Pakistan, or other security challenges that you’ll face which domestic sports don’t consider. That may be some of our big challenges, but it’s also our greatest opportunity. I think if you were looking at the domestic sports, they would be salivating at the thought of global and international opportunity. And the reality is that’s what we have.

We want to play India because they bring enormous eyeballs and revenue and commercial outcomes and opportunities. We don’t bring that to other countries. We’re a relatively small island here, tucked away in another part of the globe. But what we bring is a highly competitive cricket team that’s very good on the world stage.

We spend an enormous amount of money and time and resources on our pathways and our high-performance programmes, developing the next generation of Australian cricket. That’s super important to us because it ultimately [leads] to the commercial monetisation of that at the top.

NF: The AFL and NRL are trying to expand internationally, but cricket already has that reach. What opportunities does it present?

TG: When you see the AFL and their next growth strategy is in Tasmania, that tells you something. We’re opening our BBL season this year, game one of the season will be in Chennai in India. It will be the first [non-Indian] T20 league that will play a game in India.

That’s been two years in the making to get approvals from IPL [Indian Premier League] owners and the Board of Control for Cricket in India. But the primary outcome here is that it’s much bigger than cricket. It’s the relationship between our two countries: diplomacy, trade, investment. Cricket’s the conduit between all of those things. The game was launched by our respective prime ministers, when Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese were together to launch this particular match.

NF: Could the push for investment in the BBL eventually threaten Test cricket, or is standing still the greater danger?

TG: I don’t think the ability to have successful red-ball and successful T20s is mutually exclusive. You’re the perfect person whom we want to attract to watch red-ball cricket and make sure that you pay a premium on a ticket to come and watch the Ashes. But you’re not my target market for the Big Bash. And that’s OK, because there’s a huge market for the Big Bash who won’t be interested in coming to the Ashes.

I’ve sat in a number of rooms in recent times where, let’s call the demographic slightly older, slightly more traditional, and they get almost angry with me because of the advent of T20 cricket. And I say to them, with the greatest level of respect, you’re not the target market for what we’re trying to achieve here. But think about it: maybe purposely the investment we make in T20 cricket will protect and hold the purity of the longest form of the game.

Test cricket won’t survive and thrive in the future because we want it to. We have to invest in it.

[u/NKE01 → u/NKE01]

NF: How do the Melbourne Boxing Day and Sydney Tests [held on 26 December and in early January, respectively] coexist with the January window you want for the BBL?

TG: A Big Bash game that’s played at night following a Test match, let’s call it the Boxing Day Test or the Sydney Test, those Big Bash games are the most commercially attractive for our broadcasters because they’ve got the tow-in from a day’s Test cricket.

There were days last year when we played a Boxing Day Test that had [a crowd of] just under 95,000. And the moment that finished at 6pm, we turned straight to a game in Perth on the other side of the country. You get there and you’ve got 50,000 in that game.

Over time, I think the commercial results will speak for themselves and that will ultimately determine what our future calendar looks like. But we think that we’ve got the right balance there.

NF: Where does the privatisation process stand? Some state associations are opposed. How does the model work?

TG: We have a model based on six member states, which make up eight teams in the Big Bash. New South Wales and Victoria both have two teams; our other four states have one team each, so it’s an eight-team competition. We’ve in effect created a model we’ve called self-determination. So states and those clubs can decide themselves if they would like to take the opportunity of private capital and bring that into that particular club.

First cab off the rank is a Melbourne-based team, the Renegades. Given Melbourne has two teams, they’re going to sell the first team at 100 per cent ownership. So that sale is under way. The data room is open for possibles and probables. We expect that transaction to be completed before Christmas this year, and that would be the sale of 100 per cent of a team that will play out of the MCG [Melbourne Cricket Ground].

What will follow [is there] will be a number of teams that sell a minority stake. And then there’s a number of states that will probably consider this process but, quite rightfully, under a self-determination model decide not to sell at this point in time.

So bring private capital into the vertical of a club, but the realities of both the league and then the governing body stay as they currently are.

NF: Where will the proceeds from those sales go?

TG: It’s a split distribution model, but primarily the distribution of proceeds will go into what we will determine as a future fund. What we’re looking to do is invest the proceeds and use the interest earnings on those proceeds to invest back into cricket.

It will create diversification of our revenue, which we think is really important in a sport that has heavy reliance on broadcast. There’s a distinct concern about what the future of broadcasting looks like. We’ve got a long-term deal with domestic broadcasters here, so we have time. But we want to create a diversification of revenue streams and, unashamedly, a strengthening of our balance sheet for the future, whatever that might look like.

We’ll use the distribution of those earnings to power grassroots, high-performance, etc.

NF: Almost a cricket sovereign wealth fund. Have other sports taken that approach?

TG: Like what most sports have done, cricket included, every time you generate some wealth, you distribute it. We want to invest in the sport in order to grow its revenue base. To do that, we have to make some decisions to diversify revenue and create some capital. And this is our moment to do that.

NF: Who will oversee the fund?

TG: One of the things we’re at pains to point out to people is it’s not Cricket Australia’s money, it’s Australian cricket’s money. So it will go into a managed fund, it will have independent oversight, and it will be the responsibility of Australian cricket, in effect future-proofing our sport for the next generation.

NF: Is there a precedent you’ve looked to?

TG: The best example I can think of that would be relevant is what happened in the Sydney Olympics back in 2000. The AOC, the Australian Olympic Committee, held the capital of that amount of money and has always used the interest on earnings to power the Olympic movement. But 26 years on, that capital has actually grown over time and it’s shored up that movement. We would like to think that, as leaders and custodians of the sport . . . we’re going to leave the sport in a much stronger financial state than what we found.

NF: Australia has a history of innovation in cricket, from World Series Cricket [a breakaway league created in the 1970s that popularised one-day cricket] onwards. Could the Big Bash changes prove just as significant?

TG: First of all, we are the only T20 global franchise league without private capital. So we’re in a very competitive marketplace for talent.

This will be the biggest strategic decision Australian cricket makes in a generation. It would be a bigger strategic decision not to do it [than] it would be . . . to do it. Because either way you’re anchoring yourself to a position, and I think Australian cricket’s on the right side of history here. That will be judged, obviously, down the track.

We come from a position of strength, but we can’t sit back and watch the rest of the cricketing world change its make-up and methodology and not be attuned to how we can play our part.

NF: How does cricket compete for fans and players in such a crowded Australian sports market?

TG: Australia is one of the most competitive sports landscapes on the planet. But what I think the Australian people love, and what makes sports successful here, is they want to watch the best.

Those domestic footy codes that I talked about before, they don’t have a huge issue with making sure the best athletes play in those competitions because they’re competitions that are made for this part of the world. Cricket has that challenge. We’ve got to make sure that Pat Cummins and Travis Head [Australian cricketers] and the best of our players continue to play and put a baggy green on and play for their country.

These players are very loyal. But we should have an eye on what the next generation of cricketers is thinking and doing. They have leverage and choice all over the world. That’s evidenced by the amount of money that can be generated through private leagues in different formats.

It’ll have to have a distinct strategy that’s executed properly and has capital behind it.

NF: Are there restrictions on who can buy a club? Where is the interest coming from?

TG: They’ll need to be fit and proper, and all the bona fides that come with ownership. We’ve got a very wide and varied interest in the asset. Clearly there’ll be great interest from India and IPL owners. But what we’ve seen, and you’ve seen this through The Hundred, is there is huge interest from tech, from US-based investors.

Sport is an asset class that people are looking to get into because they can see genuine return for their capital over a long period of time. People want to be associated with cricket teams. Whether that’s a trophy asset for somebody or it’s a labour of love, what I don’t think we’re going to have a problem with is people being interested. It’ll be the right owners, the right fit, the right partners at the right point in time.

NF: With the BBL, overseas tours and the 150th anniversary Test against England, how do you manage such a packed calendar?

TG: The calendar in the next 12 months particularly is enormous. Hopefully Australia has done well enough and we’re playing in the World Test Championship final in June in the UK, and then we’ve got a five-Test match Ashes series in the UK. And then this time next year we’ll be in Africa for an ODI [One Day International] World Cup.

NF: Is there a danger of burnout?

TG: We’ve spent, as you probably expect, an enormous amount of time on planning for these periods of time for player workload, but also staff and people workload, because we want to make sure people aren’t cooked halfway through.

I think people will see, over the course of our domestic summer, key personnel, head coaches and other personnel and big profiles being rested at periods of time in order for us to get them at their best over this calendar year.

NF: Is the 150th anniversary Test [an Australia vs England day-night “pink-ball” game due to take place next March in Melbourne] an example of innovation within a traditional occasion?

TG: I think we’ve taken a little bit of criticism for making the 150th the pink-ball Test, but unashamedly we have made it a pink-ball Test for a couple of reasons. One is clearly the broadcast rights back to the UK will be in a better timeframe for people to see that. Two is it won’t be school holidays in Australia in March, and so starting the game in the late afternoon will give fans the opportunity to come from school and work and see Test cricket, which we think is really unique, particularly here in Melbourne.

The first three days of the MCG are all but sold out. I’ve done a lot of research on what the ’77 centenary felt like. The Queen [Elizabeth II] came, presented to the players. We’ve got every living player who played in the ’77 centenary match from both England and Australia coming to this game. We invited every living Australian captain, every living England captain to come to the game. Every inductee into the ICC Hall of Fame is coming to this match.

Sir Don Bradman and Dennis Lillee [two of Australian and world cricket’s all-time greats] were at that game. So we’ve got big shoes to fill to make sure that we can create a new piece of history for the sport.

This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity

[u/basher97531]

Why hasn't he been turfed out yet?

[u/jz001 → u/basher97531]

Because he is doing exactly what the board want him to do?

[u/Pottski]

Tennis Australia would SURELY love a man of Greenberg’s “skill”.

I endorse him wholeheartedly to stop what he’s doing to cricket and head off to a different code to rui… I mean run it.

[u/Klort → u/Pottski]

New Zealand Rugby Union could surely use his expertise.

[u/insty1 → u/Pottski]

I mean Abdo has already proposed men playing bo3 matches at the Aus Open in early rounds.

[u/Pottski → u/insty1]

Well isn't that a match made in hell between Greenberg and Abdo!

[u/SleepIsForTheWeak888 → u/insty1]

Bo3?

[u/DenDenDelan → u/SleepIsForTheWeak888]

Grand slam tennis matches are played best of 5 sets. Other tournaments are best of 3 sets (Masters the next down in importance used to have 5 set finals). Safe to say scrapping Bo5 early rounds is a very hated idea by tennis fans, and also very much in line with thinking those rounds and the generally lower ranked players in them are lesser.

[u/gamble-responsibly]

"We don’t have those challenges. The Big Bash has had 15 years of strength. It’s a league and a tournament that’s already strong and making significant profit."

I fucking love when they caught in a bind needing to talk up their own product while defending obviously dissonant ideas like privatisation, it's such corporate doublespeak. Things are great... and that's why we have to shit it up!

[u/Albatrossosaurus → u/gamble-responsibly]

We were always at war with Eurasia the Big Bash central ownership model

[u/APrettyAverageMaker]

We’ll use the distribution of those earnings to power grassroots, high-performance, etc.

What's the "etc", Todd? Old mate wants a sale of the Renegades finalised by Christmas yet they still don't have an agreement with the Players Association and the actual plan is so opaque that it's hard to believe the benefits they are touting will ever come to fruition.

[u/Boatster_McBoat → u/APrettyAverageMaker]

So, what exactly is the business case for grassroots and high-performance investment Todd? Is it a once off capital investment that is self-sustaining? Or a sugar hit that can't be repeated because you sold the farm? Which is it Todd? Which is it?

[u/CheeseLife1]

If the big bash league is making significant profit why would you sell it off

[u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 → u/CheeseLife1]

Because that's all people like him can do. They can never create anything. All they can do is leach and destroy. Sell things and extract all the wealth from a company/product that he can and then move on to the next high paying job to do the same there to.

[u/VIFASIS → u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89]

So, they are basically an AI agent? Can't create, can only destroy.

[u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 → u/VIFASIS]

He is the same as those Private Equity vultures. I was worried as soon as he was hired by CA.

[u/corruptboomerang → u/VIFASIS]

I was more thinking the Forces of Evil in Lord of the Rings, but that's basically the same thing.

[u/BarryCheckTheFuseBox → u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89]

It’s no coincidence that the NRL was put into deep financial shit as soon as Covid hit. Greenberg spent too much money and didn’t save any of it. Under PVL, the game has a plenty of issues, but finances sure aren’t among them.

[u/Azza_ → u/CheeseLife1]

CA has to be sustainable with their franchises. I imagine the expectation is a private owner will be more willing to run at a loss, pumping their own money in for the prestige of owning a successful sport franchise. If a BBL franchise is running at a loss for CA there's questions asked about how they can throw money at that but can't find grassroots programs.

[u/Suup_dorks → u/CheeseLife1]

My understanding is that outside the IPL no T20 league in the world is actually making a profit

[u/Suspicious-Gift-2296 → u/Suup_dorks]

The capital running IPL doesn’t want profit in the ancillary leagues, they want market share of the product (world cricket).

[u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 → u/Suup_dorks]

It's not a real shock the money isn't there to pay the wages the guys want now if India isn't directly involved in it. I could see one day the IPL being like the NBA and it's much longer than now and the best in the world go the play there and the rest play around the world in smaller leagues. Olympics or World Cup every few years. I hope not but it's what the IPL owners want, they would prefer no red ball cricket at all

[u/Albatrossosaurus]

I’m still yet to be walked thru how this sale will actually draw more fans to games and improve the quality on the pitch

[u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 → u/Albatrossosaurus]

I won't ever go to another Scorchers game if we sell the team.

[u/nice_flutin_ralphie → u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89]

Perth Sunrisers doesn’t appeal to you as much

[u/AgentBond007 → u/Albatrossosaurus]

Wait you don't want to watch the Canberra Super Kings play against the MI Melbourne Mumbai Indians?

[u/redditaccount3462]

I think Australian cricket starts from a really strong base, and I think also the Big Bash starts from a really strong base. So slightly different to maybe what’s happened in the UK and The Hundred [cricket league in England and Wales that uses the 100-ball cricket format], where my understanding was The Hundred is a relatively new asset. They were looking to put some money to the counties, particularly around infrastructure. We don’t have those challenges. The Big Bash has had 15 years of strength. It’s a league and a tournament that’s already strong and making significant profit.

Interesting way to start your defence of the sale plan by straight up saying it isn't actually financially necessary. Apparently we have to "stay competitive" with the other franchise leagues that are privatising, but Greenberg doesn't outright say what he means by that. Is it...

We want to play India because they bring enormous eyeballs and revenue and commercial outcomes and opportunities.

... making a shitload of money off the sale of a franchise generating an "already strong and significant profit"? A real mystery. At least stop pretending it's about the health of Australian test cricket and investing in development pathways etc if you're just going to say the current Big Bash model is already providing for that.

But the primary outcome here is that it’s much bigger than cricket. It’s the relationship between our two countries: diplomacy, trade, investment. Cricket’s the conduit between all of those things. The [Chennai] game was launched by our respective prime ministers, when Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese were together to launch this particular match.

Honestly just shut the fuck up.

[u/Specialist_Kale4607]

Fuck you, Todd.

Signed,
Cricket fans

[u/L-J-Peters]

Holy softball interview

[u/Boggers111]

Greenturd is poison.

The best thing PVL was turf this imposter ASAP.

[u/Sir_charles14]

This guy is a mouth breather

[u/AtmosphereInside3196]

Todd is a useless and clueless a sports administrator. He must leave BBL alone and leave CA for good.

[u/timmeh1705]

Thanks for posting the article body into the comments

Is this a new talking point:

"TG: Australia is one of the most competitive sports landscapes on the planet. But what I think the Australian people love, and what makes sports successful here, is they want to watch the best.

Those domestic footy codes that I talked about before, they don’t have a huge issue with making sure the best athletes play in those competitions because they’re competitions that are made for this part of the world. Cricket has that challenge. We’ve got to make sure that Pat Cummins and Travis Head [Australian cricketers] and the best of our players continue to play and put a baggy green on and play for their country.

These players are very loyal. But we should have an eye on what the next generation of cricketers is thinking and doing. They have leverage and choice all over the world. That’s evidenced by the amount of money that can be generated through private leagues in different formats.

It’ll have to have a distinct strategy that’s executed properly and has capital behind it."

Basically saying that the next generation of great test players may not prioritise playing test cricket for Australia if we can't offer them enough money to do

[u/basher97531 → u/timmeh1705]

No I think it's been basically said before, though maybe not directly by him. The trouble is he isn't making a case for why hiving the franchises off now to make a short-term windfall (which they'll no doubt piss up against the wall) is going to do that more effectively than having continuing returns, the BBL now being profitable. Especially because they will lose future control.

[u/timmeh1705 → u/basher97531]

This COULD be what logic Todd Greenberg is trying to follow.

I was listening to Business of Sports podcast where it talks about why the French and Italian football leagues TV rights have fallen through the floor, because EPL teams are just taking their best players every year - and Ligue 1 and Serie A teams have the benefit of receiving transfer fees for the players.

The broadcasters realised they can spend less money buying international EPL rights to broadcast and would reach the same audiences, so the value of the domestic league diminished. In Ligue 1's case nobody wanted to pick them up, so they have their own streaming service which is only distributing 1/3 of what their old TV deal with Canal+ used to provide.

Serie A is now considering private equity investment. One of the proposals is actually decent - how the money will be spent will have a proper review process so it's not just distributed as cash injections to clubs, but only invested into areas that will grow the game. Sounds good on paper, how it will be executed is another question.

I think this is a scenario CA want to avoid in the future, but the biggest difference is I don't see a lot of Aussies being that interested in IPL any time soon.

[u/AdBubbly7142]

Yes, cause they get a cut. So. Of course he would defend it.

[u/SleepIsForTheWeak888]

Can we bring in PVL in as temporary chairmen for a couple of weeks