How is the Big Bash League faring after 14 years of ups and downs – and what’s next?

The 14th season of Australia’s major domestic men’s Twenty20 (T20) cricket competition, the Big Bash League (BBL), starts on Sunday.

Its rise is probably the biggest change in Australian cricket since Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket revolution in 1977–79.

But unlike Packer’s breakaway competition, this latest revolution began overseas, with the emergence of T20 cricket in England and the Indian Premier League (IPL) – competitions that shook up world cricket both in terms of the sport itself and the economics.

The BBL’s early years

The BBL began in 2011–12, partly in response to developments beyond our shores.

But it was also a response to local conditions in Australian cricket.

Before the BBL, fans’ focus was the Australian team and the Sheffield Shield – high quality cricket that often didn’t draw huge crowds. They didn’t have the legions of fans following them like in the mega domestic Australian winter sports, the Australian Football League (AFL) and the National Rugby League (NRL).

The BBL started with states, like the Sheffield Shield and 50-over competitions. But domestic cricket needed professional clubs and rivalries, so the Melbourne Stars, Melbourne Renegades, Sydney Sixers, Sydney Thunder, Adelaide 36ers, Perth Scorchers, Hobart Hurricanes and Brisbane Heat were born.

The BBL started with a bang.

It was fresh, it was exciting and attracted huge stars like the late great Shane Warne and imports like West Indian big hitter Chris Gayle and South African-born Englishman Kevin Pietersen.

The early matches steered away from the genteel nature of longer-format cricket, featuring match-day entertainment, music, eye-catching uniforms and other gimmicks. Importantly, the cricket was attacking, entertaining and high quality – the formula applied successfully by Packer a generation before.

There were initial fears that its popularity could wipe out Test cricket, but these concerns were exaggerated.

TV broadcasters, unsure at first, jumped on board. In 2013, Network 10 paid $A100 million for BBL rights over five years, marking the channel’s first foray in elite cricket coverage.

Network 10’s BBL coverage became a regular feature of Australian summers, attracting an average audience of more than 943,000 people nationally in 2014–15, including a peak of 1.9 million viewers for the final between the Perth Scorchers and Sydney Sixers.

Ten was pretty happy the following season when the BBL attracted an average audience of 1.13 million for each match in Australia, an 18% increase. The final peaked at 2.24 million viewers – the first time ratings for a BBL match crossed the two million mark.

In 2018, BBL coverage was taken over by the Seven Network on free to air in conjunction with Fox Cricket.

The six-year deal was extended in 2024, with Foxtel and Seven West Media paying $1.5 billion, as part of a package that included Test cricket, women’s international matches as well as BBL and Women’s BBL (WBBL).

Crowd-wise, the average attendance started at 17,749 spectators per game in 2011–12, peaked at 30,122 in the amazing season of 2016–17, slumped to a COVID-affected 7,371 in 2021–22 before bouncing back to a healthy 21,505 in 2023–24.

The biggest crowd for a BBL game was 80,883 at the MCG on January 2, 2016 for the Melbourne derby between the Stars and Renegades.

A mid-inning slump

After a strong first decade, the BBL hit a slump.

It was partly COVID-related, which affected all professional sports, but there were signs even before then.

There were complaints about too many games saturating the summer as the number of regular season matches grew from 28 in the first BBL to 61 in 2019-20.

The timing of the schedule meant star players were not available for finals, often due to international duties. There was a lack of marquee international stars (partly due to travel-related COVID restrictions) and also a view that players were just transactional rather than loyal to a club or state.

This was partly due to cricketers’ ability to play in T20 tournaments globally – in India, England, the Caribbean, South Africa and the UAE.

But it was also a domestic matter, as players switched teams regularly. For instance, Dan Christian played for four BBL teams: the Sydney Sixers, Brisbane Heat, Hobart Hurricanes and Melbourne Renegades, as well as playing overseas.

Accordingly, Cricket Australia looked to revive and recharge the BBL, by reducing the number of games which allowed more flexibility for Australian Test players to be available for finals.

Ahead of BBL 13, the season was shortened from 61 games to 43 at the time Foxtel and Seven extended the TV rights deal to 2031 (worth around $1.5 billion).

They also started playing WBBL matches before men’s games to maximise exposure for the women’s game. And they took the game to regional venues like Geelong and Coffs Harbour.

What might the future hold?

What’s next? As with the AFL and NRL, expansion may be on the horizon.

There’s talk of possible expansion to Canberra, the Gold Coast and even New Zealand to make the BBL a Trans-Tasman competition.

There’s also likely to be further tweaks with new rules to keep the game fresh and exciting and continued efforts to attract star overseas players while still nurturing local talent.

The changes to the BBL are likely to be more evolutionary than revolutionary though.

Its biggest challenge may be trying to preserve its place in an increasingly hectic international cricket calendar.