- Several players frustrated over the pay disparity
- BBL stars considering options
- Players have been offered A$500,000 to play in the UAE
With the current talks of BBL privatisation stalling, there appears to be several high-profiles BBL players that are furious with what’s going on.
A group of a dozen Australian BBL players are understood to be furious over the stalled privatisation proposal. The players have set up a WhatsApp group last October to discuss their long-term options. This comes after spending three years frustrated at CA over the pay disparity between them and overseas players.
The introduction of the draft and the platinum signing of A$420,000 meant the likes of Luke Wood and Mohammad Rizwan were played significantly more. This is despite some Australian players having better T20 records, but being paid between A$200,000-300,000.
CA was set to renegotiate the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with that ACA if they could move to the next phase of their privatisation plan.
However, New South Wales and Queensland didn’t want to proceed at that stage, so the renegotiations fell over. A hybrid plan is currently being devised bur discussions with the players has been set aside for now.
What could happen?
It’s a unique season coming up, as the ILT20 will be moving to November, and will start before the BBL. There are Australian players who have been offered A$500,000 to play in the UAE.
Meanwhile, the SA20, which is seen as the major threat to the BBL, is rumoured to start on 17th January. The BBL is likely to run from mid-December to the last weekend in January, like it did last year.
This means that Australian players could play in the BBL and the SA20. However, they would need a No Objection Certificate (NOC) to go and would miss the first week of the SA20. That would lead to a farcical situation from a couple of years ago.
Several Australian players benefitted from their BBL teams not making the finals, meaning they could join the SA20 earlier and earn more money, as contracts are usually prorated on a games played basis.
However, the Australian Test team would not be available for either tournament. They have a five-Test tour of India that runs from Mid-January to early March. That immediately follows a four-Test home series against New Zealand in December and early January.
Huge pay disparity
Australian players were furious when Dewald Brevis and Aiden Markram were bought for R16.5 million (A$1.3 million) at the SA20 auction. That’s four to five times more than some of the top Australian contracts in the BBL.
Senior BBL start do not expect that type of money in the BBL in the short term. However, they were hoping to close that gap significantly this year before the privatisation redressed the situation in 2027-28.
Part of CA’s proposal to the six states was to increase the salary cap by up to A$1.5 million. The issue with this for Australian players is that the bottom-end players in the BBL earn a minimum of A$52,000. However, it is only roughly A$17,000 in the SA20,with the two salary caps reasonably similar at around A$3.2 million.
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