Big Bash League 2012: A Super Hit?

Adrian Meredith February 1, 2012 1

Big Bash League 2012: A Super Hit?

The big question is whether the first edition of the Big Bash League was a success or a failure.

At first glance it seemed an odd choice to even have a separate professional league, given that we already had a KFC Big Bash, which produced such amazing performances and had teams that won Champions Trophies and the like. Now we were replacing it with a Big Bash, whose major sponsor was KFC! The city-based teams sounded exciting but of course Australia only has 6 states and 2 inland territories so it wasn’t the same situation as India’s IPL had.

There were 3 major choices for the 2 extra choices: 1) The two capital cities of the 2 inland territories, Darwin and Canberra 2) The two largest cities outside of the capitals, in the two biggest cricket-playing states, Geelong and Newcastle 3) Two remote areas, such as Broome and Mount Isa, or Alice Springs and Kalgoorlie. Yet instead of any of these IPL-like choices, they instead went their own way, with 2 teams from the same cities of Melbourne and Sydney. Granted that Melbourne and Sydney are the two biggest city-based towns but it was such an odd choice. The only benefit I could see was to encourage people from both Melbourne and Sydney to go for 2 teams each, so that when one was playing away they could support the other, much like how teams in the various football leagues like to have 2 in each state.

Would having 8 teams, still basically state-based but technically city-based, but with 2 in each of the biggest cricket-loving states work?

They only had 2 overseas players, unlike the 4 per playing 11 and 10 per squad that the IPL has. And with the BCCI not allowing any Indian players to participate, there surely wouldn’t be much overseas interest either.

The big difference was that players were allowed, nay encouraged, to change states. And many of them did, too. Over half stayed in their regular state (Melbourne for Victoria, Sydney for New South Wales, Hobart for Tasmania, etc) but some moved.

And the second big difference was that we had retired players. 4 of them in total. Shane Warne went to Melbourne Stars, and Matthew Hayden went to Brisbane Heat, both players who had been playing in the IPL since retirement so were hardly big surprises, but nonetheless quite exciting as they hadn’t been playing in Australia. But then two odd ones, Brad Hogg for Perth Scorchers and Stuart MacGill to Sydney Sixers. So 4 teams had retirees but the other 4 did not.

The first match was reported as having low attendances. Lower than the previous season and much lower than expected. It was deemed that the Big Bash was a failure. The entire first round of matches had less than expected attendances. The whole series seemed to be doomed.

And yet as soon as the announcement of failure came out, it was counter reported that it was in fact a roaring success, with triple the previous year’s TV audience. And, of course, they make most of their money from TV, not from live attendances. People who had Australian pay TV Foxtel or Austar were subscribing to the series as they did internationally.

The hype in the general public was that of excitement. With fewer matches than in previous matches (only playing each other once instead of twice), the contests were more important. Many matches were close and could go either way. There were big performances, as in previous editions, but they were somewhat more important.

Going into the final round of league matches, 3 teams had qualified for the 4 team finals, but 5 teams were playing off for the final spot. Going into the final match of the final round, still 3 teams were fighting for the 4th and final spot in the finals! Not just the two teams competing, but if the lower ranked of the two teams, Adelaide Strikers, won but only narrowly, then Brisbane Heat would qualify. As it stood, Melbourne Stars won and thus qualified for the semi finals.

In the semi finals, we had 2 matches where the team batting first won, but only just holding on after huge comebacks towards the end of the matches. And then the final went the other way, against the grain, as the team chasing, Sydney Sixers, came over the top to win quite easily in the end.

There was so much talk about the series when it ended. Shane Warne should captain the Melbourne Stars next season. Adam Gilchrist should come out of retirement to play. Brad Hogg, one of the retirees, should be in the Australian team. And, somewhat amusingly, he was! Hogg is now in the Australian T20 team, 4 years after he retired, and he still isn’t playing first class cricket!

It might not have made as much money as the IPL, nor as much as it would have made had Indians been in the tournament, but it nonetheless was an exciting contest, far moreso than the KFC Big Bash, the state based competition that ran in previous years. It was talked about a lot more and was a lot more exciting.

And they did it by doing it their way. They had 2 teams from the same city, instead of having 8 different cities. They had only 2 overseas players per squad, and some teams only played 1 per playing 11. They didn’t disclose how much each player went for in the public auction, and they didn’t do it over one day but rather over several weeks. It was in many ways more professional than the IPL without the fanfare but in many ways a better contest.

Perhaps in future editions they could have more overseas players. Perhaps they could have sides from Geelong and Newcastle. But perhaps they did everything right this time.

What do you think? Success or failure? Do you think that they should do anything differently next time?