Melbourne Stars and Renegades merger explained, new team name, Big Bash League news

Cricket Victoria chief executive Nick Cummins has defended the organisation’s shock decision to merge the two Melbourne-based Big Bash clubs and sell its second licence despite opposition from fans.

On Tuesday evening, reports emerged of plans tom combine the Stars and Renegades into one team run by Cricket Victoria, with the state’s second club to be sold in its entirety to private investors.

SEN first reported that Cricket Victoria staff had been informed of the state association’s plan to retire the Stars and Renegades branding altogether, with the merger club set to adopt a new name, potentially the Melbourne Bushrangers. There’s potential for the Cricket Victoria to eventually sell 49 per cent of the Stars ownership as well.

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Speaking to SEN’s Whateley on Wednesday morning, Cummins confirmed the current team lists would remain as they are for the time being.

“We’ve still got a few gateways we’ve got to get through with Cricket Australia and the Players Association,” he explained.

“There’s a little bit more uncertainty there, but we’ll be working pretty hard to ensure that there’s a clear plan.”

Despite boasting some of the world’s best T20 talent, including but not limited to Shane Warne, Lasith Malinga, Glenn Maxwell and Meg Lanning, the Stars never won a Big Bash title in either the men’s or women’s competitions, while the Renegades only lifted the BBL trophy once, in 2019.

Asked if the impending merger suggested Cricket Victoria’s management of two Big Bash clubs would be remembered as a failure, Cummins responded: “It depends on what measure you use. If it’s titles, it hasn’t been as successful as we’d like.

“If it’s any other metric, I think it’s been unbelievably successful.”

He added: “We would have liked the Victorian teams to have won more titles, considering how successful both the men and women’s teams were when they played as Victoria, before going into a split model.”

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Fox Cricket understands that other state associations are shocked by Cricket Victoria’s decision to scrap a brand it’s been building for 15 years, also fuming at Cricket Australia’s apparent loss of control of the Big Bash privatisation process. Cricket New South Wales privately considers the move reckless, chaotic and careless.

Meanwhile, Cummins intimated that some players read about the decision in the media before Cricket Victoria contacted them.

“It’s challenging that you’ve effectively got to call 40 players simultaneously,” he said.

“Sometimes the news gets ahead of you as you’re working through that list.”

Speaking to CODE Sports, foundation president Eddie McGuire admitted he was “saddened” the Stars brand he helped put together 16 years ago was on the verge of being abolished.

“It would have been nice, I think, to keep both of those teams in their form, because there’s a lot of kids who have got posters on the wall who have grown up being Stars or Renegades fans,” hhe said.

“It’s hard to start from scratch with these things.”

Cummins accepted that many fans would not be pleased with the organisation’s decision, but emphasised the need for a team identity that all Victorians can get behind, leaning into the state heritage.

Renegades fans would be reluctant to support the club if new owners changed the team name and branding to align with an IPL franchise, for example, while they also wouldn’t necessarily want to jump ship and start barracking for the Stars, who they’ve been rooting against for over a decade.

“What we felt would be most appropriate is having a team that played in the blue and white, representing all Victorians,” Cummins said.

“That’s our intention, have a team that is for everyone in Victoria.”

Pressed on the looming backlash, he added: “History has shown that people don’t rush with open arms to change.

“We are braced for the fact that there will be people that won’t be happy about it. We can’t ask people to care about a team for 15 years and then ask them not to care. That’s not how it works.

“Of course there is going to be resistance to something new, but it’s up to us to be able to create a compelling story and a compelling club where people feel like they belong and that they can identify with that team. That’s the challenge that we face, and we’re up for that challenge.”

Asked who he expected to support the privately-owned club, Cummins hoped the new franchise would attract Melburnians that aren’t currently engaged in the Big Bash, specifically those of South Asian diaspora. He acknowledged that 90,293 fans witnessed the 2022 T20 World Cup match between India and Pakistan at the MCG, which comfortably eclipses any Big Bash attendance in history, proving there’s an untapped market in the state.

“There are a lot of people who are aware of the Big Bash that don’t necessarily come to Big Bash games, don’t have a team,” he explained.

“There are a big group of people within the Melbourne community who are looking for a team that they can engage in, engage in deeply and that’s something that we’ll consider when we look at prospective buyers.”

However, Cummins emphasised that Cricket Victoria’s second licence was attracting interest from all over the world, not just from India, claiming the state organisation had received enquiries from the United States of America and Switzerland.

“The interest in sports rights generally, not just in cricket, but across the world, is extremely strong at the moment,” he said.

“There are territories that we would never even have thought necessarily were interested in cricket that have turned out to be.

“The interest in cricket is global. And it’s not just the South Asian diaspora that’s driving that. There are people who have had very little connection to cricket who are interested in what the big dash is doing.”

While Cummins confessed he would be “happy to accept” AU$180 million as an opening bid for full ownership of the state’s second BBL club, he stressed that Cricket Victoria would blindly pick the highest bidder.

“It’s not just about taking the most amount of money,” he said.

“We’ll take a really close look at those who are interested.”

Cricket Australia’s attempt to privatise the BBL was put on hold in April when Queensland joined New South Wales in rejecting the plan, with the organisation shifting focus towards on a partial privatisation model, allowing states to make their own decision.

Cummins explained that Cricket Victoria was on board with Big Bash privatisation because of the sport’s financial issues since the Covid-19 pandemic.“It’s been well publicised the challenges that Cricket Australia have had financially,” he said.

“A lot of that is debt that they incurred during Covid that’s been hard to unwind through the vagaries of the international calendar, so we believe that this reset is required in order to ensure that Australian cricket is on a strong financial footing.

“If we don’t do that, then we suffer and face the prospect of quite significant funding cuts, which then endangers the things that we regard as being important, specifically being community cricket, but also our high performance programme.

“We want to protect those things. We want to ensure that they’re strong for the next 100 years.”

Cummins also acknowledged the ongoing threat of Australian players being poached from other tournaments, especially the IPL-backed SA20 in South Africa, which occurs at the same time as the BBL.

Last month, five players reportedly pushed back against national contract offers due to dissatisfaction over the financial terms and a desire to participate in overseas franchise leagues through no-objection certificates.

“We need to ensure that we are competitive in terms of our salary cap compared to those other leagues, otherwise players will go and play in those other leagues,” Cummins explained.

“There’s a possibility that they don’t play at all; they earn enough money throughout the rest of the year that they may actually spend Christmas time just sitting on the couch. That’s real.

“There are lots of examples I can give where we’re seeing that tension come through.”

Australian captain Pat Cummins also threw his support behind Big Bash privatisation while speaking to reporters on Wednesday morning, declaring that he wants “as many players available as possible for the Aussie set-up”.

“We need to make sure Big Bash stays one of the main leagues in the world,” he said.

“That’s the main goal – keeping Big Bash at the top and being able to reinvest back into Aussie cricket and junior cricket.”