CA bracing for 'generational' change amid tough financial calls

Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg has warned of the "peril" of failing to pay Australia's top men's players adequately in the coming years to ward off franchise suitors amid a raft of "uncomfortable" financial cuts in a year CA announced a AUD$11.3 million deficit.

CA held their annual general meeting at their Melbourne headquarters on Thursday to discuss the 2024-25 financial year results with stakeholders from around the country.

Greenberg and CA chair Mike Baird stressed the loss was long forecast, despite last season's Border-Gavaskar series, and will be made up for in 2025-26 with India's men's white-ball tour of Australia and the home Ashes set to make it one of the most profitable years in CA's history.

But there were tensions voiced at the AGM, significantly from Cricket Victoria chair Ross Hepburn, with CA having made several financial cuts this year including a round of internal redundancies. CA also announced it would no longer fund Indoor Cricket national teams and domestic championships. Other parts of the business, including high performance pathways, have been subject to cost saving discussions at a recent meeting in Brisbane.

The possible introduction of private investment into the BBL also looms large. Greenberg added that the risk of losing Australia's best male players to franchise cricket full-time was a situation they were very aware of amid their financial plans.

"It's a big part of our decisions," Greenberg told reporters on Thursday. "There's no secret that every sports league in the world has one significant thing in common, they have the best players playing in those leagues. And so the moment we take for granted that our Australian players will play in our leagues or play for their teams is at our peril.

"We can't stand still. We've got to keep an eye on what's happening. Of course, we want to protect everything that's sacrosanct about what's been great about Australian cricket over generations, but we've got to have an eye to the future.

"And we're not talking about in six months or 12 months. We're talking about long-term generational change, and it's incumbent on us as leaders of the sport to make sure we explore all of those things, and that will get uncomfortable for people, and it will challenge people."

Paving the way to pay Australia's top male players more money whilst removing funding from some areas, including the highly popular and globally successful Indoor Cricket community, has certainly raised eyebrows among the states. But Greenberg said there wasn't a bottomless pit of money.

"Of course, we would love to fund everyone and everything, but at the end of the day, we've got to make sure we put our money in the right places at the right times," Greenberg said. "We'll always be looking to help community groups or indoor cricket and whatever other types of formats we can but at the end of the day, we can't give out what we don't have."

Greenberg is in a unique position given he was the chief executive of the Australian Cricketers' Association prior to taking the CEO role at CA and was a key architect in the 2023 pay deal between CA and the players that is set to run until 2028.

However, many involved in the deal and within the high performance arm of Australian cricket believe that MOU is already redundant given how quickly the franchise landscape has moved in recent years. The Australia men's set-up has already been managing the schedules of key players for several years to allow them to play in the IPL and some other leagues while missing bilateral series for Australia.

Unlike other Test playing nations they have yet to lose a player to franchise cricket full-time but Greenberg is aware of the threat.

"It's the challenge that sits right in front of us," Greenberg said. "We've got to continue to make opportunities for them to be inside the Australian team environment...and I can tell you that they all want to be there. They all want to win competitions. They all want to compete for the Ashes. They want to win a World Cup.

"But we can't take that for granted. We can't sit there and expect that the next generation will do exactly the same thing. It's on us to work really hard to make those environments and to pay them appropriately, to make sure that those things thrive in the future, and us sitting around just hoping that will happen will fail spectacularly, which is why the work that we're doing now and the conversations we're having are important long term."

Baird also underscored that CA is expecting a large profit next year based off sell-out crowds and significant broadcast revenues from the ongoing India white-ball tour and the Ashes, which should alleviate concerns about the finances of the game in the short-term.

"Next year we are going to have a record year in cricket," Baird said. "You're going to see the most attendance, the most viewership, the most sponsorship. It is undoubtedly going to be the biggest year that cricket has ever seen."