The forthcoming year is exciting for T20 cricket as a couple of new leagues will be inaugurated. Early next year, Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) are set to launch their brand new T20 leagues.
The news isn’t a good one for Cricket Australia, as both the leagues are set to air around the same time as BBL.
In the latest development, another major setback for BBL and CA is that the new UAE T20 league is set to offer top players a whopping USD 450,000 per season, making it the second-most lucrative T20 league for some players after IPL. Meanwhile, the highest player in the IPL earns more than USD 2 million per season.
For comparison, the PSL pays USD 200,000 to its highest earner. The Hundred offers its best-paid player USD 164,000, and the most expensive overseas players in the BBL make about USD 238,000 per season.
One of the reasons that BBL pays a peanut amount to its stars is due to a lack of privatisation. Hence, it is one of the reasons why global stars are hesitant to take part in the league and also hard for the league to retain their homegrown talents.
These are the reason behind players like David Warner wanting to ditch BBL and play for the forthcoming UAE league.
It’s also worth noting that three of the six franchises for the UAE league are owned by IPL teams.