Season length in spotlight as WBBL strives to stay No.1

The WBBL’s ninth season will see the world’s best women’s T20 competition dip its toes back into the country’s biggest stadiums in a schedule that also includes fewer neutral matches, more games in prime time – and more travel for players.

Interest in women’s sport in Australia is at an all-time high in the wake of the FIFA World Cup and the ‘Matildas effect’ which, coupled with the introduction of the WPL in India and record crowds during the Ashes in England, means questions are naturally being asked about the next steps in the WBBL’s evolution.

Part of that is the ‘Stadium Series’ which will see games played at Adelaide Oval, the MCG and SCG across the final weekend of the regular season.

The length of the season has also been in the spotlight. The KFC BBL has been reduced to 10 matches per team this season, while the WBBL remains at 14 games per side over six-and-a-half weeks – albeit with a salary cap that has doubled from last season.

For some of Australia’s biggest stars including Meg Lanning and Ashleigh Gardner, and England captain Heather Knight, following in the BBL’s footsteps seems a logical path for the women’s competition to follow.

In their eyes, a shorter tournament would be more appealing to overseas players – who now also have the option of playing in a variety of T20 franchise leagues around the globe – and lighten the load of what’s an increasingly busy calendar for Australia’s top players, who are touring more than ever before.

"I think that would create a really good quality contest," Lanning said of a 10-game season on Tuesday.

"I think a lot of people's first reaction is if you go to less games then you're cutting back and it's going backwards, but for me, it's the opposite – I think it actually would create a really good quality competition and (there would be) no room for error in terms of playing and you'd attract the best players, and then the game is better to watch and better to play in."

But the future of the competition requires a more nuanced view, Sixers captain Ellyse Perry believes, with the number of matches less important than having a lazar-sharp focus on where and when they are staged in order to regularly drive crowds into big stadiums.

And Brisbane Heat captain Jess Jonassen is not opposed to a reduction, but is adamant another domestic competition must first be put in place to support local players.

"I think it's a really simplistic piece of the puzzle to just look at the length and the matches in isolation and voice that as solution," Perry said at the launch of WBBL|09 on Monday.

"For me, it's probably a bit broader than that, and understanding where all these games fit in, in terms of what we're trying to achieve.

"What we're trying to achieve is a really successful and commercially viable competition that hopefully evolves into a competition that's played in the major stadiums in the country to really big crowds on a weekly basis.

"I think the bigger question and focus is how we're going to achieve that and there's lots of considerations in that, rather than just talking about the length of the season, or how many matches are played."

Perry pointed to the fairness of playing each team twice in a 14-game season as an advantage, alongside the potential for a full home-and-away season that eliminated neutral matches.

The WBBL|09 schedule includes 10 neutral matches, down from 25 last season, in a bid to have teams playing in front of local fans more frequently.

"That provides huge amounts of interest for people following, it's a really easy way to follow too, knowing that you've got play each team twice," Perry said.

"There's a lot more to kind of think about.

"A big step this year is obviously the increase in salaries for players and what that's meant in terms of opportunities for girls and who we attract to the competition. So that's a big part of it as well."

Perry also believes now is the perfect time to capitalise on the momentum generated by the success of the Matildas at the FIFA World Cup, adding she believed COVID had impacted the growth of the WBBL following cricket’s own home T20 World Cup in March 2020.

"There's no better time for women's sport than at the moment ... the Matildas have been unbelievably successful in the attention that they've garnered and in a way they've set up a lot of other female sports to have a platform to continue to grow and thrive," she said.

"It feels like we've reset now and have a really clear position where we want to get to."

Australia’s international players are busier than ever and can further bolster their calendars with franchise opportunities in India, England and the Caribbean.

But the majority of domestic players – aside from the few who regularly secure overseas franchise deals – only take to the field a maximum of 26 times a year, with the WNCL featuring 12 matches per team and no state-based red-ball competition for women.

Ensuring those players do not lose out from a reduction in WBBL matches is critical in the eyes of Jonassen.

"I think it will be interesting to see what the reduction to 10 games does for the BBL this season … the biggest challenge with reducing the games for the WBBL is the lack of other domestic games (because) the men actually have significant amount of domestic cricket," Jonassen said this week.

"You can only drop the WBBL games once (a new competition has) been established, and it's not just a hit and giggle preseason comp, it's something that's legitimate.

"Because ultimately, the reduction of the games is going to help facilitate the international talent coming over and keep generating that revenue and that's a big revenue space, but you've got to also remember the domestic players that don't play international cricket, that this is all that they do.

"We fought so hard to double our WNCL games, but then now we're almost advocating to reduce games, so it's counterintuitive ... so you've really got to make sure that by taking games away from that pinnacle competition that is the WBBL, it's still being made up within the domestic structures so we can still breed and grow our homegrown talent."

In Jonassen’s eyes, a reintroduction of the state-based T20 competition that preceded the WBBL would be an ideal start to the domestic summer, with the WNCL played after the 20-over tournaments.

"It almost gets you ready and primed for the WBBL and so then you get there, you're not trying to find your feet in the T20 space after coming off the domestic 50-over cricket, you've got players that are already there and ready that then can help generate that really awesome product," she said.

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