You only need to look at the melbourne renegades tonight, i have no idea what this team is meant to represent, yet they got over 23,000 tonight..when the bbl first started this team was getting crowds of 6-7k at etihad, do they get out and about in the community nowadays? Has channel 10 made the difference? I have never had a person come up to me and label themselves a renegades fan..yet them and the green mob at the mcg are pulling many thousands through the gates and they seem to get bigger every summer. This is happening all over the country.

Cricket receives nothing but positive press no matter where you are or what you're reading/watching.
It's the big advantage it has over the football codes, which are always full of infighting.

Have you checked the sports pages of the Heraldsun. Its all cricket for 10 pages. Have a look at the sports section of 9 7 10 news tonight. Its all cricket. We are just an afterthought for them. In other words cricket gets 10times the exposure that football gets....   

PS Watch the positive spin they put on the 100 ejections on Boxing Day at the MCG.

The BBL won't extend the season if they expand by anything more than 1-2 weeks. If they increase the teams they'll just add more double headers. The other key to their success has been the broadcast team. They're cricketing greats who are naturals on tv, something the A-league can greatly improve upon which is a positive I guess. 

Test cricket is obviously still the pinnacle and toughest form of the game, but 20/20 is anything but talentless. I'd like to see the people who think it is send blokes bowling 140km+ back over there heads consistently. 

On that note has their ever been so many invading Aussie larikins? These matches are full of them.

The interesting thing about the Big Bash league (BBL) is that if what I've heard is correct, it proves beyond a doubt that the quality of the product is largely unimportant in terms of delivering large tv ratings. It shows that what matters most is; 'connection' with the fan base, i.e. getting the fans to buy in to the hype and form an emotional connection with the product, good marketing, saturation coverage, finding the right timeslots for the right demographics on a commercial free to air station. Here's the reason why: I've heard from friends at work from Indian backgrounds that the Indian Premier League and the Champions League 20/20 are much better competitions, and involve better players and the winners of each local league. If that is the case, then you would expect that if t's the quality of the product that's most important, then the higher quality competitions would be rating more. I'm told that they don't. Goes to show, if we can market the A-League better, even if the league doesn't improve (which it is all the time anyway) then we should get better ratings. 

Possibly your Indian friends are parochial?  It seems Australian cricketers were used in the subcontinent past their Australian used by date.  So while the Indian teams have better `names`, I am not sure that makes them better teams.  Unless they play each other, we will never know, and they will never play each other.  Even if they did, I suspect where it was held would determine the outcome.

All your other points are correct, but your assertion that you can take a substandard product, and make it a success just with marketing, coverage etc doesn't hold up as far as I am concerned.  The Big Bash is new, brash, hyped, but its also one of the worlds best short form cricket tournaments.  

https://twitter.com/MediaweekAUS/status/812472295448924160

Fri TV #ALeague #BRIvWSW #SBS metro 65k #FoxSports national 58k https://t.co/3kzJuh8Up0

That tv deal looks vetter and better with ratings like these.

Nice that FTA actually beat Fox for a change

Can't find much for Boxing Day.

Fox data is very rarely released on the day if its a public holiday. And we have three in row.

It is a pretty easy question why the BBL attracts young families. The prices for kids is $5. If you are a family with 3 young kids where do you take them in the summer holidays?
BBL $47.50
Sydney Kings $82.00
WSW $105.50

No doubt. The difference is that Cricket Australia are willing for the Big Bash to be a loss leader for their other forms of the game to keep them in the spotlight.

Combining better quality with better marketing with also more clubs and less repetition of matches will result in a big big boost in crowds and ratings, not to mention the boost of a new generation of people with kids turning into parents and introducing their kids to the league.

Thats interesting. So basically assuming tenancy costs are similar then bbl needs to at least have double the crowd figure to equal the same revenue that wsw make from gate takings. Puts our league's (sometimes) good crowds into light as a real positive then considering tucketing isnt even cheap.

Talking about aleague here obviously. 

Well said, I remember when the short version of cricket was introduced in the late 1970's. One Day Cricket (50 overs) had people talking all about the sport with huge tv ratings. Look what happened to that and in due time the same will happen to the 20/20 version.  

It wont, 50 overs rates strongly but to watch live it eats up 8 hours of your time, far too long for a sporting event, clocking in at 3 hours the 20/20 has hit the sweet spot, its not going anywhere and if anything will get bigger. Overall more people are watching live cricket in this country then ever before in history.

What happens when 3 hrs is too long? 10/10? 

Fri TV #ALeague #FoxSports #SYDvBRI 73k

Its not too long, 3 hours is about how long an afl match takes, sports fans are comfortable with that time frame.The thing i disliked about day nighters was heading into the G after work and only getting to see half a game, at least 20/20 you see both teams have a bat and bowl.

this has def taken off

Mediaweek ‏@MediaweekAUS 5h5 hours ago
Sat STV #ALeague #FoxSports #CCMvMCY 51k

Can someone provide the amount of money paid by sky nz for the a league? Please and thank you. 

Also do they ever release their TV numbers?
We want to see the metrics lel

I remember seeing that usually get between 10k and 20k in viewers which all considered isnt that bad when their population is a sixth of ours. 

Which actually puts the ridiculous 180k broadcast deal into real farcical territory. This would be equivalent of fox paying 2.4 mill a year for the rights when u take into account the ratings in oz are 3 times more than in NZ (assuming 20k in nz) and then multiply by 4 times more games. 

Did sky nz pay anything?

ratings for the Christmas/Holiday period

For the record Ive double checked the Sydney and Western Sydney ratings - yes they are the same this year.

last reported year was 2014-15 - 16 matches were reported at an average of 17,500 per game, and 24,000 for a final.

Its worth noting that the Sky deal apparently only guarantees Wellington games live, and "a hundred other matches". So not every game is being broadcast.

#ALeague STV catchup #FoxSports Round 13 #SYDvBRI 73k #CCMvMVC 51k #WELvADL 49k #WSWvPER 56k #MVCvNEW 50k