Rampart Talks: Todd Greenberg

My guest this month on Rampart Talks is Cricket Australia CEO Todd Greenberg. 

Barely a year into the job, Greenberg has been locked in an uphill negotiation with state cricket associations and the players’ union to partly or fully privatise some teams in the domestic T20 Big Bash League.

Uphill may be putting it too kindly, and a lot has changed subsequent to my interview with Todd, which was recorded a lifetime ago on May 25. This month, Cricket Victoria euthanised the Melbourne Renegades (and then brought them back from the dead). The Australian Cricketers’ Association blocked the plans of CV, Cricket Tasmania and WA Cricket to move forward without the other states in offering stakes in their BBL franchises to private investors. 

It’s frankly a mess, though the governance model of Australian cricket is certainly an enabler of chaos. The quality of the individuals at the table has improved (which isn’t saying much given the ejected leadership generation of David Peever, Earl Eddings and Kevin Roberts), though some of the decision-making arguably hasn’t. 

The most significant exchange in my interview, I think, is where Greenberg and I explore the necessity (let alone the wisdom) of selling the assets of Australian cricket to Indian billionaires and American private equiteers to fund the game’s recurrent expenditure, which I argue is the definition of burning the furniture to keep ourselves warm. 

None of this would be necessary if Cricket Australia had not, in December 2022, signed a miserable domestic broadcast rights deal with Foxtel and Seven, which I hate to say I predicted at the time would be ruinous. It remains hard to fathom the terms agreed to, including flat annual payments in a high-inflation era, which have left the game going backwards financially until at least 2031. 

Cricket Australia clean bowled, yet again

The bargain Seven has just extracted from the jokers of Jolimont Street is almost unbelievable.

Australian Financial ReviewJoe Aston

That deal pre-dates Greenberg, but it’s now his existential revenue hole to solve for. Cricket Australia is being advised on the BBL privatisation by investment bank Barrenjoey. As he argues: 

"Australian cricket has generated all its revenues from bilateral cricket, being the Ashes [or] when we play India, and so when countries versus countries play, we generate our revenues through broadcast and all of our commercial programs. Is that going to suffice for us in the next generation? I think the answer points you to the expansion and globalisation of T20 cricket, not in a bilateral sense, but in private franchise[s] all over the world."

I was admittedly not an objective interlocutor for Greenberg on this question, given the prospect of Cricket Australia acceding to the disinvigoration of Test cricket in favour of even more unwatchable, meaningless pyjama-slogging in the middle of the night is – to me – the definition of failure. I say this even while accepting to an extent Greenberg’s lament that India is taking us there whether we like it or not. 

Greenberg and I also discuss his time as CEO of the National Rugby League, including the circumstances of his departure in 2020, and his experience as a Jewish man in Australia today in light of the antisemitism crisis now the subject of a royal commission.

There is so much more in this episode, so I encourage you to access the full version, which runs for 54 minutes. 

The full version is only available to Rampart’s premium subscribers, who can watch on rampart.news or listen via Spotify or Apple Podcasts (if you haven’t already activated this integration with your preferred podcast app, you can do so here). 

For Rampart’s free list members, a 14-minute cut is available on rampart.news, YouTube and all the major podcast players. 

I hope you enjoy it. 

Cheers, Joe

Previous episodes: James Packer, Gillon McLachlan, Brad Banducci, Jayne Hrdlicka, Nick Molnar, Matt Comyn, Oliver Curtis, Hamish Douglass and Ruthie Rogers.