My Dad took my sister and I to a One Dayer during a tri-series in the late 90's or early 2000's at the Gabba and refused to ever take us again. Still stuck in my mind the amount of abuse hurled, brawls, arrests and near on rioting. Definitely wasn't a family friendly environment from what I remember of it, and I think we were in the "Alcohol Free Zone" which was definitely not enforced either. Have been to plenty of cricket at the Gabba in the last 15 years or so now and have never seen anything like I saw that night lol.
Fall and Fall of Big Bash
- Thread starter The Fonz
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Late 90s early 00s was a very different atmosphere. Warnie with the helmet to calm down the MCG crowd!!!
But now it’s a lot more family friendly, but the prices aren’t and the crowds are suffering.
If you're looking at family-friendly outings, it's significantly cheaper than, for instance, the zoo.
Which is probably why the crowds are not actually suffering.
OK, let's have the chat. How do you define "the fall in playing standard", and is there any way of measuring it?
I define the fall in playing standard by what I see when I watch it now, compared to what I saw when I watched it years ago. At one time it was superior to the IPL.
And no there is no way of measuring it because you can only play against who you play against.
When was it superior to the IPL?
OK, and in what ways was it superior? Better players, faster scoring, anything other than just the vibe?
Cleavy
Hall of Famer
when we had the state based comp before the IPL existed
I have posted my opinion in this thread, link is here.
I like the BBL. I think the quality is decent rather than excellent, and nobody (until now, it seems) has ever thought it's been superior to the IPL. So I'm intrigued as to how you came to that opinion.
It shouldn't be too hard to come up with some evidence or justification that playing standards have declined, surely.
akkaps
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You need to ask why the players listed above are willing to drop their BBL commitments as soon as the other competition starts
You don't see that happen in the SA20 or the Hundred, where players leave part way through the season to play in a different league
Yeah, man, I'm Pat Cummins. You got me.
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At some point you gotta do the maths. Is it better to have 15,000 people paying $70-$150 each or 60,000 paying $30 each? They must believe that simply lowering the price won't bring enough additional people in to justify it. Mind you, there's also the intangibles of a near-full stadium versus a sparse one.
I've been enjoying this season. At one stage two or three seasons ago I really lost interest.
I still maintain that the competition peaked in the Channel 10 days when the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Craig Simmons were playing. Crowds were very big and the Channel 10 broadcast was also very good because you'd have one of Ponting or Gilly on every night. Every match being on FTA also meant that it was easily accessible. I think the lowest stage was when Seven got Andrew ****ing Gaze in to commentate a match.
Overall, it is probably past its peak but the demise is exaggerated. Reducing the number of matches has really helped.
I still maintain that the competition peaked in the Channel 10 days when the likes of Kevin Pietersen and Craig Simmons were playing. Crowds were very big and the Channel 10 broadcast was also very good because you'd have one of Ponting or Gilly on every night. Every match being on FTA also meant that it was easily accessible. I think the lowest stage was when Seven got Andrew ****ing Gaze in to commentate a match.
Overall, it is probably past its peak but the demise is exaggerated. Reducing the number of matches has really helped.
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The BBL was probably at its peak when it had recently retired stars like Ponting, Warne, Gilly, Johnson. Hogg etc playing alongside State players. However, the Australia Test team refreshed with younger players and when those older stars retired, there weren't any retired Test players to take their place. But within three years, we should get a couple of years out of all of Warner, Smith, Starc, Lyon and Hazelwood in the Big Bash. If they can tweak the schedule so we get more of whoever the current Test stars will be, there could be a bit of a resurgence around the corner.
The T20I vs West Indies at Optus is even cheaper than the BBL....
I have also noticed though that prices are different across the country.
Day 3 in Melbourne was $85 for level 1 long off. Australia Day in Brisbane is $45 for the equivalent seat!
The staffing costs for dealing with a 30,000 crowd are also a lot less than a 75,000 crowd.
But it really feels that a lot of events are really overcharging.
In Melbourne it’s $59 for top priced BBL, $120 for ODI v Windies…
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