Best catches from BBL|05, wth some bias!

Are you surprised by the manner – and scale – in which the Australian public supported the KFC Big Bash this season?

Anthony Everard: The aspiration was to continue to grow BBL across all of our metrics this year – attendance, TV ratings, merchandise sales etc. Probably the scale of growth in some of those areas surprised us, and the 80,000 attendee game at the MCG is a great example of that. Associated with that match were record merchandise sales, which almost cleared the Stars out of their stock for the season. In a general sense we were pleased with the continued growth.

Keep in mind, the growth we experienced this year is not unique to BBL|05 – we’ve grown every year.

What do you put the success of the season down to?

AE: A combination of factors. With only 32 games to schedule (excluding finals), placing every single game on a particular night in a particular market is crucial; if you get it wrong by a week, or even a day, it can cost you 10,000 fans. We had almost our perfect schedule this year.

And we shouldn't underestimate the role that Channel 10 play in supporting BBL. The Project was brilliant in that respect, and that was something we'd identified as an opportunity. Last year the Sydney market wasn't as engaged on a per capita basis as some of the other markets around the country, so we put a strategy in place this year to try and make sure that Sydney at least matched, if not bettered, the level of engagement around the country.

WATCH: The funny and freaky of BBL|05

So on the opening night we had the Sydney Smash at Spotless Stadium, we had our season launch in Sydney the week before that, and in partnership with Channel Ten we moved The Project to their Sydney studio in the week that the tournament began.

We also felt that if we got pre-Christmas games off to a strong start, we'd be well placed because we've never struggled from Boxing Day and beyond. So we had eight games before Christmas, which is a quarter of the regular season. We invested quite a bit in getting that schedule right and promoting those games. By the time we got to the 23rd of December, we'd had really strong ratings and just about a record attendance in each of those markets. So we felt we'd weathered our most challenging period knowing that the upside was ahead.

From December 26 onwards, we almost broke a new record every night, culminating in our 100,000 day on January 2 (80,000 for the Melbourne derby, 20,000 in Perth), which was great, and that momentum continued right through until finals.

Looking ahead to BBL|06, are Christmas Eve or Christmas Day matches on the agenda?

AE: They’re on the agenda for consideration but it’s early days. There are a whole lot of stakeholder groups we'd need to engage – not least of which are the players, to get their input. The broadcaster as well. We see them as two different propositions. Christmas Eve falls on a Saturday this year (2016), so a Saturday twilight game on Christmas Eve in the right market could work. If that became a serious consideration, we'd put it out to the clubs and see who was interested. Done the right way, that could become what we call an 'icon date'. There's an opportunity for a club to own that date.

WATCH: Top 10 batting performances of BBL|05

Christmas Day is a whole different proposition. It wouldn’t just be another Big Bash game, we'd look to create an event around it. We could look to partner with perhaps a children's charity for the day, and by extension, invite everyone attending the game to bring a present to donate to kids less fortunate than themselves. There are a lot of people on Christmas Day who aren't fortunate enough to have family and friends around. Perhaps a BBL game could create an outlet to bring those people together. But whatever we decide, it would have to add value to the day – we don’t want to go against years of family tradition. The final element is that not all Australians celebrate a traditional Christmas. That’s not a reason to do it in its own right but we need to think more broadly that Christmas Day means different things to different people. Sport on Christmas day has worked in the US, and there are some learnings from that we could look into further.

The Big Bash seems to have found its fit in the school holidays. Would you consider expanding the window?

AE: We've still got plenty of empty seats; notwithstanding the success that we've had, it's not like every venue is bursting at the seams and there's excess demand that we currently can't service. So we're encouraged by the public's response to BBL over the last five years. Anecdotally there seems to be an appetite for more content, but there are a whole lot of different options on the table as to how we could deliver that. Professional cricket services Australia's major capitals well, between Tests, ODIs, BBL, Shield, Matador Cup, but there are a whole lot of regional centres that are craving access to elite cricket. Maybe BBL plays a role in that.

Based on a couple of the initiatives we trialled this year with the schedule, specifically the late-night double-header and then also the twilight game on the east coast – 4-7pm – followed by the 7-10pm game, also on the east coast, both of which were successful in terms of a ratings perspective and attendance, that gives us freedom for time slots within that window. We already play 35 games in 39 days, so there's not a lot of room to grow horizontally, but based on the success of those trials, it's feasible that we could play a handful more games within the existing window.

It was scrapped before the 2015 edition, but do you support the concept of a Champions League tournament?

AE: Very much so. It creates a really positive extra dimension to BBL. I know the players really crave the opportunity to test themselves against some of the best domestic T20 players in the world outside our own competition. Feedback from players over previous years who have played has been very positive, and I think the fans are generally supportive of seeing their clubs test themselves against the best in the world once they've reached the top of the BBL mountain. So philosophically yes, but the challenge has always been finding, from a scheduling perspective, when is the right time to play it and in what format that works commercially, which ultimately was the undoing of the previous edition.

Some fans want to see more international players in the competition. Is the number of internationals allowed per club (two) likely to change?

AE: No, that's not on the agenda of change for the foreseeable future at this stage.

West Indian Chris Gayle fell afoul of the League's powerbrokers this season – would he be welcome back to the competition?

AE: The short answer is it's a hypothetical because he's out of contract. As far as we are aware, no clubs at this stage are in any form of discussions with him.

What value is there for clubs in including Australia reps on their roster such as Steve Smith, if they're unavailable for the duration – or the vast majority – of the season?

AE: We want to come up with a solution that ensures to the best of our ability the Australian players are involved in some form. Five years in, there aren't many surprises for clubs when they do their contracting; the BBL season is reasonably settled, as is the Test series at the front end of BBL and the ODI series at the back end. So they're in as good a position as they've ever been to manage their squads, knowing the scheduling landscape is fairly predictable. They have a squad of 18 players that they can contract, and we also introduced a rule last year which meant if a contracted player gets called up for national duty, they can bring in a local replacement player, so they're not caught short. That in its own right at least provides them with more flexibility to be able to carry some Australian players on their books.

What about Australia player availability for BBL finals – is there a perfect fix there?

AE: We're going to sit down as part of our season review with the clubs at the start of March, and we'll invite Pat Howard (CA's Executive General Manager, Team Performance) and his team along to have a pretty open discussion around how the current system is working. If there was an easy alternative, we would have found it by now.

We respect the fact that the national team remains the premiere form of the game, and players aspire to represent Australia and win games of cricket. Inevitably there's going to be some tension there, and in some cases, conflict, because the BBL would love to have their best players available for finals.

WATCH: Best of BBL|05 players on the mic

I don't necessarily think the onus is on the Australian selectors or the high performance department to solve that. I think there's potentially a solution around scheduling of finals within the international window – could we create a window for BBL finals that avoids the problem altogether? It's never going to be perfect – you have injuries, guys returning from injury, overseas tours following the BBL season, World Cups – that's the world we live in. So we have to be careful. We could go to extraordinary lengths to try and solve a problem which, given all those other moving parts around the BBL season, we may never quite be able to get perfect, but certainly the aspiration is to have Australian representatives playing in the competition, and the finals, as much as we possibly can.

What is the likelihood of seeing Indian players in BBL|06?

AE: It's out of our hands. The Indian players are no different to players from any other country in that they require a 'no-objection certificate' from their board. To date, the BCCI haven't provided that clearance, and they're of course within their rights to take that position.

We'd be absolutely delighted if the Indian players were given the green light to participate in BBL, and we genuinely think they would add a lot of value to the spectacle. But it's not the be-all and end-all for us. As we've seen in the past couple of years, the BBL has experienced phenomenal growth, and I think any fan watching a BBL game on TV or going to a game know they're going to get a fantastic mix of talent both domestically and from overseas.