WOMEN IN CASH COUP

Cricket’s new deal sets up pay parity with men

THE new Cricket Australia deal is a game changer for women’s sport in Tasmania, with the Roar and WBBL Hurricanes to be the first professional female teams in the state’s history.

Cricket Tasmania’s Nick Cummins said domestic male and female players would earn the same hourly rate.

He said a player listed with both the Roar and the Hurricanes could earn up to $60,000 a year as the total pool jumps from $7 million to $55.2 million for women’s cricket.

While he said this was less in a collective total than the men, the difference was the Roar play and train less than their male equivalents. The Roar play six 50-over games, while the men play six Matador Cup (50-over) and 10 Sheffield Shield (four-day) games.

“It is absolutely parity for the first time in Australian sport,” Cummins said. “This is a game changer for women in the state.”

The Roar players’ salaries will jump from $11,000 to $27,287 by 2021 (a 148 per cent increase) while the WBBL Hurricanes will rise from a minimum of $7000 to $11,584 over five years (up 65 per cent). However Cummins said the average WBBL retainer would be nearly double that.

He said a combined Roar/ Hurricanes player was earning about $15,000 a year last season to play cricket.

“For an 18 or 19-year-old, this increase is now pretty good money,” he said.

With AFL, soccer and netball all making great strides in professional women’s sports, CA hopes the increase in salaries will give cricket the edge when it comes to attracting and retaining first-choice athletes.

Womensport and Recreation Tasmania president Dana Faletic said while she was yet to go through the details around state players’ pay increases, she was happy at the jump in pay for the women’s national team, rising from a $40,000 in 2017 to $87,609 by 2021 — a 119 per cent increase.

“We know a lot of women in national teams across the sport still have to work, that is usually not the case for men in the same sport so that’s a good move,” Faletic said. “The increase can only improve the quality of the game, so I think it is a really good step in the right direction.”

And she said it was not only in remuneration that saw greater equality from the long, often bitter cricket pay way.

“The most positive thing was the players to bargain collectively and that includes the female players,” she said.

“That to me is a good sign the players want to work together and the men recognise the women and the women recognise the men equally in the sport.”

Contracts will go out soon to Tasmanian Roar, Tigers and Hurricanes players with the first acceptances to be returned by next week.

Cummins said contracts would also be sent to the Hurricanes BBL and WBBL imports over the weekend.