Giving Coast a bash
Is the Gold Coast the right market for a BBL expansion franchise?
ARE the Gold Coast and Big Bash League cricket not a match made in heaven?
The 20-over format is designed to show the average person how fun cricket is and what better stage to exhibit that than the party-centric, beach-lined Gold Coast. Metricon Stadium has certainly proven itself to be an exceptional place to watch Aussie rules and I can’t imagine it would be any less of a spectacle with cricket being played.
There is no doubt the Gold Coast has a considerable appetite for its own BBL franchise.
The city has a passionate cricket community full of people who often make the train trip up each summer to watch the Brisbane Heat play at the Gabba. Personally, I love Test cricket but I also have for weeks been counting down the days until tomorrow night’s BBL season-opener. The BBL is kicking some serious goals right now and as soon as the competition is deemed ready to expand, organisers should make a beeline for the Gold Coast.
Every weekend more than 1500 cricketers don the whites and play in local divisions – and then there’s the large cohort who play indoor cricket on weeknights.
Take them, plus former players, friends, and noncricketing families looking for a three-hour blast of entertainment and you have a pretty handy starting point. People will argue professional sports teams don’t thrive on the Coast. Well, BBL might be just the perfect formula for success.
THE idea of a T20 Big Bash fixture involving the Gold Coast Sunnies, Stingrays, Surfers, Boardies, Rays or whatever the team may be at Metricon Stadium sounds great.
Crash and bash cricket under the lights in the national tourist capital should work with so many visitors here on holidays in the summer months. Or would it ... because fans here are a fickle lot.
There are two major issues that will come into play for a Coast franchise. One is obviously finances. Would there be enough sponsors willing to tip in the big dollars that will be needed to attract the stars to pad up for the Seaweeds?
The other is getting bums on seats to bring in the big bucks to help pay for those stars. As we all know, national sporting franchises on the Gold Coast have come and gone far too often, the victims of broken promises, overestimating just how much the general public is willing to support such ventures. Yes, yes, we’ll go to watch has been the initial reaction in the past. Enthusiasm has waned rapidly without success.
Using the Gold Coast Suns and the Gold Coast Titans as examples – clubs involved in Australia’s biggest national codes – the glitter, and public support, has eroded steadily. Success is the key word because without it the public here will quickly find other summer pursuits. I hope I am wrong because, as I said earlier, the concept of a Gold Coast Big Bash franchise is exciting. But those doubts still linger in people’s minds, and rightly so.