Cricket Australia is selling the Melbourne Renegades outright, and the club opens the season in Chennai
The Big Bash has opened its doors to private owners. Bids are being invited for the whole Renegades licence, and the state chief executives went shopping in India before the vote.
Sep 8, 2026
Cricket Australia confirmed on Tuesday that it will invite bids for a 100 per cent stake in the Melbourne Renegades. Not a minority slice, not a strategic partner. The whole licence, covering both the BBL and WBBL teams, with new owners expected to be in place for the 2027-28 seasons.
It is the first sale under what CA is calling a self-determination model, where each state decides for itself whether and when to bring private money into its Big Bash clubs. CA’s merchant bank, Raine Group, begins contacting potential investors this week. A completed sale by Christmas is considered possible.
The club on the market is the one coming to Chennai
There is a neat accident of timing here for Indian fans. The Renegades are the club opening BBL|16 on 12 December at the MA Chidambaram Stadium against the Perth Scorchers, the first Big Bash match ever played outside Australia. So the franchise CA is putting up for sale will spend the opening night of the season in Chepauk, in front of the market it most wants to attract.
None of this affects the coming summer. The Renegades will be run in caretaker mode out of CA headquarters through the 2026-27 season, and they are still signing players, with West Indies allrounder Hayley Matthews added this week for a WBBL|12 campaign that starts on 29 October against the Thunder in Melbourne.
Who actually buys a Big Bash club
Several state chief executives travelled to India and the UK earlier this year to sound out buyers, which tells you where CA thinks the money is. The pattern in the rest of the cricket world is hard to miss. All six SA20 franchises in South Africa are owned by IPL franchise owners. In England, RPSG Group took a majority stake in Manchester Originals and Sun TV bought the Northern Superchargers outright when The Hundred opened up in 2025. Mumbai Indians alone run teams in South Africa, the UAE and the United States.
CA says the emphasis is on the right partner rather than the highest bid, and it has kept a long list of controls. International scheduling, player availability, salary caps and media rights stay with the board. So does the power to veto an investor and to set the reserve price, which has not been disclosed. Changes to a club’s name, colours or branding would need approval too.
Chair Mike Baird, who brought plenty of privatisation experience from his time as premier of New South Wales, put the case in terms of grassroots funding and pathways. Chief executive Todd Greenberg has been blunter in the past about why now, arguing that private investment in the BBL is inevitable and that waiting risks missing the boat while new leagues keep appearing.
Two big states voted against it
Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia backed the move. New South Wales and Queensland did not, and CA has pressed ahead anyway. South Australia sits somewhere in between. The NSW argument, in essence, is that private equity is a sugar hit and that the structural problems in Australian cricket’s finances need a different fix.
The split shows in which clubs are willing. The Hobart Hurricanes, Melbourne Stars and Perth Scorchers are understood to want investment. The two Sydney clubs, the Brisbane Heat and the Adelaide Strikers do not, at least for now. Under the self-determination model they can change their minds later, which is the compromise that got this over the line.
The players have not signed anything yet
The Australian Cricketers’ Association has said it supports privatisation provided the long-term interests of the game are protected, and it is still negotiating with CA over how much of the new money reaches players. That sits inside a new memorandum of understanding which is not done. CA acknowledged on Tuesday that constructive discussions with the states and the ACA have to continue while the Renegades sale proceeds.
Which makes the staging of the announcement worth noting. Baird and Greenberg were flanked at the SCG by Pat Cummins, Travis Head, Sophie Molineux and Ellyse Perry. Cummins has not played a BBL match since the 2018-19 summer. Getting that group to stand there while the pay dispute is unresolved was the real work of the day.
For Indian readers the interesting part is not whether the Renegades sell. It is what the buyer looks like. If an IPL owner takes the licence, the Big Bash joins South Africa, the UAE, the United States and England as a league where Indian capital sets the direction, and the Chennai opener stops looking like a one-off and starts looking like the first move.