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Cricket Australia Resolves Pay Dispute

Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers' Association have reached an agreement on player remuneration for a five year period starting on 30 June 2017(the deal is back dated).  The agreement means that Australia will tour Bangladesh later this month.

The details of the deal seem to be 


  • Australian cricketers get guaranteed payments over the 5 years of the agreement of between Aus $ 459 million and $500 million.  
  • If Cricket Australia's revenues exceed $1.67b but are less than $1.96b the players' get 19% of the excess.  
  • For revenues above $1.96b the players apparently get a 27.5% share.

The 27.5% share of revenues above $1.96b is  in the Sydney Morning Herald and providing it is accurate would suggest the players got a good deal.  There are two lines in the accounts of Cricket Australia: "Players and Umpires", and "Team Performance", which could include players' remuneration. Allowing for this uncertainty the current share of revenues going to Australian players is perhaps between 15% and 25%.  Cricket Australia's revenue is currently between Aus $ 300m  - $350m a year, the rough equivalent of £200m, compared to the ECB's revenues of about £140m. Given the ECB's success in negotiating a new media rights deal, Cricket Australia's revenues over the next 5 years might well exceed Aus $2b.  It seems reasonable that the players should share in the success of the wider game.

It would be interesting to compare the level of Australian player remuneration with the UK equivalent.  Such a comparison is difficult as the ECB accounts no longer disclose a figure for salaries paid to players, this information was available until 2015 when the players got about 5% of ECB revenues.   The Australian 27.5% share of revenues is shared across 230 contracted players (presumably the majority of professional cricketers in Australia.) but the ECB only employs the elite 42 players who make up the national squads which is another barrier to making a direct comparison. On the face of it a 5% revenue share for the top 42 players compared with 27.5% for the top 230 makes the ECB look a bit stingy but you would have to dig into the detailed figures for payments to county cricketers to reach a definite conclusion.   

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