BBL and Franchises

I've been reading a lot of blogs and articles lately about cricket, and the popular consensus is that people won't follow franchises - people want to follow teams. One of the arguments as to why the BBL is "destined" to fail here in Australia is because the franchise teams are artificial - they have players from all over the country and all over the world playing for city franchises.

I find this argument to be rubbish. Plenty of sporting teams around the world are city-based teams. Just because it hasn't been done in Australia before, doesn't make it a bad thing. Wait - it has been done in Australia before, just not in cricket. Off the top of my head, I think that most sporting teams around the world are city-based. Some of the biggest sporting competitions around the globe have this format.

As for the players from all over the country and world side of things, that's also rubbish. Australian cricket currently has players playing for State sides that don't come from that State - they moved to the new team to further their cricket opportunities. In the past decades Australia has also had players from around the world playing in the competitions that it has had.

I think the real problem is that the people that are making these comments are the Old Guard - those that don't like T20 cricket, that don't like change, and that hope that the competition fails. Personally, I'll wait until the end of the season to see what happens...