No, it isn’t finished, but Monday’s meeting with state chairs no longer carries the weight CA needed it to. The Australian Cricketers’ Association sent CA a clear message on Sunday evening: sign-off from the players’ union is a precondition, and that sign-off isn’t coming yet. Until CA improves its offer to players, the privatisation process cannot legally advance regardless of how the states vote.
ACA Blocks the Path Forward
ACA CEO Paul Marsh sent an email to Australian players on Sunday, 14 June 2026, the night before CA’s scheduled Monday meeting with state chairs, confirming the union would not accept the current MOU. Marsh stated the ACA was not aligned with the direction of the process and did not believe it would deliver the best outcome for players or the game. That framing was pointed: not a procedural objection, but a substantive one about where the money goes.
The key line wasn’t the rejection itself. It was Marsh’s direct acknowledgment that privatisation cannot proceed without ACA agreement. ESPNcricinfo’s reporting corroborated this, confirming ACA sign-off sits alongside the states’ vote and CA board approval as a precondition for the process to move forward. CA required all three. As of Sunday night, they have none of them locked.
The States’ Vote Isn’t Enough
Even setting aside the ACA’s block, the state vote mathematics were already tight. NSW and Queensland had both formally rejected the initial proposal to sell stakes in all eight BBL clubs, with Queensland joining NSW in rejecting it in its entirety around 30 April 2026. That left four states, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, and Tasmania, from which CA needed all four votes to reach the four-state threshold required to advance to the next phase.
| State | Position |
| New South Wales | Rejected proposal |
| Queensland | Rejected proposal |
| Victoria | Supportive |
| Western Australia | Supportive |
| Tasmania | Supportive |
| South Australia | Hybrid (open to partial/staged approach) |
South Australia’s “hybrid” stance, open to some states proceeding while others wait, introduced further uncertainty. CA needed a clean four-state majority from a field where one of those four states was already proposing a slower, partial path. Monday’s vote, in that context, was already complicated before Marsh’s email landed.
BBL privatisation, ACA Cricket Australia MOU 2026
The dispute between the ACA and CA isn’t just about the principle of private ownership. It’s about what players will actually be paid under it. Marsh’s email to players spelled out the three specific failures in CA’s proposal: it didn’t improve on the existing player revenue share arrangement, didn’t provide salary increases across all player cohorts, and didn’t address the broader priorities players had already put to CA.
The ACA’s position wasn’t a refusal to engage. Marsh confirmed the union would continue working with CA and the states to find terms that work for players and the game, noting that any sale of these clubs is permanent and needs to be structured correctly from the outset. Separately, the ACA is also in ongoing discussions with CA over payment structure changes for BBL and WBBL players ahead of the coming season, a negotiation running parallel to, but distinct from, the privatisation MOU talks.
What CA’s Timeline Still Allows
CA has publicly committed to maintaining the BBL’s current format for the 2026-27 season, so the Monday impasse doesn’t affect the upcoming competition. The longer target is a resolution by 2027-28, which Todd Greenberg flagged as achievable well within the existing broadcast agreement. That Seven and Foxtel deal is a seven-year, AUD 1.512 billion arrangement running from 2024 through the end of the 2030-31 season, giving CA several years of runway before the financial urgency of privatisation becomes acute.
Greenberg had already acknowledged, in statements from late April and early May 2026, that the timing of private capital’s arrival in Australian cricket was uncertain. His position was that private investment would come eventually, just not necessarily on CA’s preferred schedule. The ACA’s rejection of the BBL privatisation ACA Cricket Australia MOU 2026 terms doesn’t close that door permanently, but it does mean CA has to go back to the table with a substantially better offer before any vote at the state level carries any binding weight.