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Cricket pay war: don't call them stupid

Greg Baum

In the beginning, the crux of this dispute was revenue sharing. Nearly a year later, it still is. But now it appears it is not so much the principle as the words. "Revenue sharing" is a sacred incantation to one party, an expletive that must be deleted to the other.

That is what it came to last week. After months of snarling and sulking and skulking, Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers' Association had pretty much agreed to divide revenue into a series of piles of money. Some would be for the board, some for the players. Some piles would be split between them, the ratio depending on how high they grew.

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Cricket's pay dispute explained

Australia's cricketers are effectively unemployed after failing to reach an agreement with the sport's governing body.

In this, there appeared to be mutual recognition that whatever figure you arrive at as a fair share for players could be expressed as a share of the board's revenue. Or not. The ACA even gave it a name, "modernised revenue sharing".

But when CA returned the working document to the ACA the next day with its own annotations, all reference to revenue sharing, modernised or otherwise, had been whited out. And so they returned to snulling and skulling and skarking.

This has been the unedifying thread running through the whole saga. From the beginning, it was clear that the male cricketers would get more, some much more, and the women would be get some, which was more than none, and eventually quite a lot more even than some. This was never about saving penalty rates and petrol money.

But revenue sharing ideology kept getting in the way. The absurdity was most acutely apparent when the AFL finally signed off on its CBA last month. See, no revenue sharing for them, said CA. But it is revenue sharing, said the ACA. It's not revenue sharing as we know it, said CA. But it's revenue sharing, modernised revenue sharing, said the ACA. And then they stumped off back into their corners.

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And after a bit more skarling and sulling and snulking, they began to talk to each other through gritted teeth, knowing that sooner or later, the players would have to get a, well, you know, not share exactly, not portion, not slice, but perhaps, yes, dividend of the, well, you know, not revenue, not all of it, but not just profit either, and not EBITDA, because we're talking about a non-profit, after all, but, hmmm, pool maybe?

And CA and the ACA both made concessions. And odd piles began to appear, like mullock heaps. CA said it would not backpay the players, but instead put the money into a fund. For the grassroots, of course. Now, the players are offering to put some of their money into a fund, for grassroots, naturally. Quite what is the sense of bartering for money from the body that runs the game and then offering it back to help run the game is not clear. But it means another fund.

Then there is the adjustment ledger, money left over from the last MOU, another fund. Its ultimate disbursement is still contested, but you have to admit that cricket is a well-funded sport.

And still players and administrators cannot nail a pay deal. Yes, there is a principle to be decided here, but we're talking about how a rich sport pays already well-paid sportsmen (sportswomen less so) henceforth, not how to fix a budget emergency or feed and clothe the homeless. OK, those sportsmen aren't as well-paid as Bernie Tomic, but they must be even more bored than him by now.

They're stuck in their intractable corners because one insists on couching any deal in terms of revenue sharing, and one insists not, and the more both try to save face, the more each looks like it is cutting off its nose to spite it.

Call it revenue sharing, or modernised revenue sharing, or methode champenoise, or Bugs Bunny, and get on with it. In fact, call it the Fixed and Floating Scheme – FFS!

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