Does the A-League need a Big Bash style experiment?

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The fans roar as the fireworks explode – with music blasting a Mexican wave engulfs the stadium. Cricket Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL) has succeeded in attracting families to their sport, which is something that the A-League could look to replicate.

The A-League could learn from both the failures and successes of the Big Bash League to rejuvenate football in Australia, with a BBL style concept to attract consumers and fans to the A-League in a unique manner.

However, an approach into a BBL style experiment would have to be taken carefully as there is a fine line between creating a product that is viewed as a serious competition and creating a product that is looked down upon such as AFLX.

The BBL’s peak was on January 2, in 2016 when 80,883 fans packed into the MCG to watch a match between the Melbourne Stars and the Melbourne Renegades.

While the Big Bash has been in a supposed decline in popularity since, the league has still been able to produce some large attendances.

54,478 people attended a Melbourne Derby on January 4 earlier this year – the third highest crowd for a BBL game in the league’s history.

Meanwhile the A-League’s highest crowd before COVID-19 interrupted the 2019/20 season was 33,523 people at October’s draw between Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City.

Cricket Australia’s success with the BBL came from creating an experience geared towards families and children – with pump up music, fireworks and flamethrowers that were suited to T20 cricket with its high scoring, exciting and shorter format.

Former Liverpool star Craig Johnston has suggested an idea of what an A-League version of the BBL would look like.

“Four quarters, 15 minutes each, rotating substitutes, sin bins, all the things you’re not allowed to do in soccer,” he told The Daily Football Show in 2019.

“So effectively in midfield, you could take a touch, get past a player and you could shoot for goal. Then the goalkeeper’s either saving that shot or it’s a goal.”

“We’re utilising the same players but we’re taking out their midfield and we’re giving the players and the consumers four times more of what they want in the quarter of the time.”

Johnston believes that a Big Bash style format should be adapted by Australian football with A-League teams.

“The big idea is the Big Bash of soccer, but then the kids copy it at their training grounds,” he said.

“It is professional six-a-side with A-League teams. The A-League teams split in half, red versus blue, they play against each other.”

“The Big Bash and the One Day series is the best thing that ever happened to cricket in terms of engaging young minds and future minds.”

If the A-League was to try BBL style product it would need to make sure the best players are available – a weakness of the Big Bash has been that some of the biggest names in Australian cricket do not play regularly in the competition as the league clashes with international fixtures.

An A-League Big Bash competition would also be taken more seriously if the best players were playing regularly.

Perhaps the naming rights sponsor of the competition could provide a cash prize to the winning club, to entice clubs to field their best players.

One lesson that the A-League could learn from the Big Bash is that it has been made too long, something that even stars of the competition like Glen Maxwell have admitted.

“I think the length of the tournament when it was 10 games, I think we all really enjoyed that. I think it was the perfect amount,” Maxwell told SEN in early 2020.

“I just think 14 games is just a little bit much. It just makes for a very long tournament and probably goes for a touch too long.

“With school starting again it makes it a bit more difficult to keep the interest levels going until the end (of the season).”

The Big Bash was at its best when there was a limited number of games played predominantly in the school holidays.

If each A-League team played each other once in a new competition it could have an 11 game season plus a short finals series.

Ideally the A-League Big Bash concept would need to have as many games broadcast on free-to-air as possible – in order to easily accessible to fans.

There seems to be a lack of momentum coming into the 2020/21 A-League season, which is just under a week away. An Australian football version of the BBL could potentially be played as a lead in tournament to the A-League season, bringing attention and hype to the beginning of the competition.

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Capital Football Introduces Pink Armband to Protect Junior Referees

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Image Credit: Marist Canberra FC

Capital Football has launched a visible identification program for referees under 18, requiring them to wear a pink armband during matches. It’s intended to build awareness surrounding the concern across Australian football about the abuse driving young officials out of the game.

The Pink Armband Initiative, effective immediately across Capital Football’s competitions in the ACT and surrounding region, makes junior referees identifiable to players, coaches and spectators. The federation says the marker is designed to set clear behavioural expectations and signal that many match officials are minors still developing their skills.

Capital Football acknowledged a referee crisis as far back as 2022, at which point it restructured its entire referee department in partnership with Football Australia. The pink armband program is the latest layer of that response; this time by targeting the cultural conditions on match day rather than systems of recruitment and pay.

A problem that spans codes and states

Research has consistently linked referee abuse to declining retention rates, with officials quitting in growing numbers due to sustained mistreatment, a trend researchers warn will reduce the pool of skilled match officials available at all levels of the game. Studies also show that young, less experienced referees are disproportionately likely to be subject to abuse.

Capital Football is not alone in reaching for a visible solution. Similar programs operate across Football Queensland, Football South Australia, Football South Coast and several other federations, while Basketball Victoria and Basketball South Australia have adopted comparable measures through the Green Whistle initiative. The spread of these programs across codes and states reflects a shared administrative problem: many grassroots referees are teenagers and volunteers who do not officiate for money but because they love the game, and abuse is eroding that foundation.

For a federation overseeing nearly 29,000 registered players, fewer referees means fewer matches. Fewer matches means reduced participation. The pink armband is a low-cost intervention with structural consequences if it works.

Football Victoria Backs Campaign to Shield Junior Players from Gambling Harm

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More than 600 sporting clubs across Victoria have enrolled in a state government program designed to limit young players’ exposure to gambling, with Football Victoria now urging its community clubs to join before a late-July registration deadline.

The Love the Game initiative asks clubs to formally commit to a set of principles: refusing sports betting sponsorships, developing internal harm prevention policies, and building environments where coaches, parents and players are equipped to discuss gambling risks with children.

The program’s public health rationale has a sharper statistical edge than its community-facing materials suggest. A 2025 study of Victorian secondary school students aged 12 to 17 found that nearly 30% had gambled at some point, and among those who had gambled in the past year, 7.5% met the criteria for problem-gambling and a further 26.8% were classified as ‘at-risk’. The research, commissioned by the state government and published earlier this year, also found that students exposed to gambling venues and advertising were more likely to gamble or to do so in a risky manner.

The most recent Victorian Population Gambling Study found that Victorians aged 18 to 24 are the group least likely to gamble overall, yet carry the highest rates of harmful gambling across all age groups. Young people aged 18 to 34 are around five times more likely to bet on sports than older cohorts.

When the data lands at the clubhouse door

Football Victoria’s support for the program reflects a broader recognition within community sport that participation rates and club culture are connected. The environments clubs create shape whether young people stay in sport and what norms they carry with them into adulthood. For football specifically, which draws participants across a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, that responsibility is not evenly distributed. Approximately 440,000 Victorians, or 8.5 per cent of the state’s population, are classified as being at some risk of experiencing problem gambling.

The Victorian Government’s program gives clubs more than symbolic membership. Registered clubs receive practical tools to develop governance frameworks around gambling harm, resources for coaching staff and volunteers, and standing as part of a growing network of clubs taking a formal position on the issue.

Researchers have described the current framing of gambling harm as a matter of personal responsibility as inadequate, arguing it is a public health issue requiring a systemic response. Community football clubs, with their reach into households across the state, are one of the institutional levers available to make that response visible.

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