Australian cricketers in women's domestic competitions will earn an average salary of $160,000 under a new multibillion-dollar plan to boost the growth of women's and girls' cricket.
Unveiled on Tuesday, Cricket Australia's ten-year plan also includes a change to the women's Big Bash competition, which will feature a 40-match regular season – in line with the BBL – and the introduction of a new domestic women's Twenty20 competition to “create opportunities additional high performance for national players”.
The WBBL will move to a 40 game season.Credit: Getty
The governing body's aim is to increase total revenue from women's cricket by $100 million to keep the sport “at the forefront of the women's sporting revolution”.
Amongst the increase in player payments, the peak body committed to a $500 million investment in infrastructure, increasing participation rates for grassroots girls to 100,000 and increasing average annual cricket attendances across all women to 600,000.
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Describing the change to payments, Cricket Australia announced:
“The new T20 competition will increase the average women's national player salary for 2024-25, including WBBL contract, state/territory contract and domestic match payments, to $163,322, an increase of $12,303 (8% ) from 2023-24, while the WBBL's current salary cap will remain, meaning there is no reduction in player payments.”
Australian cricket champion Ellyse Perry highlighted the importance of commercial growth for the sport.
“With audiences on the rise, the public appetite for women's sport is now undisputed and we would like to see the big stadiums full of fans for our international and WBBL matches and more girls inspired to play cricket.
