Bumper women’s cricket pay deal can reinvigorate the domestic game in Australia

I n October 2016 the NSW Breakers made history when they became the first fully professional women’s domestic team in Australia. There were professional players in women’s sports around the country, but this deal marked the first time an entire team was earning the national minimum wage of $35,000 a year.

Over the following six and a half years, the landscape of women’s sport has shifted considerably. The latest Super Netball pay deal lifted the minimum wage to $43,000, while the AFLW last year implemented a 94% pay rise for its lowest paid players – with the minimum wage increasing from $20,239 to $39,184.

Australian cricket has continued to set the standard for women at an international level, but this week’s announcement of momentous jumps in wages for women’s domestic players has echoes of the significance of the 2016 Breakers deal. For the first time, it provides a viable way for Australian women to make a financially successful career purely as a domestic team sport athlete.

It is timely for cricket as international pressures begin to rise. The success of the first season of the Women’s Premier League in India is the most obvious of these – in a tournament that lasted a little over three weeks, Australia all-rounder Ash Gardner walked away with $558,000 for her time. These opportunities for women to earn serious money internationally will continue to grow. The Hundred is proving more successful than most imagined and the FairBreak Invitational – currently taking place in Hong Kong – is another short-form tournament that offers considerable earning potential and the opportunity for women to contribute to growing the game across non-traditional cricketing nations.

While the Women’s Big Bash League has long been