The Big Bash League (BBL) is about to celebrate its 15th season. There are current BBL players not old enough to remember the Australian cricket summer without the T20 franchise competition, which grew rapidly after its inception in 2011.

The BBL memorably peaked in the middle of last decade, marked by a still record tournament crowd of 80,000 for the Melbourne Derby. But an expanded length of competition in 2018, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic, saw its crowds and value decline before a truncated tournament helped engineer a bounce back in recent seasons.

"I'm seeing a lot of indicators that are showing it's back at this sort of BBL 5-6 level," Cricket Victoria chief Nick Cummins told ESPNcricinfo. "For Stars and Renegades, ticket sales are up year on year since Covid, growing at abou

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