Cricket Victoria is preparing to retire the Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades brands and merge the two Big Bash League clubs into one state-backed team, in one of the biggest shake-ups in the competition’s history.

The move would end two of the BBL’s original Melbourne identities after 15 years, clearing the way for Cricket Victoria to keep one team while selling the second Melbourne licence to a private investor.

Cricket Victoria chief executive Nick Cummins has defended the decision as a matter of financial survival rather than preference, telling that the organisation was “not doing this for the love of anything other than accepting it as a financial necessity”.

The plan would see the Stars and Renegades folded into a single Cricket Victoria-controlled team, with the second licence left available for sale. Fox Sports reported the merged team would be run by Cricket Victoria, while the other licence could be sold under Cricket Australia’s wider push to bring private investment into the BBL.

Cricket Victoria is yet to confirm the final branding for the new team, with an announcement expected later this month. It remains unclear whether the Stars and Renegades will continue under their existing names for the 2026-27 BBL season, although Cricket Australia chief executive Todd Greenberg had previously said the next campaign would proceed as normal.

The decision marks a stunning fall for two clubs that once delivered some of the competition’s biggest moments. At their peak, the Stars and Renegades drew more than 80,000 fans to the MCG for a Melbourne derby, while the 2013 on-field clash between Shane Warne and Marlon Samuels remains one of the BBL’s most replayed incidents.

In 2019, the Renegades defeated the Stars in the BBL final at Marvel Stadium, completing a dramatic late comeback after the Stars appeared to be cruising towards the title.

But behind the rivalry, Cricket Victoria has been wrestling with the financial implications of Cricket Australia’s proposed BBL privatisation strategy. According to reports, early estimates of the funding gap facing Australian cricket were around $90 million, but later forecasts pushed that figure closer to $400 million.

Cummins said Cricket Victoria initially opposed selling stakes in BBL clubs because it wanted to protect cricket programs and community priorities. But he said the size of the financial gap changed the equation, with potential funding cuts threatening areas the organisation considered important.

The shift has left Victoria moving faster than several other states. The ABC reported that Cricket Australia’s original privatisation proposal stalled in April after opposition from Queensland and New South Wales, and that any sale of BBL licences would still require approval from the Australian Cricketers’ Association.

The merged Melbourne team is expected to play home matches at the MCG and adopt a navy blue kit, although the official team name has not been finalised. The report said the decision had angered some fans, who felt the original identities had been discarded without proper consultation.

The future of players, contracts, staff and supporters is now likely to become a major issue. Any transfer of player contracts to new entities would need to be worked through with the Australian Cricketers’ Association, while staff and commercial partners face uncertainty over which parts of the existing clubs will survive.

Cricket Victoria’s position is that merging the two operations gives staff and sponsors a clearer future, while allowing the second licence to be sold cleanly to a new owner who can create their own brand, colours and identity.

The decision also raises questions about whether the Stars or Renegades’ names could disappear completely from Australian cricket. The official Melbourne Renegades and Melbourne Stars websites are still promoting their current BBL and WBBL teams, tickets and memberships, but the proposed restructure would leave those brands facing an uncertain future.

The BBL has long struggled to balance city-based identities with its national broadcast and commercial ambitions. One-team markets such as Perth have produced some of the league’s strongest supporter bases, with the Scorchers becoming a clear example of how a single state identity can dominate the competition.

Victoria’s new model appears to be aimed at creating a similar single-team identity for the state, while allowing a privately owned second Melbourne side to enter with a fresh brand.

The move is also likely to attract interest from overseas investors, including Indian Premier League-linked groups, as Australian cricket looks for new money to strengthen the BBL and support Cricket Australia’s balance sheet.

For long-time fans, however, the financial argument may not soften the blow. The Stars and Renegades were created to manufacture a Melbourne rivalry and give the BBL a local edge in Australia’s biggest sporting market. Their proposed merger now signals that cricket’s commercial priorities have shifted.

If approved, the change would mark the end of the BBL’s original Melbourne derby era and open a new, more corporate chapter for the competition.

Cricket Victoria argues the move is necessary to protect the wider game. Fans may see it differently: as the death of two clubs they were asked to support, now sacrificed to fix cricket’s financial problems.

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