Melbourne Stars set to merge under Cricket Victoria in BBL shake-up
melbourne stars and the Renegades are set to merge into one Big Bash League side run by Cricket Victoria. Staff were told on Tuesday, and the new team would still be called Melbourne under the BBL’s rules. The change would fold two Melbourne franchises into one.
Cricket Victoria’s one-team plan
The reported move comes as Cricket Australia pushes a broader revamp of the T20 competition. Cricket Victoria already runs both Melbourne teams, and the merged side would play at the MCG while likely wearing navy blue state colours. That leaves Melbourne with one franchise name for the competition even though the state body would continue to control the setup.
The second licence is also expected to be sold entirely rather than partly, which separates this plan from a lighter ownership change. Todd Greenberg has said Cricket Australia remains keen on a partial privatisation model, but the broader effort was put on hold in April when Queensland joined New South Wales in rejecting the plan. Those decisions slowed the push for a league-wide ownership reset.
Melbourne name, new identity
Last week, Daniel Cherny reported that Bushrangers had been considered as a new name. That would have linked the new side to Victoria’s cricket past, but the BBL’s naming rules point instead to Melbourne as the likely identity for the merged team.
The Renegades won the 2018-19 championship. The Stars have never won a BBL title and have finished runner-up three times, which gives the merger an uneven starting point on the field as well as off it. One club brings a trophy. The other brings the competition’s strongest record without one.
For supporters, the immediate change is simpler than the politics around it: one Melbourne team instead of two, under Cricket Victoria’s control, with a new sale process still to work through. The next layer is branding, because the name, colours and home venue now sit inside the same restructure that is trimming Melbourne’s footprint in the league.
