Regional centres are rolling out the red carpet to travelling England cricket supporters with newfound time on their hands, and last-minute side trips are becoming the norm for the Barmy Army as Bazball changes what it means to tour Australia.
The two-day Perth Test was unusually brief, leaving Cricket Australia with a $4m shortfall and broadcasters bereft of live content to fill their schedules.
England’s commitment to attacking cricket – the side has drawn just twice in three years under head coach Brendon McCullum and never outside of Manchester – also has wider consequences.
English fans in Perth may have suffered through the defeat in the stands, but the result opened up their diaries for non-cricketing activities. Some visited Rottnest Island to see the quokkas, others went to wineries in Margaret River, while dozens gathered in Fremantle on Monday to enjoy a warm if typically windy spring afternoon in Perth.
“There’s two sides to it, isn’t there?,” says Barmy Army tour group managing director Chris Millard, whose organisation works with local tourism groups to offer optional trips to fans on days where there would otherwise be play.
“When you’re watching the cricket and you’re in and out, and you’ve got your flights booked, you try and cram everything in, but when the cricket finishes early, you get more time to see the city and see the place you’re in, so – taking the positives from it – we’ve had a lot more time to enjoy the delights of Perth.”
It’s an opportunity others are now eyeing, eager to benefit from the roughly 40,000 English fans in Australia for the series. Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate was quick to remind them of the appeal of his region on Tuesday, if the next Test at the Gabba in Brisbane doesn’t go the distance.
“With the adrenaline still pumping, let it out by getting down to the Gold Coast,” Tate suggested, adding the coastline is a good place for beach cricket or a barbecue, while the hinterland provides more opportunities for recreation. “With the way things have been going lately, the Barmy Army might have plenty of free time.”
Tate’s offer may have been partly in jest, but the implications of Bazball are serious for Cricket Australia, which lost $11.3m in 2024-25. The governing body will have saved some money for not having to open Perth Stadium beyond day two, but the net impact of no cricket on days three and four will mean a loss of $3-4m.
CA has insurance to cover for the impact of wet weather, but there is no such safety net for the whims of McCullum and England captain Ben Stokes. One former cricket administrator told the Guardian: “If I were an insurer I wouldn’t be underwriting Tests with England.”
Cricket partners are also impacted. Millard said his organisation now faces pressure to meet its series targets to sell shirts, flags and other Barmy Army paraphernalia at its pop-up stores outside each venue.
Channel 7 reported record ratings for the first Test, and an increase of 60% in average audience compared with last year’s contest against India. Across the two days, the broadcast averaged almost 1.2 million viewers which would have been enough to top the national Sunday night ratings, if the match had lasted that long. However, Seven was well beaten by Channel 9 that day after scrambling to fill its schedule with WBBL and a one-hour live special recapping the action from the preceding two days highlighted by Travis Head’s century.
Networks will typically sell a package of advertising to brands for the entire series, but if those ads do not reach the anticipated audience, the network will need to offer “make-goods” to ensure the brand reaches the demographic it wants at a scale it has paid for.
The impact of a single short Test won’t have a significant short-term impact therefore, but a series of Tests that struggle to go near five days could put Channel 7 on the back foot in 2026. But, like in the cricket, there are winners and losers. Margaret River Busselton Tourism Association chief executive, Sharna Kearney, said a surge of English accents were heard in the week leading up to the Test and they were quick to return on Sunday and Monday, which would have been days three and four of the Test.
“It’s not necessarily how long they’re here this time, the experience that they have and then potentially they think to themselves, ‘Hey, that was fantastic down there, we’d love to come back at another time.’”
