Racing
League
Rugby
Cricket
Golf
Motorsport
Combat Sports
Football
Netball
Basketball
Other Sports
Sport Nation
SELECT 👉 Basin Reserve feed
'We don’t have a cent yet': NZ20 chair on bold ambitions and early hurdles for privatised T20 league
Sport Nation • December 9th, 2025 5:00 pm
McLean Park | Photo: Photosport
There are some major discussions taking place to plot a path forward for the game at the domestic level.
The future of our T20 scene has taken centre stage with a variety of options under the spotlight, including a privately backed franchise league to match the myriad of other such competitions sprouting across the globe.
The proposed four-week competition has been dubbed NZ20, the chair of its establishment committee, Don Mackinnon, joined Sport Nation's Daniel McHardy to discuss the concept in more detail, shedding some light on the key obstacles and exactly how advanced the process is for its introduction.
Who is involved and what are you hoping to achieve?
What we're hoping to achieve is to set up a boutique short T20, ideally privately backed, franchise competition in New Zealand. Where our planning would be a short tournament for our women in December and and a four-week tournament for our men in January. That's the concept.
Who's involved? Well, the the original thinking came from Stephen Fleming and Heath Mills from the Players Association. They approached me along with a couple of members of the major associations and together we've formed loosely formed or called establishment committee that also involves guy John Chandler, who's an investment banker, and Jason Wells, who's got some really strong media background.
That's our working establishment committee and we're really pleased New Zealand Cricket also put two of their directors on that committee and two of the major association chairs.
How do you think this proposed idea would impact the landscape here?
At the end of the day, the only people that can ultimately make that call will be New Zealand Cricket. From our perspective, we just see huge upsides.
We all love the game, and when the Blackcaps and White Ferns are playing great sides, the public gets excited. But it's hard to really engage fans with with cricket and get them really excited about it. And if you look at say the Caribbean League of what's happened in South Africa, the the rebirth, the re-energisation of cricket, young fans in particular, they've got a totally different way of consuming sport to how we all did as we were growing up.
We think the game needs something really funky, innovative, fan-centric, that still works with New Zealand Cricket, still works with our high performance system, doesn't undermine the Blackcaps, doesn't undermine the White Ferns.
That's what we've tried to design. We've put that to New Zealand cricket and and quite rightly they're evaluating that alongside other options.
Sumo on why NZ20 could have enormous merit | Scotty & Izzy
As far as your chats with investors, they haven't said that without all the New Zealand players available all the time, this is dead in the water?
Not in the slightest. The key though, we are saying to New Zealand Cricket, is if you want to go with this concept, the clean window is essential. I don't think it would work in New Zealand if the best players in New Zealand are constantly playing for New Zealand at the same time. That is the key in our mind.
We can't demand that. We can simply say, 'hey, it's going to need that clean window. When can that clean window be? Can we adjust that?'
South Africa, for example have done that. Other countries have done it. So, the clean window is, in our mind, fundamental to success. But all we can do is make proposals and make suggestions about how this could apply.
How many teams? Where would they be based? I love our domestic product. I think it's undervalued. I think the New Zealand sporting community is missing out on some high quality cricket already. So tell me, in your world, what are you creating?
It's a concept, it's a model. But at the moment we see six teams in the men's game. We would go through a proper bidding process, but we're really attracted to the idea of if we can play it in January, it is the window when most Kiwis are on holiday with the best weather, fingers crossed.
Ideally we'd love it in grounds, grass bank enclosures. Not trying to compete with the BBL or IPL, but something that's uniquely Kiwi. So if you imagine, a Brendon McCullum-coached team with Ben Stokes in Queenstown, for example, perhaps playing a Stephen Fleming-coached team with some of our best players.
We'd have to work through that bidding process, but we've got some unique grounds. We offer something that's really different to the rest of the world.
That's the sort of concept, really fan friendly. I always laugh with others when I say I don't really get the Black Clash, but boy our fans do. And you know that really fan centric mode is what we're looking for.
You'd have to accept though you are competing against a Big Bash and SA20 in a January window with regard to recruiting talent, right? Would there be limits on overseas players to protect spots for our domestic players or is it that model still to be worked on?
The model is one that we we will happily engage with New Zealand Cricket once we you know as we get a little bit further down this process, but it's roughly squads of fifteen, potentially three to four international players, capped at that, and a certain number, maybe only about two or three, on the field at any given time.
Yes, we will struggle to get the the best of the best internationals, no doubt about that. But we're really confident we can get the best of the best Kiwi players. Immediately you have Matt Henry bowling to Finn Allen, that's a big lift from what we're getting at the moment domestically. But then, if you have overseas owners who want to use money to get Ben Stokes to Christchurch, they can use it.
You're not taking any of that money out of New Zealand Cricket circulation. You're not taking it from sponsors, you're taking it from somebody overseas who loves the game, who loves New Zealand. It's hard for me to see downsides to that but some people apparently do.
NZC is using Deloitte to assess the four options on the table to determine what the best course of action is. Have you worked with New Zealand Cricket from the start or more circumvented them with the major associations? Because that's certainly the interpretation according to some reports.
Yes, I've heard that. I suppose I can't talk about what was occurring before I got involved, but for the last three months to four months since I've been involved, we quickly took the proposal to a form where we could take it to New Zealand Cricket. We took it as a proposal, so nothing locked in, nothing set in stone.
As I understand it, Stephen and Heath and some of the major association chairs were involved in the original design before I came into the picture. But certainly, my goal from day one has been let's get this firm date, put in front of New Zealand Cricket and see whether we can get there in principle support.
There seems to be this view out there and I think it'd be really sad to go to New Zealand Cricket and said, 'you are required' or 'must do this'. It couldn't be further from the truth.
Daryl Mitchell on why New Zealand needs the proposed NZ20 franchise competition | Mornings
Is the funding on the table? Are the investors there? Are they ready to push play? Because there are suggestions they've backed off.
Are there investors there? Absolutely. Have some of our investors become a little nervous of late? Potential investors, let me be clear - we don't have a single cent at the moment. We have no backers, we have no bank account. I'm doing this for nothing, as my wife keeps reminding me.
But there's no doubt that some investors have said they're surprised by some of the pushback, some of the stuff they've read in the media. Surprised because they thought they were really keen to invest in New Zealand, invest in cricket and in the country, and they're a little surprised about some of the negativity. That is not helping us. I'll be very clear about that.
But there is still so much respect for cricket in New Zealand that I'm confident we could pull this off. I can't guarantee - at the end of the day, it's a start up. But I'm confident.
How would you assess and and judge the leadership of New Zealand cricket in this process? Are you content with it?
I'm the chair of the committee, so it's logical that most of my dealings are with the board. They've been great. My limited dealings with the management team have been very professional as well. They're assessing their options.
I read sometimes that this is some sort of divisive factor in in cricket in New Zealand. From my perspective, I haven't seen that. NZC are quite professionally looking at their options.
I'm sure you'll tell me you probably have no regrets how from your side of things you've gone about things. So for me, the cricket fan, why is everyone not getting along? Why are there so many ruptions then? Do you understand the confusion?
I don't, to be perfectly honest. I've been away from the game now for five years and I loved where we were five years ago. I'm not sure why there seems to be this sort of apparent fracturing, but all I can say is things with NZC have been great and I suppose that's all I can say. And that includes management and that includes board. That's my experience.
Listen to the full interview below:
Jeremy Coney's Hadlee sledge story has Smithy in fits | Sport Nation Cricket
