MELBOURNE: The Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA) has set up a business to manage and market players’ intellectual property should they be unable to strike a pay deal with the national cricket board.

Players have rejected a Cricket Australia (CA) offer that waters down a revenue-sharing model which helped make them among the best-paid cricketers in the world over the last 20 years.

CA has warned that players would not be offered alternative contracts if they failed to agree to terms by a June 30 deadline.

The ACA said the launch of ‘The Cricketers’ Brand’ would help players, broadcasters, sponsors and CA “manage the uncertainty” of a collective bargaining agreement failing to be put in place by the deadline.

“Whilst this business will ‘go live’ on 1 July 2017, the ACA is finalising securing the interim IP of Australia’s elite male and female cricketers pending a new MOU being agreed,” the ACA said in a statement on Wednesday.

Tim Cruickshank, the ACA’s commercial manager, has been appointed as the IP company’s general manager and said it would work with players and their agents to set up a commercial framework for their image rights.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2017