Don Mackinnon: Sports lawyer on the push for New Zealand to have a T20 franchise league - Weekend Sport with Jason Pine

The time is right for New Zealand to join the rest of the world with a privately-backed, franchise Twenty20 league. 

That’s the message from Don Mackinnon, the man standing at the front of the group looking to achieve just that. 

Some 22 years on from cricket introducing the shortest format, T20 has become the vehicle in which the sport is growing around the world. And, as is the case with sports like football and basketball, strong club-based franchise competitions have proven to be the main driver of that. 

Led by the Indian Premier League, established in 2008, the franchise game has slowly but surely expanded to all corners of the cricket-playing world. First to India, then England, Australia, Pakistan, the West Indies, South Africa and so on. 

Even non-cricketing strongholds such as the US, Canada and even Nepal have franchise domestic leagues. The only exception to that is New Zealand. 

Since the inception of T20 cricket, New Zealand has maintained a domestic competition made up of the six major associations – Auckland, Northern Districts, Wellington, Central Districts, Canterbury and Otago – known as the Super Smash. 

However, the lack of any franchise-style model has left the Super Smash outdated. 

Instead of operating as NZ Cricket’s (NZC) main driver of revenue, the Super Smash instead operates as a breeding ground for local talent, allowing Kiwi players to develop and step into the Black Caps and White Ferns respectively. 

And while that might be beneficial for New Zealand’s national sides, the Super Smash being left off Sky’s new cricket broadcast deal from the start of next summer shows the model, as it stands, is broken. 

But, led by Mackinnon, a consortium that includes former Black Caps captain Stephen Fleming and NZ Cricket Players’ Association boss Heath Mills wants to take New Zealand into the franchise world. 

The proposed “NZ20″ would involve teams created by the major associations being sold to private owners, and establish a league to be played at the height of the Kiwi summer in January, as early as the start of 2027. It would also provide parity to what has been shown to work around the world. 

While the format is still to be finalised, the NZ20 would theoretically be a Kiwi-based league providing New Zealand’s players the opportunity to play a franchise competition at home. 

As and when a format is decided, and agreed to by NZ Cricket, the major associations and the players’ association, the NZ20 would revolutionise the sport in Aotearoa. 

Speaking to Weekend Sport with Jason Pine, Mackinnon – the chairman of the NZ20 Establishing Committee – explained that while similar attempts to implement a franchise league in New Zealand haven’t materialised, the state of the sport in 2025 has changed that equation. 

“If we go back a decade, I was on the board of NZ Cricket,” he said. “We looked at setting up a franchise league back in 2013-14. 

“At the time we didn’t think it was viable. But as one highly respected figure put to me, there’s never been more money in the international game of cricket at the moment. 

“So many people around the world are excited by it and investing in it, but New Zealand is not part of that. 

“I just think the time is right to tweak that model and create something in our domestic league that fans are excited by. The money is there, the interest is there. The timing is perfect.” 

Naturally, with this kind of expansion, falsehoods have materialised. For a start, Mackinnon dismisses any notion the NZ20 is a “rebel league”, as suggested when first reported. 

Mackinnon concedes “it would be crazy to do this without the support of NZC”. 

Earlier this year, the NZ20 Establishing Committee presented the concept to NZC. In turn, two members of the NZC board are also part of the Establishing Committee, at a time when the governing body assesses multiple options as to how to revolutionise the shortest format here. 

Mackinnon also points out that what the NZ20 intends to do isn’t new. 

Cricketing nations across the globe have implemented the same models, where privately-backed franchises co-exist with national boards to allow T20 to operate as the centrepiece of the domestic season. 

Those models have provided the blueprint for the NZ20 Establishing Committee to take on board. 

“What we’re looking to do here is not novel,” Mackinnon said. “In actual fact, it’s done all around the world. 

“The better question might be ‘why aren’t we?’ The South African league, for example, has gone from loss-making to extraordinarily successful. The Caribbean league has done exactly the same. 

“The Caribbean league is probably the model we’ve mostly looked at as replicating, in part.