So it's probably not the ideal time to accuse them of murder. But here goes anyway.

Cricket Australia has killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

Worse still, it tortured the poor creature first.

From the moment Shane Warne sent the Melbourne Stars off on their glittering era of domestic Twenty20 vincibility, Australians have adored the Big Bash League.

They have attended games in their thousands, watched them in their millions and guaranteed another generation of cricket-loving supporters ripe for manipulation and exploitation.

The BBL became Cricket Australia's cash cow and its dairy farmers were not reluctant to milk it dry.

Here's where the metaphor morphs between agricultural creatures but, after being handed the goose that laid the golden egg, CA first ordered it to start laying more and then doubled the price of the inferior ovals it was expected to mass-produce.

It was the sporting equivalent of battery farming.

It may have been COVID concern, complacency or, worse still, the care factor, but it can't be sugar-coated: the crowd for Launceston's BBL fixture earlier this month was diabolical.

It was announced as 3316 but looked a lot less.

UTAS Stadium used to sell-out for such occasions.

Many's the time the team named Hobart enjoyed their biggest crowds in Launceston. Not any more.

Admittedly, it was played in the rather anti-social Wednesday twilight timeslot, but the match against Sydney Sixers could have accommodated the same crowd had it been held at Trevallyn.

Bowls club.

The Hurricanes were a little undermanned, but still fielded Matthew Wade and Nathan Ellis fresh from their World Cup triumph plus BBL07 player of the tournament and the side's all-time leading run-scorer D'Arcy Short.

Meanwhile the Sixers' line-up boasted unquestionable T20 superstars like James Vince, Josh Philippe, Dan Christian, Stephen O'Keefe and Jordan Silk. Moises Henriques was also playing. And captaining. And top scoring.

It was played in perfect weather conditions on a balmy summer's evening.

One factor cannot be under-estimated. The cheapest adult price for a seat was $39.

In its early days the BBL was always billed as being family focused. That's now only true if your family name happens to be Musk or Bezos.

It was also poorly promoted. Many people around Launceston did not appear to know the game was even on.

A glance at crowd figures since the BBL came to Launceston reveals the sort of trend Alan Kohler would love to turn into a graph.

The seven fixtures dating back to 2017 which preceded this year's produced the following attendances, in order: 16,734, 12,455, 13,836, 8753, 6181, 4235 and 1375.

Admittedly, old mate COVID had an impact towards the end there but it would still be a decline of Federation Peak gradient.

So entertaining was the BBL when it kicked off that many Launceston families would not only flock to the games here but flood the Midland Highway to support Hobart fixtures. They simply could not get too much George Bailey.

Bucking trends of recent years, Bellerive Oval dwarfed the UTAS crowd when it produced an attendance of 5673 for the Hurricanes' second home game of BBL10 against Perth Scorchers last Tuesday.

This at least bodes well for the state's first ever Ashes Test in January.

But it seems the BBL - which has been graced by a GOAT and used to attract spectators like sheep but began treating them like cattle - could yet embody another farmyard animal analogy with its keepers in danger of finding themselves flogging a dead horse.