New Zealand teams in the domestic one-day cricket competition still do not know if they will have the incentive of a trip to Australia for the Champions Cup tournament as their prize this summer.

The first tournament was held in Perth at the end of the last season, involving Central Districts from New Zealand, Western Australia, KwaZulu-Natal from South Africa and Mumbai from India.

However, no tournament has been allocated for this year.

Western Australia Cricket Association chief executive Rod Lillis told CricInfo today: "We have not been able to commit to the event at this stage. The primary reason for this is that the ACB allocated us the tournament on a one-year basis as we were the reigning champions of one-day domestic cricket in Australia."

While the ACB own the rights to the event, Western Australia feel they have some ownership of it, given that it was their idea. However, WACA hold no legal rights and any future event would need ACB approval and sanction because of the involvement of international teams.

New South Wales won the Australian one-day series last summer and they have first rights to it this year.

However, Lillis said Western Australia understood that NSW don't see the tournament as a priority.

If they decided not to stage the event, but were interested in playing in it, it would then be offered to Perth to stage.

"Without the Warriors playing it makes it difficult for us. Nonetheless, we are committed to the concept and are currently investigating ways that it can still happen in the future," Lillis said.

"Even if it isn't held next year, we would certainly like to run it again.

"The major issue for whoever runs it will be television. Obtaining a host broadcaster and international TV deals are integral to making the tournament work financially. If you can't get a commitment for TV, the event needs another revenue source which is not realistic for domestic cricket," he said.

The inaugural tournament had received a good reaction from players and the cricket community overall. Spectator numbers were not expected to be high, and they weren't.

"I thought the tournament went very well - the teams played good competitive cricket and I believe the standard was high," he said.

But, in hindsight, he said the time of year had been wrong as in Perth the tournament was competing with the start of AFL football which reduced the chance to raise profile of the event.

"Time was also against us. We only had six weeks to prepare after getting the TV deals finalised, and this is far, far too short a time frame," he said.

Financially, the tournament hurt WACA a little but that was offset against the investment in the event.

Lillis said it would be fair to say that while money was lost, it wasn't enough to put the WACA off running it again.

And television feedback, despite the fact that it was a pay-tv product, had been good and the host broadcaster, Channel Seven, had been positive and very supportive of the event, he said.

© CricInfo