Sutherland announced the 'Big Bash' would be centred around cities rather than states and that he hoped the new competition would result in high profile international players being attracted to the domestic competition.
"The competition will be owned, controlled and managed by Cricket Australia and everyone in Australian cricket is excited about this new Big Bash League; we see it as a fantastic opportunity for the game to grow off the back of the incredible popularity of Twenty20 cricket and to bring new fans to the game of cricket," said Sutherland.
"At the moment our plans are for the competition to be played through the prime competition summer period in December and January. There are various models that we have talked about that could see an expansion of that competition over a longer period but in the short-term it will be played over a five- to six-week period through December, January and perhaps creeping into February in some years."
In announcing the new competition, Sutherland was quick to make it clear that unlike the Indian Premier League, the Big Bash would not seek to replace to international cricket.
"It's complimentary to what we are doing with international cricket; we've always said that Twenty20 cricket should compliment and not compromise international cricket and that's really the balance that the Board needs to strike in working through fixturing issues. There's certainly no consideration at this stage for any exclusive windows for the Big Bash League.
"In the short term we're probably talking about where each team plays seven or eight matches and we've considered, as the competition grows, not only more matches but more teams joining the competition. Perhaps, in three, four or five years' time expanding from an eight-team competition to a 10-team competition."
Given Australia's performances in the first two ashes matches Cricket Australia must be getting nervous the continued downfall of Australia in international test cricket could result in cricket fans turning to the shorter forms of the game.
Cricket Australia must ensure their promotion of the new competition does not take away from the Boxing Day Test or the prominence of test cricket in general.
Sutherland addresses this point directly in his press conference saying simply "The Boxing Day Test is safe."
"From an international programing point of view, our priority rests with international cricket but all of the research we have done very strongly indicates that the enjoyment that people get from the game of cricket can be spread over the three formats of the game or discretely held with one format of the game. There are a lot of fans out there that just enjoy Twenty20 cricket and I think that the game of cricket is in a fortunate place in having three successful and popular formats and Twenty20 cricket is certainly one of those formats on the rise."