Kevin Pietersen will put bums on seats, dollars in the bank and nightclubbers with smartphones at the ready. He might even win the Melbourne Stars a few games of cricket; that will be a bonus.

The global reaction to Pietersen’s long-anticipated signing with the Stars, the glamour club of the Big Bash League, has confirmed that he will be a hit whether he is scoring runs or not, and the Stars would obviously prefer that he does. But his status as an entertainer, loved by some and loathed by others, is the reason the Stars have been working on a deal for months and why Cricket Australia reached into its own pocket for only the second time in the BBL’s history to pay him a promotional fee outside the salary cap.

The first, famously, was for Pietersen’s buddy Shane Warne, who in the words of Stars chief executive Clint Cooper ''put BBL on the map''. The sacked England batsman is tipped to have a similar impact off the field.

''What we’ve seen over the last 24 hours, it’s caught worldwide attention,'' Cooper said. ''Love him or hate him, [Pietersen] has attracted the marketing value that you’re obviously looking for. Let’s not forget he is still regarded as one of England’s best players and to be able to lure him to an Australian tournament is a pretty big coup. No doubt he will draw the crowds wherever we play. We saw it with Shane and no doubt we will see it with Kevin.

''Before Warne signed in November [2011] we weren’t getting much traction, we were getting slammed by the media that this is a Mickey Mouse competition, then Warne comes along and gives it a bit of credibility. The Shane Warne show toured around the country and brought BBL to life. Now, being on Channel 10, we’re getting a million viewers a game for Stars matches, the awareness is so much greater ... It’s hard to measure [against Pietersen’s impact] but it will create more awareness.''

There were, of course, downsides to the Warne circus and by the end of his stint some teammates had tired of his celebrity. It is well documented, too, that dressing rooms with Pietersen in them haven’t always been happy places, culminating with his spectacular falling out with successive England captains in Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, coach Andy Flower and other players.

Cooper insists the Stars have no concerns about team harmony. He says Pietersen has been a dream to deal with, no diva demands like ''coconut water and yellow jelly beans'', and that he’ll live with the other interstate and international players at the team’s South Yarra Hotel. That’s an improvement on the disastrous deal between Chris Gayle and the Sydney Thunder in the BBL’s first season, when the West Indies star was put up at a plush city hotel and given a flash car while the others stayed in much less salubrious digs in Rooty Hill and got around in a shared mini-van.

The Stars bridle at comparisons between the Pietersen deal and Gayle, who received a quarter of the Thunder’s million-dollar salary cap and partied more successfully than he played.

''We’re not putting all our eggs in one basket, that’s for sure. We’re fortunate enough to have the majority of our list signed on longer term deals,'' said Cooper.  ''We have invested in guys like [Glenn] Maxwell, [James] Faulkner, [captain Cameron] White, [David] Hussey, [Rob] Quiney. While we do our best to try to attract stars, the stars do then need to fit in with the rest of the team.

''It would be outrageous to suggest he [Pietersen] is on anywhere near the money Chris Gayle was on. In actual fact, it’s miles off.''

Pietersen will reportedly pocket about $250,000 but that includes CA marketing money, and will be topped up generously by Channel 10 who will have him miked up (as Warne was for Fox Sports) and a prominent part of the network’s coverage. The Stars had room in their cap because of the departures of Sri Lankan bowler Lasith Malinga (previously their highest-paid player, and required for World Cup duty next summer), Brad Hodge (to Adelaide) and Matthew Wade (to the rival Renegades.) Probably, egos like Pietersen's are more easily accommodated in a team that comes together for six weeks a year than in the pressure-filled environment of a losing Test team.

Naturally, the Stars would love for Pietersen to catapult them past their bogey semi-final stage, which in turn would lead to global exposure and serious prizemoney at the Champions League. His form since becoming a Twenty20 gun-for-hire has been less than spectacular (294 runs at 29 for Delhi in the IPL and 183 at 22 for Surrey in England’s T20 Blast), but the important thing for the Stars and all the Australian teams he plays against is that he remains one of the most watchable players of his generation, on and off the field. In that respect, England’s loss is Australian cricket’s gain.