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The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
The Hundred can eclipse IPL as cricket's ‘multibillion-dollar product', says Tech Titans chief
The leader of the Tech Titans consortium that has bought 49% of London Spirit believes the Hundred will become a multibillion-dollar competition to rival the Indian Premier League. Nikesh Arora, the chief executive of the American cybersecurity company Palo Alto, was at Lord's on Tuesday for the first two games in this season's competitions, as the women and men of London Spirit took on their Oval Invincibles counterparts. He was joined by 15 other members of the Silicon Valley-based group, which includes the chief executives of Google, Microsoft and YouTube. The Titans stunned the sports investment world in January by agreeing to pay £145m for their London Spirit stake, giving by far the highest valuation for one of the eight Hundred franchises sold off by the England and Wales Cricket Board in a remarkable auction that has raised £520m to be reinvested in domestic cricket. Marylebone Cricket Club were given the other 51% by the ECB and face the task of setting up professional teams for the first time in the august institution's 238-year history, a challenge that the MCC's chief operating officer, Rob Lynch, describes as 'extremely exciting'. Unsurprisingly their new partners are not daunted, either. Sitting high up in the Nursery End, Arora said they have never had buyer's remorse and revealed that more investors have joined the consortium. While the Hundred has moved beyond Australia's Big Bash League, which is now considering selling stakes, the IPL remains in a universe of its own with a total valuation of £14bn. Gujarat Titans sold a 67% stake this year in a deal that valued the franchise at £975m. 'The IPL started from nowhere, and became a multibillion-dollar product,' Arora said. 'Why couldn't this be that product? There are eight new shareholders across eight new franchises. They all have successful businesses or cricket operations somewhere in the world. 'If that energy, that passion, that creativity, that innovation is brought to this, imagine what they could do. The ECB incubated the Hundred, which is great, but I'm sure there are ways to optimise things. 'We have never had buyer's remorse. We've never been stressed about what we paid. I have more people who want to be part of the consortium now than I had before I made the investment.' Given Hundred franchises have just four home fixtures each season, do not own their grounds and have a domestic TV contract with Sky Sports that is valued at about £35m a year, other sports investors are intrigued about how the new co-owners plan to recoup their outlay. While the Titans have already been using their contacts to drive commercial growth – a kit deal with Nike for next season is understood to have been agreed and a huge push on digital content is planned – Arora claims the initial focus will be on improving the on-field product. The top pay bracket in the men's competition has been increased from £125,000 to £200,000 this year to attract stars such as Warner and his Spirit teammate Kane Williamson, and the aspiration is to raise it to about £500,000 in the years ahead. 'In our world we don't talk about money, we talk about product,' Arora said. 'We ask: 'How can a tech company build a great product that eventually people want?' and when a lot of people want it, they will make money. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion 'I worked at Google for 10 years, and the chief executive [Sundar Pichai] is here tonight. We never talked about how much money we could make. We said: 'Oh my God, wouldn't it be cool if you could take your phone out, and it'd just tell you how to get from one place to the other, and it'd give you directions?' It's called Google Maps now. 'Pretty much everyone uses it and would not know how to get from point A to point B without it. But we never started by saying: 'How much money can we make?' We said: 'How can we make this an amazing product that people want to engage with?'' Satyan Gajwani, one of Arora's key partners and a co-founder of Major League Cricket in the US, is convinced future growth will come primarily from a UK audience despite the multinational makeup of the investment groups. In practical terms this will lead to significant increases in what are now low ticket prices, but there will also be innovations in broadcast deals and digital products. 'Whether it's MLC in the US or the Hundred here – the IPL may be a little bit different – I think it starts with a strong domestic product,' Gajwani said. 'If we're selling out stadiums and people are excited to watch it, that's the major driver. And then the bleed-on effect around the world will happen. 'Bringing in stakeholders beyond governing bodies has almost always improved product. We've got eight best-in-class investors, people who understand business, consumers and sport, globally and locally. 'And relative to almost every other sport, cricket has less private power, for lack of a better term. The NBA is run privately, the NFL is private, La Liga, the Premier League are private businesses. The influx of diverse views, different stakeholders, will bring innovation.'
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
‘The Hundred is not universally popular – but that's true about Test cricket'
The leader of the Tech Titans, the new investors into Lord's-based London Spirit, has called for better planning to prevent the Hundred starting immediately after an epic Test series such as England v India. Nikesh Arora, the Indian-American CEO of Palo Alto Networks, has pulled together more than a dozen leading business figures, mainly from tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and YouTube, to invest in the Lord's Hundred franchise. In January, they won an extraordinary three-hour auction which valued London Spirit at £295m. They bought a 49 per cent share to partner with MCC, the owners of Lord's, having seen off competition from Sanjiv Goenka, the owner of Indian Premier League team Lucknow Super Giants, as bids rose in £3m increments. They completed the purchase last week, and a large number of the consortium have been at Lord's this week. They have played cricket with their kids in the nets, held events for their companies, had dinner together (with Rishi Sunak in the building), and strolled on the Lord's pitch with their families after the first game. On the eve of that game, in the office of MCC director of cricket, Rob Lynch, members of the consortium spoke with Telegraph Sport about why they had invested such eye-watering sums into the Hundred, and what they hoped to achieve. The following day, Spirit's men's team were well beaten by Oval Invincibles. Spirit were without marquee signings Jamie Smith and Jamie Overton, as well as England vice-captain Ollie Pope, all of whom had been involved in the stunning finish to the Test series. Arora does not want to see a repeat. 'Some of the guys were required to rest until a few days after the first match which is kind of disappointing,' he said. 'I understand it. I think for the future it requires better planning. I would never want a sportsperson to be extended because we want them to play well for a very long period of time. They've just come out of a spectacular series, made even more spectacular by the ending. I'm still smiling from it. 'I just think that in future we have to make sure it's timed in such a way that if you're only going to have a 26-day tournament where many people invested hundreds of millions of pounds, it's only fair that we create enough space so all the right people can play.' 'Lord's is the Mecca of cricket' The consortium began when Satyan Gajwani, of Indian media giant Times Internet, visited Arora, his neighbour in California, to talk about the possibility of investing in Major League Cricket, which Gajwani helped found. Arora was more interested in investing in a cricket league that was already up and running, so Gajwani mentioned the Hundred, which he had considered investing in too. 'I said I was going for the value option,' says Gajwani. In short, that meant neither of the London teams. Arora disagreed. 'Very simple rule I learnt from my friends – do not buy something in the city you never want to go to,' he laughs. 'If I tell my wife I'm going to London, she's like 'let's go straight away'. That is not true of every city in the world. 'Lord's is like the Mecca of cricket. I grew up playing cricket. If I close my eyes and you ask me to pick where I'd be, I want to be at Lord's.' The consortium was never bothered, unlike some IPL teams, about being minority owners, with just 49 per cent. 'I own less than 1 per cent of my company,' Arora says, wryly. 'But I get to run it.' Arora was at the coalface of the auction. He says he was not given carte blanche by his partners, and admits 'we paid more than we thought we were going to'. Asked if there is any buyer's remorse, he scoffs. Since the auction, the consortium has grown, and is thought to number around 20. Arora says there are 'people with different levels of economic interest', including some 'who are enthusiastic, so we let them invest a little bit so they could be part of the excitement'. The final negotiations were supposed to last eight weeks, but dragged to almost six months. In two cases (Oval and Trent Rockets, they are not yet concluded). Arora says there were many 'pinch points' along the way with ECB, although the relationship with MCC seems smooth. 'I've lived a long life, and I've done a lot of deals,' he says. 'And negotiations do not require one person to win, one to lose. Negotiations have to get us to a point where both of us feel a little uncomfortable and a lot more excited. We've got to a place where it's a little uncomfortable with ECB. Then they have to show up with their A game, and we have to show with our A game. We're happy with that. They'll tell you they're happy because they suddenly got a large amount of money.' The consortium has already sorted new kit sponsors, Nike, and advertisers for the 2026 season, but is treating this season as a watching brief. That extends to the format of the competition, the name of their team, and whether Indian players will ever be involved. 'It's been four hot days since we've signed the deal,' laughs Arora. 'So that is all to be continued. I think this is the year we get to participate and watch. We will learn a lot over the next 25 days.' Gajwani chips in: 'The coolest thing is, you're taking the most storied historical institution of cricket, and you're bringing a consortium which is very heavily leaning towards technology, innovation. And the thing that's been very pleasant over the last few months has been, actually, there's not much of a communication or culture gap. I told him [Arora] early on, I don't know if Lord's is right for us. But from the first meeting, that changed.' It is put to the pair that the Hundred is not universally popular. 'That's true,' says Arora. 'But that's true about Test cricket too.' Gajwani says: 'We also saw that with the IPL in its first five years. Any new format is going to have tension, and there's going to be tension between Tests and the Hundred. But I think overall, it's good for the game. I think it attracts different audiences. It widens the scope of fans that could be interested in cricket. 'I'm very excited about what private capital brings to the game. It just brings more innovation. It pushes everyone to be more competitive. I've seen it across the world that capitalist and competitive tension is good for the game. It drives everyone to invest more, be stronger, think more creatively, be more innovative, both on the business and cricket side. 'Each of these leagues is about evangelising cricket in their own market. We are here to focus on building the British audience first and foremost.' What of the consequences for the English game, if a supercharged Hundred cannibalises Test cricket? Arora describes that as a 'high-quality problem'. 'If there is a place in the world, this has to succeed,' he says. 'After India, it has to be here. Why shouldn't a league in the UK succeed? This is where we all learnt our cricket. 'Think about the fact that there are so many new investors, this has been a windfall for English cricket, there's going to be phenomenal facilities, phenomenal capability, kit. You know, many of the counties are on the edge of deciding how to keep growing the game of cricket because they're financially constrained. This is the biggest windfall English cricket has ever had. People have to start looking at the glass half full.' That is certainly their outlook across a breezy 45 minutes: glass half full, delighted to be sat overlooking the home of cricket. 'Many of us are neighbours [in California],' says Arora, smiling. 'So to be here together is cool. If you can combine your passion with some kind of activity to gather with your friends, it's a good thing. And hopefully all this will work out for all of us and we'll not lose money.'
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Deals completed for six of the eight cricket teams in The Hundred competition
LONDON (AP) — The sales of stakes in six of the eight teams in The Hundred competition have been completed, the England and Wales Cricket Board said Wednesday. The eight partnerships are valued at 975 million pounds (around $1.3 billion), with 500 million pounds invested back into the English and Welsh cricket ecosystem, including 50 million pounds for grassroots cricket. The ECB said this will 'ensure the game continues to thrive at every level, with the remainder distributed to professional counties.' The formally completed deals are with the following teams: London Spirit, Birmingham Phoenix, Manchester Originals, Northern Superchargers, Southern Brave, and Welsh Fire, the ECB said in a statement, adding that deals for the Oval Invincibles and Trent Rockets are on track for a 'formal completion' at a later date. 'The sheer scale of global interest we've seen throughout this process highlights just how much potential remains to be unlocked," ECB chairman Richard Thompson said. 'With these new partners on board, we're entering an exciting new phase and a seminal moment for cricket in England and Wales." The quick-paced and compact format of the game is similar to Twenty20 and was launched in England in 2021, gaining popularity since. American-based groups Tech Titans, Knighthead Capital Management and Washington Freedom completed their purchases of London Spirit, Birmingham Phoenix and Welsh Fire, respectively. 'We're incredibly proud to deepen our investment in Birmingham through joining The Hundred and putting our support behind Birmingham Phoenix," said Andrew Shannahan, a managing member at Knighthead. "Knighthead is committed to building something truly special and making an even greater impact across sport and community in this city.' Knighthead already owns Birmingham City soccer club, which is based in the Midlands area of England and plays in the second-tier Championship. The ECB said investors will mostly operate their franchise in partnership with the host club and will take operational control from Oct. 1 — meaning they have no direct involvement in this year's competition, which starts next week and ends on Aug. 31. A new board for The Hundred will be established, featuring representatives of the ECB and the teams — both investors and host clubs — but the ECB retains full ownership of the competition and its regulations. ___ AP cricket:
Time of India
30-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Six investors finalise The Hundred deal with ECB; two more to sign up in October
Logo of The Hundred - England's T20 competition. (File photo) The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced the completion of deals with "six strategic partners" for teams in The Hundred, with two more deals set to be finalised later. The partnerships, valued at over £975 million collectively, will inject more than £500 million into English and Welsh cricket, including £50 million dedicated to grassroots development. The deals mark a historic moment as The Hundred becomes the first UK sports competition to secure franchise partnerships of this scale. The six completed deals include Tech Titans acquiring 49% of London Spirit, Knighthead Capital Management taking 49% of Birmingham Phoenix, RPSG Group securing 70% of Manchester Originals, Sun TV Network Limited purchasing 100% of Northern Superchargers, GMR Group acquiring 49% of Southern Brave, and Washington Freedom taking 50% of Welsh Fire. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW! The remaining two deals, which are on track for later completion, involve Reliance Group acquiring 49% of Oval Invincibles and Cain International & Ares Management taking 49% of Trent Rockets. Reliance Group and Cain International & Ares Management can complete their respective deals at a later date. ECB had offered investors the option of completing at a later date. Completed deals in The Hundred London Spirit – Tech Titans (49%) Birmingham Phoenix – Knighthead Capital Management, LLC, on behalf of its investors ('Knighthead') (49%) Manchester Originals – RPSG Group (70%) Northern Superchargers – Sun TV Network Limited (100%) Southern Brave – GMR Group (49%) Welsh Fire – Washington Freedom (50%) Deals on track to be completed later Oval Invincibles– Reliance Group (49%) Trent Rockets– Cain International & Ares Management (49%) London Spirit, for one, will now be co-owned by MCC and Tech Titans. A consortium of Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, Times Internet Limited vice chairman Satyan Gajwani, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Silverlake Technology CEO Egon Durban had won stake in the team in February earlier this year. The remaining 51% stake in the franchise will be held by the MCC. Both parties will take operational control of the team on October 1, 2025. Speaking about the acquisition and association with London Spirit, Gajwani said, "One of the best things about cricket is that its players come from all around the world. And so when you think about a city like London that's so diverse, that has such an eclectic audience, our hope is that every fan can find someone that feels relatable and approachable to them." Get ready for an exciting new chapter in a good way. I think the amount of economics that are going to get invested in cricket in England... The amount of enthusiasm they're going to see, the amount of increased fervour, the increased amount of attention they're going to see, hopefully is good for the sport, is good for the fans, is good for all of us who enjoy cricket. Nikesh Arora Arora, Gajwani and Durban will be on the London Spirit Board alongside four directors nominated by the Club - Julian Metherell as London Spirit Board Chair, Robert Lawson (CEO MCC) and Eoin Morgan (former England and London Spirit captain). The fourth nominee will be appointed later. The new investors will take operational control from October 1, 2025, with most operating their franchises in partnership with host clubs. The ECB will retain full ownership of the competition, maintaining control over regulations and matters affecting the wider game. Richard Thompson, ECB Chair, stated: "With these new partners on board, we're entering an exciting new phase and a seminal moment for cricket in England and Wales. Their global perspective and track record in elite sport and business will help us reimagine what's possible — from deepening fan connections to attracting even more world-class players." With the London Spirit, our commitment is to make it the best franchise we can, make it consistently competitive, and bring in best-in-class cricket to the field. Satyan Gajwani 'Crucially, this investment will not only fuel the competition's growth but also channel transformative levels of funding into our professional counties and grassroots game. This will ensure cricket continues to thrive at all levels across England and Wales for generations to come, supporting our broader ambitions to become the country's most inclusive sport and driving cricket into harder to reach and under-served communities,' added Thompson. The ECB was advised throughout the process by Deloitte and the Raine Group as co-lead financial advisers, with Latham & Watkins and Onside Law LLP providing legal counsel. Catch Rani Rampal's inspiring story on Game On, Episode 4. Watch Here!
Associated Press
30-07-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Deals completed for six of the eight cricket teams in The Hundred competition
LONDON (AP) — The sales of stakes in six of the eight teams in The Hundred competition have been completed, the England and Wales Cricket Board said Wednesday. The eight partnerships are valued at 975 million pounds (around $1.3 billion), with 500 million pounds invested back into the English and Welsh cricket ecosystem, including 50 million pounds for grassroots cricket. The ECB said this will 'ensure the game continues to thrive at every level, with the remainder distributed to professional counties.' The formally completed deals are with the following teams: London Spirit, Birmingham Phoenix, Manchester Originals, Northern Superchargers, Southern Brave, and Welsh Fire, the ECB said in a statement, adding that deals for the Oval Invincibles and Trent Rockets are on track for a 'formal completion' at a later date. 'The sheer scale of global interest we've seen throughout this process highlights just how much potential remains to be unlocked,' ECB chairman Richard Thompson said. 'With these new partners on board, we're entering an exciting new phase and a seminal moment for cricket in England and Wales.' The quick-paced and compact format of the game is similar to Twenty20 and was launched in England in 2021, gaining popularity since. American-based groups Tech Titans, Knighthead Capital Management and Washington Freedom completed their purchases of London Spirit, Birmingham Phoenix and Welsh Fire, respectively. 'We're incredibly proud to deepen our investment in Birmingham through joining The Hundred and putting our support behind Birmingham Phoenix,' said Andrew Shannahan, a managing member at Knighthead. 'Knighthead is committed to building something truly special and making an even greater impact across sport and community in this city.' Knighthead already owns Birmingham City soccer club, which is based in the Midlands area of England and plays in the second-tier Championship. The ECB said investors will mostly operate their franchise in partnership with the host club and will take operational control from Oct. 1 — meaning they have no direct involvement in this year's competition, which starts next week and ends on Aug. 31. A new board for The Hundred will be established, featuring representatives of the ECB and the teams — both investors and host clubs — but the ECB retains full ownership of the competition and its regulations. ___ AP cricket:
