Indian billionaires and tech titans shake up English cricket with major investments in The Hundred

INDIAN billionaires and Indian American tech tycoons are among new owners of franchises in the Hundred cricket league.

Mukesh Ambani, Nikesh Arora and Sanjiv Goenka have in recent days invested in English cricket by acquiring a minority share in some of the Hundred teams.

The Hundred is a 100-ball cricket competition featuring world-class players. Eight city-based teams, created specifically for the tournament, will compete over five weeks every summer.

Mukesh Ambani with wife Nita

English cricket chiefs are aiming to bring in private money to attract the world’s top players in a competitive global market.

The owners of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Mumbai Indians – the wealthiest cricket league franchise in the world – won the auction last week to buy a 49 per cent stake in Oval Invincibles, the champions in the men’s category last year.

Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) secured the minority stake in a virtual auction, worth approximately £60 million, reports said.

Reliance will now enter a period of exclusivity during which they will negotiate with Surrey County Cricket Club and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).

The London Spirit women’s team after their victory last August

The Invincibles, based at Surrey’s London home ground, the Oval, are twotime defending champions in the men’s 100-ball competition, while Mumbai Indians are viewed as the most powerful IPL franchise. USbased Arora joined hands with Satya Nadella, Shantanu Narayen, and Sundar Pichai – the chief executives of Microsoft, Adobe, and Google, respectively – to acquire a stake in the London Spirit team, which won last year’s women’s title, for a reported fee of £145m. The deal valued the franchise at £295m.

Marylebone Cricket Club, the owners of the historic Lord’s ground in north London and the custodian of the laws of the game, will now enter into an eightweek period of negotiations with the consortium to determine the precise details of the deal.

Zaheer Khan, Sanjiv Goenka and Rishabh Pant at a Lucknow Super Giants event

“It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce that Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, a consortium led by Nikesh Arora, will be our new partner and coowners of the London Spirit franchise in The Hundred,” said MCC chairman Mark Nicholas in a statement to the club’s membership last Friday (31) that gave no details of the purchase price.

Nicholas, a former captain of English county Hampshire, added: “We are delighted to have found partners who share our values and understand the power and mystique of Lord’s.”

On Monday (3), Goenka’s RPSG Group, the owners of Indian Premier League side Lucknow Super Giants, won the race to partner Lancashire to run The Hundred franchise, Manchester Originals.

Reports said the RPSG Group paid around £58m, valuing the Originals, who play at Lancashire’s Old Trafford stadium, at more than £100m.

RPSG were interested in securing a stake in London Spirit, but they were beaten by the consortium led by Arora, who offered around £145m for the 49 per cent share in the Lord’s-based team.

“Lancashire Cricket confirms the RPSG Group, owners of Lucknow Super Giants, were the successful bidders during today’s auction process for the sale of a stake in Manchester Originals,” a statement from the English county said on Monday.

Phil Salt of Manchester Originals

Earlier, Warwickshire agreed to a 49 per cent sale of Birmingham Phoenix to Knighthead Capital for around £40m.

Meanwhile, Glamorgan sold the same stake in Welsh Fire to IT entrepreneur Sanjay Govil in another £40m deal.

According to reports, English cricket is set to receive a significant financial boost from the sale of The Hundred, with the final round of bidding expected to value the eight teams at up to £700m.

This value is double the offer made by Bridgepoint to purchase the entire tournament in 2022, which was rejected by the ECB.

The funds raised from the sale of the ECB’s stake will be redistributed across the domestic game, and the host counties will have the option to sell their 51 per cent share or retain it.

Sundar Pichai

Indian American Arora, who acquired stake in London Spirit, said he was truly “excited” about the deal as he called the franchise one-of-akind asset. “You look back in life and say you could have been a partner with Lord’s and you didn’t? No. I have a simple rule, don’t buy something in a place you don’t want to go, and I’ve watched cricket at Lord’s many times. I used to live in London for 10 years. I’ve watched the Ashes, I’ve watched England-India many times and I’m looking forward to watching England-India in July. I’ve even played there, on the side pitch (Nursery Ground), of course,” Arora, who runs the American cyber-security company Palo Alto and previously ran Google’s business in London, told the Sunday Times (2).

“It (the bidding) was a long process, but we got it done. We thought that Lord’s would create a premium, given the history, the heritage, the attractiveness of the franchise. We might have paid higher than we thought, but we were keen to get the asset, and I talked to many of my passionate consortium members, and we all figured we’d keep stretching until it became uncomfortable.”

Arora said his Indian American friends and members in the consortium share his “passion and love” for cricket.

The group of investors also includes Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of Times Internet Limited, Egon Durban, CEO of Silverlake Technology, Jim Goetz from Sequoia, and two others.

Satya Nadella

Nadella is a co-owner of the Seattle Orcas, a team in Major League Cricket (MLC), while Gajwani owns and manages Willow TV, the largest cricket streaming service in the west, along with Cricbuzz.

Describing how they got bidding, Arora told the paper, “A few of us got chatting about it and we said, ‘Why don’t we participate in this?’. One thing led to another. We figured out what the rules were, and we worked hard. Putting the consortium together wasn’t a long discussion. What was interesting was the last three months. Everyone was far more engaged in the conversation than you’d imagine. They’re all passionate people who either watched cricket growing up or played cricket. We get up at 4am and watch the IPL.”

In his opinion, the Hundred could be the second-most valuable franchise after the IPL as cricket is the second-most watched sport in the world.

He is also hopeful of getting good returns from the league.

The ECB is seeking partners for a 49 per cent stake in each of the Hundred teams, with the host clubs gifted the other 51 per cent. The board is planning to announce the results of all eight tenders when the process is completed.

The Hundred has proved controversial, with many English county fans angry at the way the tournament deprives their clubs of key players at the height of the season. But the ECB said funds raised from the sale of stakes in the eight franchises will support the 18 traditional counties.

Nikesh Arora

English historian, journalist and author, Simon Heffer, however, criticised the growing Indian influence in cricket, highlighting the recent investment by the Silicon Valley consortium in the London Spirit franchise.

“India controls the destiny of the game,” Heffer wrote in the Telegraph, noting the staggering valuation of the IPL at £9.7 billion to £16.4bn.

The investment, led by tech magnates like Gajwani and Arora, represents more than just a financial transaction – it’s a strategic move in cricket’s global landscape, he wrote.

In hi view, the consortium’s true intention might be transforming The Hundred into a T20 competition within three years, ultimately creating an international cricket business with strong subcontinental ties.

“Logic and reality suggest there is no room in the fixture lists, or in the market, for both competitions,” he wrote.

Heffer also warned of significant consequences for traditional cricket.

“While a Darwinian battle takes place about what form of instant cricket will prevail, traditional cricket is likely to become ever more marginalised,” he said.

Shantanu Narayen

Some countries are already prioritising lucrative short-format matches over Test cricket, with players choosing financial rewards over traditional sporting formats.

The Hundred championship begins on August 5 at Lord’s Cricket Ground, with London Spirit and Oval Invincibles facing off in the opening matches for both men’s and women’s competitions.

Each team comprises 15 players, including a maximum of three overseas stars and one centrally contracted England player in the men’s competition. The final will be played on August 31 at the same venue.