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The chief executive of English cricket’s governing body has said there is an urgent need to bring outside investment into its short-form contest The Hundred, as global competition heats up to attract the best players.
The Hundred, which begins tomorrow with a match between the Oval Invincibles and Birmingham Phoenix, was launched by the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2021.
The month-long contest, which involves double-header fixtures with the women’s teams playing before the men’s teams, was designed in large part to attract a new, younger audience to cricket. Last year, 580,000 tickets were sold, with 41 per cent going to families, according to the ECB.
The ECB owns all of the eight teams that compete in The Hundred. But as part of a revamp of the competition, dubbed “Project Gemini”, it plans to auction off a 49 per cent stake in each of the franchises, while transferring a 51 per cent share to the host counties of each team. That county will then decide whether to keep its stake in full, offer up part of it, or sell up completely during the investment process, which will be managed centrally by the ECB.
Richard Gould, chief executive of the ECB, said bringing in outside investment into The Hundred was a vital step to ensure that the English contest could keep up with rival competitions in the race to attract top players.
“If we were to delay too much, I think others may end up stealing a march on us. That would be to our disadvantage,” he said. “We need to be able to ensure that we retain the best players, both men and women, going forward for the next 10 to 20 years.”
The huge success of the Indian Premier League, the sport’s top short-form contest, has sparked a battle for talent between similar competitions, including Australia’s Big Bash League and the Pakistan Super League. Last year Major League Cricket launched in the US and the country also hosted the recent T20 World Cup.
“We’re seeing that it is a very competitive global market”, said Gould. “We see so many other competitions coming to the fore. I don’t see that all of these have a long-term future, in terms of financial stability.”
The ECB has hired US merchant bank Raine Group and Deloitte to handle the team sales, which will begin in earnest in September with the aim of having a new roster of owners in place before next year’s competition.
Gould said that raising money was “extremely important” but that the investment process was also designed to bring in specialists with a record in sport that can take The Hundred through its next phase of growth.
“We will clearly have financial targets that we will have in mind, not just for the value of the eight teams, but also in terms of the value that investors and partners can bring into the game of the non-financial kind,” he said.
The funds raised from the sale will be used to infuse the English game with much-needed cash, and will be shared across the county game, not just among those that host Hundred franchises. Some money will also go to the recreational game.
In 2022, the ECB turned down an offer to sell 75 per cent of The Hundred for about £400mn from private equity firm Bridgepoint.
