Last Updated:
The ECB is selling stakes in The Hundred franchises to investors like Reliance Industries, RPSG Group, and Sun Group, sharing profits from ticket sales and broadcasts.
Explaining all The Hundred deals.
Sales about equity in the franchises of The Hundred have hogged the news headlines in the last few weeks. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has seen investments from some of the biggest names not just in cricket, but football and Silicon Valley, too.
These deals and this world might seem quite difficult and far away from normal cricketing understanding, but it’s all quite similar to the IPL and simple to understand. Below, we have prepared a small Q&A-style setup for the queries you must have had, with curated answers to give you enough understanding about the subject.
What is for sale?
The Hundred has eight franchises, which, like any other business, are private entities. Till last year, seven of these franchises were completely owned by their home counties and the eighth, London Spirit, by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).
Now, the ECB has decided to raise some money by selling some parts of these franchises to investors through a bidding process. All franchises have found buyers and the deals are now subject to ‘exclusivity agreements’, or, in simple words, verification of all documents between the parties before everything is finalized.
Now, the ECB had opened only 49% of the stakes to investors, allowing counties (and MCC) to retain the remaining 51% and thus the control of the team. However, the latter party is allowed to negotiate with the investors if they want to sell some or all of their shares and let the investors be in control.
Who are the buyers?
Mumbai Indians owners, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) are buying a 49% stake in Oval Invincibles. Surrey will retain the remaining 51%. It’s their seventh cricket franchise.
Sanjiv Goenka’s RPSG Group, which runs Lucknow Super Giants, and other Super Giants franchises around the world, is buying a 70% stake in Manchester Originals. Lancashire County will retain 30%.
SunRisers Hyderabad owners, Sun Group are buying 100% of Northern Superchargers. Yorkshire County will have no role or stake in the team.
GMR Group, which co-owns Delhi Capitals and some other Capitals franchises, is buying a 49% stake in Southern Brave. GMR have already bought Hampshire County.
Chelsea Football Club co-owner Todd Boehley’s Cain International and Ares Management Credit are jointly buying a 49% stake in Trent Rockets. Nottinghamshire County will retain 51%.
Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, a consortium of Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs including Alphabet (Google) CEO Sundar Pichai, is buying a 49% stake in London Spirit. The MCC will retain 51%.
New York-based investment firm Knighthead Capital is buying a 49% stake in Birmingham Phoenix. Warwickshire County will retain 51%.
Indian-American tech entrepreneur Sanjay Govil, who owns Washington Freedom in the Major League Cricket
(MLC), is buying a 50% stake in Welsh Fire. Glamorgan County will retain the other half.
These deals will run till the end of 2030. All of these deals are worth millions of pounds. The exact numbers aren’t usually released officially, but to give you an idea, the reported figure for LSG’s 70% acquisition of Manchester Originals is around Rs. 881 crore.
What do these stakes actually mean and how do investors make a profit?
These deals, like in the IPL, allow the investors the right to run a team participating in The Hundred. The competition makes money through ticket sales, and broadcast deals, a share of which is divided among the franchises and thus, their owners.
After these deals go through, the investors will earn a share of the ticket and hospitality sales (as per their arrangement with the counties). The most revenue will come from broadcasting deals, with the ECB set to share 80% of domestic and international TV rights between the franchises.
The ECB currently has a deal of around 50 crores with Sky Sports for domestic broadcast, plus a smaller one with the BBC (according to ESPNcricinfo), but it is projecting that the numbers will increase multi-fold in the coming years, especially for international rights, which is basically what the franchise owners have gambled on.
How will it impact the league?
The first, obvious, impact is possible name changes of the teams — something like Manchester Super Giants? — and the branding like kits, etc. But these can only come into action from 2026.
Other than that, the expectation would be an increase in player salaries and thus attracting better players from around the world, including cross-tournament sharing of players between the franchises, like Andre Russel’s relationship with the Knight Riders group.
However, according to ESPNcricinfo, the ECB is not expecting the BCCI to change its chances regarding allowing active Indian men’s cricketers to participate in overseas leagues.
