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The leader of the consortium that has agreed a £145m investment in Hundred team London Spirit says any cricket fans concerned about them “doing any silly things should put their worries to rest”.
Nikesh Arora, chief executive of cyber security firm Palo Alto, heads a group of Silicon Valley businessmen that won the right to buy a 49% stake in Spirit.
They valued the whole franchise, hosted by the Marylebone Cricket Club at the historic Lord’s ground, at around £285m.
India-born Arora told the BBC: “Sport is made great because of its fans, not because of its owners.
“There’s nothing we would want to do as a collective which actually disenfranchises the people who are most excited about it.”
Sales of stakes in the eight Hundred teams concluded on Wednesday, with Southern Brave going to the co-owners of IPL side Delhi Capitals. In all, the eight teams have been valued at around £967m.
But some fans are concerned the arrival of private investment will lead to more emphasis on the shorter format, erosion of the red-ball game and endanger the future of the 18 first-class counties.
“We don’t want to do anything to hurt the franchise. All decisions will be taken in the interest of the franchise,” said Arora.
“I don’t have a grand plan in my back pocket. I think the bottom line is, can you get great, amazing talent to play the sport? Can we make the matches exciting? Can we make them win? Can we get a lot of people to come in and watch this and be excited about it? That’s where we need to go.”
In a wide-ranging interview that can be heard in full on the Test Match Special podcast, Arora said:
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The £145m for 49% of the Spirit was more than he was expecting to pay
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Partnering with Lord’s “feels like a pilgrimage”
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The Indian Premier League (IPL) provides the “blueprint and aspiration” for The Hundred
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The Hundred can be taken “further” in terms of expansion
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He would like top Indian players in The Hundred but it is “not his decision”.
Competition for a stake in Spirit was always likely to be fierce given the allure of Lord’s, the home of cricket.
Arora’s group, known as Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, beat off bids from Chelsea owner Todd Boehly, whose Cain International has since taken a 49% stake in Trent Rockets, and the owners of Indian Premier League side Lucknow Super Giants, who have agreed a deal for 70% in Manchester Originals.
Cricket Investor Holdings Limited also includes Egon Durban, the chief executive of Silver Lake Management, Satyan Gajwani, the co-founder of Major League Cricket and vice-chairman of Times Internet, Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, Shantanu Narayen the chief executive of Adobe, and Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google.
“I grew up in India. A lot of our people in the consortium grew up in similar circumstances. We all come from lower-middle class families where the first thing we did when we came back from school was grab a cricket bat,” said Arora.
“This kind of feels like a pilgrimage. If you go to watch a match at Lord’s, you’re at the home of cricket. Being able to partner with them, being able to do something back with a game that you grew up passionately loving, I don’t think there’s a feeling that can describe that.”
Of the fee agreed, Arora said: “I think it was more than anyone expected!
“We expected some amount of premium for Lord’s because Lord’s is the prized asset. If you’re going to get involved in something, go after the best. From our perspective this is the best opportunity.
“I think the value of these things is going to be higher in 10 years than it is today.
“From an economics perspective, we don’t think we’re going to lose money. The question is, how long does it take for this to become an amazing franchise and an amazing league?”
When asked why they had spent so much money on a team with no physical assets in a competition that only began in 2021, Arora said: “You’re buying into a league which was created a few years ago and which has at least gone through its initial incubation period. We know what works, what doesn’t.
“So it’s not just nothing. In most sport, there’s actually a team with the right to play, and the real estate is owned by somebody else. I don’t think this is very different.”
Arora pointed to the IPL, the largest and most successful franchise cricket league in the world.
After being founded in 2008, the IPL’s latest TV and streaming rights deal, signed in 2022, is worth $6.02bn. The figure puts it alongside the NFL in the United States and English football’s Premier League as the richest sports leagues in cost-per-match terms.
“We’ve seen a successful template which has been executed in India,” said Arora. “The question is, can that template be replicated in England?
“If you look at it from an economic perspective, can you take the league and make it extremely popular? What the IPL has become in India, can you actually create that appeal in England? Can you create appeal on a global basis? That’s part of our plan.
“Don’t forget the scarcity value of eight franchises which exist in a sport. And if you look at the media business. The only linear thing left is sport. And if you look at least the last five years, every sports franchise has incremented value by multiples. So this is not just a heart decision. There is some more thought than just a heart decision.”
Although control of the Hundred teams has been given over to the investors and the eight host venues, the England and Wales Cricket Board has retained control of the competition itself.
A further option to increase revenue from the Hundred would be to add to its current eight teams, much like the IPL grew from eight to 10 sides in 2022.
Any potential growth in The Hundred would not come before the end of the 2028 season, which is the end of the current broadcast rights cycle, and Arora believes there is potential for growth.
“It’s crawl, walk, run, right?” he said. “The crawling has happened and this is the moment to stand up on its feet and walk.
“If we can execute perfectly the next two or three years, there’s no reason why you should limit the aspiration.
“That’s a decision to be taken the future, and should be taken by the collective league when all the eight teams are in a place where, yes, we can, we can take this further.”
Top Indian players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah are currently barred by the Board of Control for Cricket in India from playing in overseas franchise leagues, protecting the value of the IPL.
IPL teams have invested in leagues in South Africa, the Caribbean, UAE and US but have yet to find a way to get current India internationals into those leagues.
Arora admits that bringing India players to The Hundred is one way to increase its appeal, but did also not rule out taking Hundred matches abroad or pitting the champions of The Hundred against the winners of other leagues.
“Players is a decision that needs to be made by the BCCI in partnership with the ECB and the IPL owners,” he said.
“I’m sure they’ll make the right decisions. In the long term, if you want global appeal for the sport and these franchises, then it’ll be useful to have people represented from other parts of the world.
“If you want global appeal, you should find a way of including other players from around the world.
“If you want global appeal, this should be played at times that are conducive to most cricket-friendly countries in the world. There are so many different ideas.
“Who knows? Maybe league champions will play each other. We’ll see.”
