Moneymen bowl into cricket as stakes in the Hundred go on sale

As he walks around the boundary edge of Lord’s in the late-September drizzle Richard Thompson stops to point out the famous slope that has flummoxed many a batsman at the ground known affectionately as the home of cricket.
“You really get a sense of the scale of the slope at this level,” said the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
The treacherous Lord’s slope, which runs north to south with a drop of 2.5 metres, divides opinion among batters and bowlers — much like Thompson’s controversial plans to shore up the finances of English cricket.
Balancing the books has been a challenge ever since cricket was professionalised in 1962.
Many county teams are struggling to make money, despite receiving £120 million a year (based on last year’s take) from the £320 million the ECB brings in from TV rights and other commercial revenue from England games. And despite the plethora of competitions the 18 counties now offer.
“Several counties are in real financial difficulty,” said Rod Bransgrove, the outgoing owner of county team Hampshire. “As much as I admire Richard Thompson,” he says, when the England games are bringing in so much cash for the sport “is there any excuse for that?”
Compare their financial plight to the Indian Premier League (IPL). A 20-overs-per-side format, known as T20, it has loud music, dancers and fireworks, and has created a sporting juggernaut in cricket-mad India, whose media rights are estimated to be worth $1.2 billion (£910 million), putting it well ahead of Formula One and golf’s PGA Tour.
England’s answer has been The Hundred. A quick, 100-ball game, it was launched three years ago with eight county teams, aimed at attracting new audiences, particularly women, children and families. At every fixture, a women’s game is followed by a men’s game — marking a revolution in the ancient sport.
It has been a success, both financially — it is already generating tens of millions of pounds for the county game — and in the popularity stakes — linear TV audiences for the men’s games are the third most watched competition on the sporting calendar, and the women’s matches are more popular than the EFL championship. So now, Thompson has kicked off a process to cash in on the tournament by auctioning off 49 per cent stakes in each of the teams.
Estimates for how much money this will raise vary from £200 million to £500 million, depending on how many private equity firms, US sports conglomerates and Indian billionaires queue up to bid.
Cash-strapped county clubs would share in the proceeds. As Thompson put it: “This could underwrite the whole game.”
But the prospect of private equity dealmakers holding sway over the most traditional of British sports has its critics. “The whole process has been rushed and not thought through enough,” said an executive at one of the county teams.
There is clearly appetite among investors to get involved.
Private equity firm Bridgepoint approached the ECB in 2022 to acquire 75 per cent of the entire tournament after its inaugural season. The London-listed buyout firm was offering to inject £300 million and had lined up former Asda and Royal Mail boss Allan Leighton to develop its bid.
Then, earlier this year, IPL founder Lalit Modi offered to pay the ECB $1 billion for the right to host an alternative competition between mid-July and August for the next ten years.
Modi insists that this was not an attempt to buy The Hundred, but rather an attempt to replace it with an IPL-style competition during that time frame.
While the proposals were rebuffed by the ECB, they did jolt the organisation into exploring other options. “The board felt quite strongly that governing bodies should be providing annuities to their stakeholders, not selling a chunk of its equity that we’ll never get back,” Thompson said.
“And so … I thought if we can’t sell the competition, what’s plan B? And so that’s when we kind of focused on the idea of coming up with the idea of seeing whether we can sell all the teams.”
American merchant bank Raine, which has overseen the sale of Premier League football clubs Chelsea and Manchester United, is running the process to sell stakes in the Hundred’s franchises. Since the process began last month, 100 parties have registered an interest. Thompson had hoped for 40 to 50 suitors. “Well, we’ve doubled that. Whether that now translates into binding offers, we’ll wait and see,” he said.
Modi is adamant that the ECB’s commercial revenue projections are unachievable. Potential bidders have been told total revenues from the Hundred will rise from £46.9 million this year to £155.5 million by 2032. “Not realistic,” Modi said.
Domestic TV rights, meanwhile, are projected to jump from £54 million a year to £85 million when the current Sky Sports broadcast deal runs out in 2028. Again, Modi claims viewing figures are not growing fast enough to justify such an increase.
And international TV rights are projected to rise from £2.1 million a year currently to £34.8 million in 2032.
Modi is not the only one doubting such assumptions. Dan Plumley, sports business expert at Sheffield Hallam University, said they would only be achievable if The Hundred teams manage to lure over some of India’s star players, which would extend its appeal to the millions of Indian cricket fans. That will only happen if the Indian authorities relax rules that bar Indian players from playing in overseas tournaments.“It is the sticking point,” Plumley said.
Modi — who knows a thing or two about the world premier cricket tournament — is adamant this will not happen soon. “And Indians watch Indian cricket,” he said.
Thompson disagrees. “It’s inevitable. There will be some IPL ownership coming into the new Hundred structure, and that may unlock Indian talent to us,” he said.
Thompson is determined to prevent English cricket going backwards. And is unapologetic that the game must move on if it is to stand on its own two feet financially.
“[The Hundred has] been seminal and transformational for the women’s game. We’ve had men and women playing on the same day in the same venue, no other competition in any sport does that,” he said.
“The older members rally against it. We want to take cricket fans with us, but for the hardcore ‘red ball’ championship-following fans? Actually it’s a tournament not geared for you.”