MCC, the organisation of which Nicholas is chair, kept its 51 per cent stake in London Spirit, with Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, a consortium of US-based tech entrepreneurs, snapping up the rest.
Mark Nicholas believes the incoming injection of private funding into the Hundred will give the competition ‘an enormous boost’ and help address the fact it has ‘eased off’. The ECB sold its 49 per cent stake in each of the eight competing teams earlier this year, with host clubs then deciding how much of their stake to retain.
MCC, the organisation of which Nicholas is chair, kept its 51 per cent stake in London Spirit, with Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, a consortium of US-based tech entrepreneurs, snapping up the rest. London Spirit was valued at £295million, the most of any team, and Nicholas – who was on the board of Southampton-based Southern Brave before moving to Lord’s – is excited to see how the investment takes the competition to new heights.
“It’s interesting that it seems to have eased off a bit,” he said. “If you’d asked me at the end of the first year, I’d have said ‘eureka’. I was astonished, and the impact on the women’s game in particular was fantastic. I can’t quite get why audiences have gone down a bit, but I like The Hundred, I like the format, I think it’s a bit more nuanced than T20. I am a big fan of it.
“I think it will get the most enormous boost next year. Once these private owners take over and you suddenly get that ‘brand feel’ to each of the franchises, their own marketing impact and fan engagement modelling, I have no doubt the tournament will be really successful here.
“It will be a great venture. Whether it can be the silver bullet, I don’t know, but I think it will be a very strong product for English cricket in the years to come.”
Nicholas was speaking ahead of the second World Cricket Connects forum at Lord’s, at which franchise cricket will be among the topics debated by a collection of key figures from within the sport as well as external commercial voices. Other themes including the state of the game, women’s cricket and ‘is cricket cool?’ will be up for discussion at Lord’s, while Australia captain Pat Cummins will be interviewed as part of a panel surrounding climate issues in cricket.
“This year is a little bit more driven by the business of the game,” he said. “Last year we had the likes of Kevin Pietersen, Jos Buttler and Brendon McCullum, whereas this year we have gone for big players in the various markets.
“That was to some degree driven by the ICC wanting some input to the event but driven more by our thinking that it needed a different angle this year.
“There are still big names who will be speaking – Kumar Sangakkara, Sourav Ganguly, Andrew Strauss. We really did have some exceptional presentations last time and I think we are well on course to have the same this year.”
World Cricket Connects is an initiative dedicated to bringing together cricket stakeholders from around the world to discuss and shape the future of the sport. Through events, discussions, and collaborations, World Cricket Connects aims to foster innovation, inclusivity, and sustainability in cricket.