Todd Boehly, the chairman and co-owner of Chelsea, has bought a 49 per cent stake in The Hundred franchise Trent Rockets.
The investment values Nottingham-based Rockets — which encompass the English county clubs of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire — at around £79million ($97.73m).
The purchase has been made by real estate investment company Cain International, founded by Boehly and his fellow Chelsea board member Jonathan Goldstein.
Cain International and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) both declined to comment when approached by The Athletic.
Boehly, 51, had previously been in the bidding process for the London Spirit, which plays at the capital’s Lord’s Cricket Ground but later withdrew. Manchester United co-owner Avram Glazer also bit for the Spirit. A consortium of US-based tech billionaires, led by Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, went on to purchase 49 per cent of the franchise for £145m.
Knighthead Capital, the group which Tom Brady is a partner in and that owns Birmingham City, purchased a 49 per cent stake in the Birmingham Phoenix franchise last week.
Southern Brave is the remaining Hundred franchise yet to be sold, following previous cash injections at the Spirit, the Phoenix, Northern Superchargers, Oval Invincibles, Manchester Originals and Welsh Fire.
The ECB had been keen to attract investment from North America in The Hundred, with ownership groups from the Indian Premier League (IPL) already heavily involved.
The IPL, which is played in the Twenty20 format, has been the sport’s most successful start-up league.
The Hundred was an attempt by the ECB to address the IPL’s dominance by devising an even shorter version of cricket, designed specifically to bring in younger audiences and families, with reduced ticket prices and intended to appeal to mainstream broadcasters.
The auction of The Hundred’s teams represents a big bet on future potential. The valuations at which the franchises are being sold are massive multiples of annual revenue, but are reflective of the long-term projection of the sport’s continued growth as a global entertainment product.
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What is The Hundred?
A UK-based cricket league, The Hundred is the only cricket division in the world that is played in a 100-ball format.
100-ball cricket means each side’s batting innings is restricted to a maximum of 100 balls. It is slightly shorter than the Twenty20 format, a version of cricket consisting of 20 overs (120 balls) per side.
T20 has been added to the Olympic programme for sports and will feature at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
The Hundred, which began in 2021, is organised by the ECB annually across July and August, with games designed not to last longer than two and a half hours. Men’s and women’s matches are regularly played as double headers throughout the competitions.
The Hundred consists of eight teams, seven from England and one in Wales.
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