The leader of the Tech Titans consortium that bought 49% of London Spirit believes the Hundred could rival the Indian Premier League in value.
In January 2025, the Titans stunned the sports investment world by paying £145 million for their stake, the highest valuation among the eight Hundred franchises sold.
The England and Wales Cricket Board’s auction raised £520 million to be reinvested in domestic cricket.
Marylebone Cricket Club, gifted the remaining 51% of London Spirit, faces the challenge of running professional teams for the first time in its 238-year history.
MCC chief operating officer Rob Lynch called it “extremely exciting”.
Nikesh Arora, chief executive of American cybersecurity giant Palo Alto, said the new partners have no regrets and revealed more investors have since joined the consortium.
While the Hundred has overtaken Australia’s Big Bash League, the IPL remains dominant, valued at £14 billion. Gujarat Titans recently sold 67% in a deal valuing the franchise at £975 million.
Arora said “The IPL started from nowhere, and became a multibillion-dollar product.
“Why couldn’t this be that product? There are eight new shareholders across eight new franchises. They all have successful businesses or cricket operations somewhere in the world.
“If that energy, that passion, that creativity, that innovation is brought to this, imagine what they could do.
“The ECB incubated the Hundred, which is great, but I’m sure there are ways to optimise things.
“We have never had buyer’s remorse. We’ve never been stressed about what we paid. I have more people who want to be part of the consortium now than I had before I made the investment.”
The Hundred’s model raises questions for investors. Franchises have just four home games, do not own grounds, and the domestic TV deal with Sky Sports is worth about £35 million annually.
The Titans are already using their networks to grow revenues.
A Nike kit deal for next season is understood to be agreed, with a major push on digital content planned. But Arora insists the initial focus is on improving the on-field product.
The top men’s pay bracket has risen from £125,000 to £200,000 this year to lure stars like David Warner and Kane Williamson. The goal is to raise it to £500,000 in the coming years.
Arora continued: “In our world, we don’t talk about money, we talk about product.
“We ask: ‘How can a tech company build a great product that eventually people want?’ and when a lot of people want it, they will make money.
“I worked at Google for 10 years, and the chief executive [Sundar Pichai] is here tonight. We never talked about how much money we could make.
“We said: ‘Oh my God, wouldn’t it be cool if you could take your phone out, and it’d just tell you how to get from one place to the other, and it’d give you directions?’ It’s called Google Maps now.
“Pretty much everyone uses it and would not know how to get from point A to point B without it.”
“But we never started by saying: ‘How much money can we make?’ We said: ‘How can we make this an amazing product that people want to engage with?’”
Satyan Gajwani, one of Arora’s key partners and co-founder of Major League Cricket in the US, believes growth will be driven by the UK audience despite the multinational investor base.
This will mean higher ticket prices, but also innovations in broadcasting and digital content.
Gajwani said: “Whether it’s MLC in the US or the Hundred here, the IPL may be a little bit different, I think it starts with a strong domestic product.
“If we’re selling out stadiums and people are excited to watch it, that’s the major driver. And then the bleed-on effect around the world will happen.
“Bringing in stakeholders beyond governing bodies has almost always improved product. We’ve got eight best-in-class investors, people who understand business, consumers and sport, globally and locally.
“And relative to almost every other sport, cricket has less private power, for lack of a better term.
“The NBA is run privately, the NFL is private, La Liga, the Premier League are private businesses. The influx of diverse views, different stakeholders, will bring innovation.”