Bankers to bowl cricket chiefs over with Hundred sell-off pitch

English cricket chiefs will next week take another step towards a radical revamp of the sport’s ownership structure by launching plans to sell stakes in The Hundred’s eight franchises.

Sky News has learnt that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) will interview bankers in the coming days as they prepare to raise funds by recruiting private investors into teams including the Northern Superchargers and Welsh Fire.

Insiders said on Saturday that Goldman Sachs, Raine and Rothschild were in contention to advise the ECB on the auction process.

Under the governing body’s plans, each host venue would own 51% of their individual franchise, with the remainder sold in full or in part by the ECB to private investors.

Estimates have suggested that the process could raise £100m, with proceeds distributed between the 18 counties, many of which are struggling financially, and to recreational cricket.

Some of the world’s most prolific sports investors, including backers of a number of Indian Premier League (IPL) teams, are expected to show an interest in Hundred franchises.

The ECB could seek to coordinate the auction of the franchise stakes centrally, with the aim of the new structure being in place in time for the 2025 tournament.

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Raine, which advised on the recent sale of a stake in Manchester United Football Club to Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Sports, and Rothschild, which is working on deals with Brentford, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United, both have strong sporting pedigrees.

Sources said the ECB was expected to ratify the appointment of an adviser in May.

“There is a strong consensus that we would like to see private investment come into the Hundred,” Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive, said this week.

“There’s a very strong consensus that that should be through investment into the teams rather than the central competition, and now we’re working through the options of what that could potentially look like, in terms of how control, revenue and capital is shared.”

Mr Gould, a former chief executive of Bristol City Football Club, was an outspoken critic of The Hundred during his tenure at Surrey.

The banking pitch comes about 18 months after English cricket was handed an offer from Bridgepoint Group, the London-listed buyout firm, to buy a controlling stake in the Hundred.

Bridgepoint proposed buying a 75% stake in the format in a deal that could have injected £300m of new money into English cricket.

The ECB, however, was reluctant to relinquish control of The Hundred, and felt that Bridgepoint’s offer substantially undervalued it.

Nevertheless, its latest blueprint is also proving divisive, with some of the counties excluded from The Hundred unhappy about the proposals.

Last year’s men’s Hundred final was won by the Oval Invincibles, while the women’s competition saw Southern Brave triumph.

This year’s tournament gets underway on the weekend of July 23, when the men’s and women’s defending champions play Birmingham Phoenix and London Spirit respectively.

The Hundred has helped to reinvigorate public interest in cricket, particularly among female and younger spectators, at a time when other formats of the game have experienced waning interest.

The county game’s finances have been parlous for many years, with many sceptical that 50-over cricket will survive in the long term.

Yorkshire County Cricket Club has come close to financial collapse in recent months amid the fallout from its racism scandal, while a number of others are exploring talks with new investors.

A spokesman for the ECB declined to comment this weekend, while none of the banks responded to a request for comment or could be reached.

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