🏏 Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) owns a team in The Hundred

Happy Monday everybody. We have made it to February already!

I had an entire newsletter written about the massive problem with gambling in the Premier League. However, that newsletter is now scheduled for next week as two pieces of critical news were announced this past weekend:

1. The CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella owns a team in The Hundred

2. Luka Doncic now plays basketball in Los Angeles

These were two sentences I did not expect to be writing in 2025! Let’s dive in.

I have been closely following the progress of the England Cricket Board aiming to generate millions by selling equity stakes in each of eight franchises playing in The Hundred.

For those unaware, the ECB created The Hundred 5 years ago. They created a brand new cricketing competition and retained 100% ownership in the league with a view to sell a portion of it to investors after 3 seasons. Doing this will generate much needed cash for all forms of English cricket. Cash which will be used to help the sport at every level.

Cricket is my favourite sport so this venture has sat close to my heart.

The ECB agreed to sell 49% of each of the 8 teams in the competition. They did this by putting those stakes up for auction last weekend. In Auction #1 four teams were up for sale and they generated far more money than previously anticipated:

• London Spirit: £144m (Valuation: £295m)

• Oval Invincibles: £60m (Valuation: £123m)

• Birmingham Phoenix: £40m (Valuation: £82m)

• Welsh Fire: £35m (Valuation: £71.5m)

Yes, you read that correctly. So far, the ECB has generated £300m from the sale of the first four Hundred franchises.

The interesting thing to me however is who was interested in acquiring these assets.

London Spirit was purchased by a consortium led by Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks. Included in that consortium Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Shantanu Narayen and Egon Durban, the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Adobe and Silver Lake Management respectively!

Knighthead is the American company who took a controlling stake in Birmingham City recently. They have deepened their roots in the Northern City by acquiring Birmingham Phoenix Hundred franchise.

The Oval Invincibles were acquired by the Ambani family. Famous for the ownership of massive Indian company Reliance Industristries.

Sanjay Govil is the owner of Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket in the US. He is now the owner of Welsh Fire.

We are only at the half way point of the auction so I will report more next week, however I am very surprised at the presence of big tech in acquiring these cricket teams. I am also surprised at the valuations they were sold at, I did not think they would accrue the £350m they wanted in this process.

The other surprise to me this weekend was how much the Dallas Mavericks valued Luka Doncic at.

The crazy part about this deal are the financial implications on Luka Doncic by no longer playing for Dallas. This summer he was dead-set on signing the largest contract in NBA history. That is now no longer possible! Instead, he joins LA and can “only” sign a contract worth $229m.

He also goes from paying 0 in state tax to one of the highest state taxes in America in Los Angeles (14.4%).

I do not usually cover US sports but this trade is the craziest trade I have ever seen. It also serves as a reminder as to the ruthlessness in professional sports at the highest level.

There are worse things out there than playing basketball in Los Angeles, but god damn that $116m delta in potential contract size is massive.

It’s a cold world out there.

Today I leave you with an excellent podcast with Bill Sweeney the Chairman of the RFU.

I made a video recently about the decline of English rugby. The comments on the video were awash with passionate fans from the UK complaining about the state of the game and the ways in which things can be improved.

The RFU ha been under fire for many months and LOTS of people have been calling for the head of the Bill Sweeney himself.

Last week, he (bravely) found himself on the GBR podcast with Alex Payne, James Haskell and Mike Tindall.

The whole thing is a brilliant listen but from 23:28 in particular they discuss his large bonuses, the record losses filed by the RFU and why rugby is in the state its in,

An excellent podcast moderated particularly well by Alex Payne.

See you next week.