‘Very strange speed dating’: ECB aims to accelerate Hundred investment

The Hundred season that starts at the Oval on Tuesday will be the last in its current form, with expansion from eight teams possible and changes of owner­ship inevitable as the ­organisers launch into “speed dating” with potential investors.

Negotiations between the England and Wales Cricket Board, would-be investors and existing host ­counties and clubs are set to accelerate over the second half of the year in a process described by the ECB’s Vikram ­Banerjee as “kind of a bit like very strange speed dating” that will ensure “that everyone’s got a partner in a weird kind of school disco sort of moment”.

Potential investors have been invited to send delegations to attend games over the next four weeks, with the final scheduled for 18 August. “Many of them know cricket very well, know the Hundred very well and may not feel the need to come,” said Banerjee, the ECB’s director of business operations. “Others, some of our American friends for example, may like the idea of what we’ve got but don’t really know cricket at all so they’ll come along and see what English cricket’s about.

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“We’ll then start the process in earnest in September, building off the momentum that hopefully is created from the tournament, with the aim that the 2025 season becomes the first season of different. What different looks like we can’t tell just yet.”

The ECB is selling its 49% share in each team , with investors ­seeking majority control of teams ­needing to reach a separate deal to buy some or all of the 51% stake owned by host counties.

In its search for investment the ECB has met the owners of every existing Indian Premier League franchise, as well as those in control of any independent teams in the equivalent ­women’s ­tournament, the WPL, and has “just sent a document and a video to some NFL owners that explains what cricket is”. The ambition is for negotiations to conclude in time for the immediate future of the tournament’s eight teams to be known before the player auction next March.

“If things take a bit longer and the 2025 season is a bit of a transition season, which it most likely will be, then that’s fine,” Banerjee said.

The ECB hopes to change the tournament in several ways in coming years, with one priority being to “move it more into a tribalism”, creating a generation of fans that will attend every home game and travel for away fixtures, replacing the perception among some attendees that matches are little more than an ­interesting evening out. There are also plans to create more teams, though major structural changes – including a switch from the 100-ball format to more familiar T20s – are said to be unlikely under the

The broadcasting deal with Sky and the BBC runs until 2028. “We see the need for a potential expansion of the competition at some point going forwards,” said Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive officer. “That’s certainly something that has been discussed over the last five or six weeks with our stakeholders.

“We’re not saying exactly how the expansion could and will happen at this point, because there’s a lot of factors that would need to come into play on that, but there is an ambition that we would like to see the competition expand at some point.”