Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai, two of the world’s top executives, have bought a team in England’s The Hundred tournament. Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, a consortium comprising the chief executives of Microsoft and Google, bought a 49 percent stake in London Spirit. For this, the consortium has to spend 14 million British pounds. Which is about 2200 crore taka in Bangladeshi currency.
The Silicon Valley consortium has won the auction organized by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). Manchester United co-owner Glazer family, Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly and IPL team Lucknow Super Giants owner Sanjiv Goenka had shown interest in buying London Spirit.
The ECB is the main owner of eight teams in the ‘The Hundred’ tournament, known as 100-ball cricket. However, the ownership of London Spirit based at Lord’s has been gifted by the ECB to MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club). Before the formation of the International Cricket Council (ICC), MCC was the authority of global cricket, it is still the authority to make the laws of cricket.
The ECB is organizing a series of auctions to sell the ownership of The Hundred’s teams. Cricket Investor Holdings Limited, a consortium led by Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, bought 49 per cent of London Spirit for around Rs 30 crore in the second day’s auction on Friday.
Arora is joined by Google CEO Pichai, Microsoft CEO Nadella, Times Internet Vice Chairman Satyan Gajwani and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan among others. MCC will own 51 percent of London Spirit.
In another auction on the same day, Indian-American tech entrepreneur Sanjay Govil bought a 49 per cent stake in Welsh Fire. It cost £40 million.
Earlier on Thursday, the owners of IPL team Mumbai Indians bought 49 percent of Oval Invincible for 60 million pounds. Nighthead Capital, who also owns Birmingham City Football Club, bought 49 percent of Birmingham Phoenix for £40 million.
The IPL authorities wanted to buy The Hundred, but the ECB decided to sell its shares. Shares of Southern Brave, Trent Rockets, Manchester Originals and Northern Superchargers are yet to be sold.