Some time ago, the ECB had opened the doors for private players to participate in the tournament.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has rejected the proposal by former IPL chairman Lalit Modi to buy their domestic tournament The Hundred for 10 years. If media reports are to be believed, the ECB does not want to spoil its relations with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which is currently the biggest stakeholder in the cricket world.
It is noteworthy that Modi is currently in London and since 2013, he is banned from participating in IPL and any other type of cricket activity in India. Lalit Modi was the brain behind starting IPL.
However, after this he had proposed to the ECB to do something similar to IPL with ‘The Hundred’, but now he has got a big shock. Recently, Lalit Modi’s representatives met senior ECB officials Vikram Banerjee and Richard Good, in which they expressed their desire to invest in the tournament.
Regarding this issue, ECB Chairman Richard Thomson quoted the British Daily as saying that he will consider only a proposal worth a few billion dollars. The ECB had planned to sell only the equity while keeping the ownership of the tournament with itself.
Also, let us tell you that before Lalit Modi, Bridgepoint Group had already invested 400 million dollars and proposed 75 percent stake to the ECB for stake in The Hundred. But till now no updates have come out regarding this deal.
Modi had estimated the annual income of The Hundred at 100 million dollars.
In a recent interview given to Cricbuzz, Lalit Modi had said that by investing in The Hundred tournament, he wants to make it a 10-team tournament. Also, with the conversion of the 100-ball game to T20 format, the team purse should be increased to $10 million (Rs 83 crore). After this, Modi had expressed hope that the tournament could generate an income of 100 million dollars every year.