London Spirit’s new part-owners, Silicon Valley-based consortium Cricket Investor Holdings, have agreed a kit deal with Nike for the Hundred franchise which will begin next year.
The Nike deal is the first bespoke commercial contract secured by one of the Hundred teams, as sponsorship deals have previously been sold centrally by the England and Wales Cricket Board, with New Balance providing all eight kits for the first five seasons of the competition.
The ECB’s contract with New Balance contains a break clause after this year, however, enabling the franchises to negotiate individual deals from now on, and London Spirit have been quickest off the mark in bringing in a new partner. Other lucrative commercial deals are also understood to be in the pipeline as the new joint owners leverage their contacts.
Cricket Investor Holdings, which is led by the chief executives of Microsoft, Google and Palo Alto Networks, have paid £145m for 49 per cent of the London Spirit and already appear to be adding value to the Lord’s-based franchise.
Marylebone Cricket Club remains the 51 per cent majority owner, although plans for London Spirit to play in MCC bacon-and-egg colours next season have been shelved.
Six of the eight Hundred sales have been completed, but negotiations over new investment in Oval Invincibles and Trent Rockets, from the Ambani family and a group involving Chelsea owner Todd Boehly respectively, are proving more complex and will not be finished before the start of this year’s competition next Tuesday.
London Spirit and MCC declined to comment.
Premier League ref cam adoption delayed
The Premier League wanted to use ref cams in its Summer Series, which is being broadcast live by Sky Sports, but were unable to gain approval from global lawmakers Ifab before the pre-season tournament began in New York last weekend.
Ref cams were used during the Club World Cup this summer to provide extra in-game footage to broadcasters, and the Premier League’s TV rights holders are eager to see them introduced to the competition next season.
Ifab has received requests from a number of leading domestic leagues to pilot ref cams, which are worn by officials to offer viewers a unique perspective, but is yet to approve any other trials.
The Premier League would ultimately like to see ref cams used in their own competition but, having missed out on a Summer Series trial, are unlikely to bring them in for the start of the season even if approval is granted.
Lionesses breakthrough came in 2019
England’s first Women’s Euros victory in 2022 is widely remembered as the tipping point for the game in this country, but in terms of attracting mass audiences the Lionesses’ run to the World Cup semi-final under Phil Neville three years earlier was the real game-changer.
The 2019 World Cup in France was arguably the first time that the Lionesses genuinely captured the nation’s attention, with a peak audience of 11.7m watching their semi-final defeat to the USA on BBC1, a huge rise on the viewing figures of 2.4m for England’s loss to Japan at the same stage of the tournament four years earlier.
The growth in support has continued since but has been more incremental, with the 2022 final win over Germany attracting 17.4m viewers after the tournament was staged in England, 14.4m watching the World Cup final defeat to Spain 12 months later and 16m tuning in for last Sunday’s extraordinary penalty shootout victory over the same opponents.
Man Utd cuts hit pre-season tour
Manchester United’s cost-cutting has extended to the club taking fewer members of staff than in previous years on their pre-season tour of the US.
Ruben Amorim’s football staff and the medical team have not been cut, but some managerial and logistical personnel who would ordinarily have travelled with the team for pre-season have stayed in Manchester.
The fact that United are playing in the Premier League Summer Series, which also features Everton, West Ham and Bournemouth, has lessened the impact of their reduced staffing levels as the top-flight’s operations team have taken up much of the slack on the tour.
Sky set to take Women’s Lions rights
Sky Sports is set to cement their position as the TV home of the British and Irish Lions by securing the rights for the first women’s tour in two years’ time.
The historic first Women’s Lions series will take place in New Zealand in September 2027, with the tourists set to play three Tests and several tour matches.
While Lions chiefs are yet to issue an invitation to tender, Sky Sports is viewed as the strong favourite as it has held live rights for the men’s tours since 1997, and a formal bidding process may not be required.
Turki catches Dazn on the hop
Turki Alalshikh’s announcement earlier this month that Dazn was abandoning the pay-per-view model for its boxing coverage appears to have taken some executives at the streaming company by surprise given it is fundamental to their business model.
It is unclear whether Dazn plans to drop PPV completely and offer all of its boxing content to subscribers for free, or will only drop their paywall for fights under the Riyadh Season banner, which is spearheaded by Alalshikh in his role as chair of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority.
The next Riyadh Season event is a WBC light heavyweight bout between David Benavidez and Anthony Yarde in November, before which Dazn will be pushing hard to secure new subscribers.