London Spirit: Tech titans eye speedy Hundred deal to beat Trump tax rises
English cricket is set to be an unlikely beneficiary of US President Donald Trump’s tax changes, with the so-called “tech titans” who are buying into London Spirit eager to complete the transaction before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is rubber-stamped by Congress.
One clause of the Republic-sponsored bill, now with the Senate having been narrowly passed in the House of Representatives last month, will impose higher taxes on capital sent abroad, which could have significant implications for the Silicon Valley-based Cricket Investor Holdings, who have agreed to pay £145m for 49 per cent of Lord’s-based London Spirit.
As a result, Cricket Investor Holdings – fronted by Palo Alto chief executive Nikesh Arora – is pushing for the participation agreement to be signed by the middle of next month.
The other seven investment groups are also on board having gained concessions from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) during a negotiation process that has now dragged on for almost five months.
These include the right to unbundle the Hundred from the rest of the ECB’s domestic TV rights in 2029, and more votes on the Hundred Board that will determine the future of the competition.
The ECB will bank £520m when the participation agreement is finally signed and then redistribute the proceeds to the 18 first class counties.
London Spirit are the reigning champions in the women’s Hundred, while the men’s team achieved their best finish of third place in 2022.
The tech titans saw off competition for London Spirit from Lucknow Super Giants owner Sanjiv Goenka, Avram Glazer’s Lancer Capital, and Cain International, led by Chelsea director Jonathan Goldstein and backed by the club’s co-owner, Todd Boehly.
RugbyPass outage raises concerns at RFU
England chiefs are seeking reassurances from World Rugby that its streaming channel, RugbyPass, can cope with hundreds of thousands of viewers after the feed went down during last weekend’s game between an England XV and France XV at Twickenham.
The RugbyPass site crashed at the start of the first half with the error message “Too many requests” displayed on-screen, with the Rugby Football Union responding quickly to move coverage of the match to the England Rugby YouTube channel.
RugbyPass has the rights to show England’s tour match against the United States next month as no other broadcaster submitted a bid to USA Rugby, leading to concerns that more problems could occur.
More than 500,000 viewers watched England’s Test against Japan last summer on RugbyPass without experiencing any issue, and World Rugby is confident that last weekend’s problems were a one-off.
Leagues One and Two to get Sky showcase
League One and League Two clubs will enjoy three days of exclusive and uninterrupted TV coverage on Sky Sports at the start of next season.
The EFL will announce its fixtures tomorrow lunchtime and, in a repeat of an experiment three years ago ahead of the mid-season 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the two lower divisions will kick off a week earlier than the Championship on Friday 1 August. The second tier will start seven days later and the Premier League the weekend after that.
Unlike in 2022, however, Sky Sports has the rights to broadcast every non-3pm EFL game, so the League One and Two fixtures will be spread out and televised over a three-day opening weekend.
Yorkshire eye Headingley works in Test hiatus
Yorkshire plan to use their unwanted three-year gap without staging a Test match to undertake a major redevelopment of Headingley.
After hosting New Zealand or Pakistan next year, Test cricket will not return to Yorkshire until 2029, despite the ground’s history of delivering thrilling matches, as evidenced again by this week’s compelling spectacle against India.
In 2029 Yorkshire will have to make do with an early season warm-up game against lesser opposition such as Ireland, Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, as the five marquee Tests against India have already been awarded to Lord’s, the Oval, Old Trafford, Edgbaston and the Utilita Bowl in Hampshire.
Yorkshire have been given Tests in three successive years from 2029 however, including an Ashes Test in 2031, so will use the fallow period to improve the ground.
Following years of financial problems Yorkshire will soon be debt-free with around £30m in the bank after selling Hundred franchise Northern Superchargers to The Sun Group for £100m.