Manchester Originals investors ‘happy’ despite missing out on London Spirit
The owner of Indian Premier League side Lucknow Super Giants, RPSG Group, says it is “extremely happy” to have bought a stake in the Hundred franchise Manchester Originals despite initially bidding for Lord’s-based London Spirit.
RPSG was gazumped in the auction of a 49 per cent stake in London Spirit by a consortium of Silicon Valley tech billionaires, who paid £145m for the sizeable minority holding in the recent Hundred sale run by the England and Wales Cricket Board.
That forced RPSG to look elsewhere for an investment in the 100-ball competition, and they alighted on Old Trafford-based Manchester Originals, in whom they have agreed to buy a 70 per cent stake for around £80m.
“While we did bit aggressively for Lord’s, we stopped at a point and I’m extremely happy with Manchester,” said RPSG vice-chairman Shashwat Goenka.
“We are very excited with this investment. It’s going to be a formidable partnership.
“From a cricketing standpoint, it is one of the only sports in the world that has the kind of viewership that it does globally across race, caste, culture, religion, any of that.
“Manchester is a global sporting hub…one of the top five sporting cities across the world.”
Manchester ‘the UK’s top sporting city’
Daniel Gidney, chief executive of Manchester Originals host county Lancashire, said the new investment and expertise would boost the city’s claim to being “the UK’s No1 sporting city”.
“Manchester is a global sporting capital…a powerhouse. We want the Manchester franchise in the Hundred to be become the third biggest sports team in Manchester and challenge those two sports teams in Manchester [United and City],” he added.
“That is the scale and level of the ambition of both of us as partners. I have been to IPL games and the whole playbook, the use of colour, the use of branding, data acquisition, the fandom is off the scale. It’s something that is stronger than the Premier League, in my words.
“This is something that is incredibly exciting for us and that is why we wanted to partner with an IPL team and we always have done. You’ve got a 1.4bn population of people who adore cricket, why wouldn’t we want to inject a bit of that energy and passion into Manchester and Lancashire?”
England opener Phil Salt, who plays for Lancashire and the Originals and also has experience of the IPL, said new Indian and US owners would help take the Hundred to “a new level”.
“At the inception of the IPL, I suppose their ambition was to bring the world’s best tournament that we’ve ever seen and that’s exactly what they’ve done. We sit here today knowing full well that our ambition is to bring the world’s best cricket to Manchester,” he added.
“It’s going to be a huge benefit for both the men’s and women’s game. Now there’s going to be increased funds available, it’s going to be a boost for the infrastructure of the game. I think a lot of the [England] guys share that sentiment, that this is the start of realising that ambition.”