Colin Graves: The Hundred saved Yorkshire – we were two weeks from going bust
Colin Graves has a message for those who doubted his decision to introduce the Hundred to English cricket.
Six years ago, as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Graves and his chief executive at the time, Tom Harrison, bulldozed the Hundred through against some tough resistance because they wanted to create an asset for English cricket that could be sold in the future to pay off the game’s huge debt and help protect the counties in a changing world.
“When we first started talking about it and launched it we were told we were killing English cricket,” he tells Telegraph Sport. “That it would be the worst thing we could have done for English cricket. It would not work, we could never do it. I remember getting quizzed by a government select committee. ‘Why are you launching?’ They gave us a hard time. I said ‘we’re doing the right thing for English cricket’ and I think we proved them all wrong.
“Without this, what would have happened? County cricket was in a dire financial situation. It has saved the structure of English cricket because going forward, there would have been some big black holes to fall down and Yorkshire were facing one of them.”
Graves knows this because he says the club were two weeks from going bust when he took over for the second time, almost a year ago on February 9, with Yorkshire reeling from the fallout of the Azeem Rafiq racism case.
The club had come close to selling Headingley to Mike Ashley in return for wiping off their £25 million debt. When that deal collapsed, they were heading for administration before Graves and business associates injected emergency cash and propped Yorkshire up with the hope the Hundred sell off would ride to the rescue.
This week the Northern Superchargers were bought by the Sunrisers Hyderabad IPL franchise for £105 million, in a bidding auction. Unlike the other host clubs, Yorkshire opted to cash in their chips now, selling their 51 per cent share gifted by the ECB. Sunrisers are the only buyers so far (Trent Rockets and Southern Brave will be sold next week) to take outright ownership of a Hundred team.
It makes more sense to sell off their own equity when a club are facing major debts, like Yorkshire. Graves says Yorkshire will receive a minimum of £55 million – probably more – from the sale of their own stake, which was worth about £40 million when deductions that go into the overall pool for the game are taken into account, as well as their cut from the sale of the other seven franchises that is being shared across the game.
‘It was an absolute catastrophe’
The club will immediately pay off their debt to the Colin Graves Trust of almost £20 million which has bankrolled Headingley for two decades. The rest goes to other debtors including bank loans. The club will have a cushion of £35 million, giving them a healthy living off interest alone.
“We were two weeks from going bust when I came back. We had naff all, nothing. The cupboard was bare and we owed £7.5 million quid. We owed £1.2 million to the Inland Revenue. It was an absolute catastrophe,” says Graves. “In 12 months the picture has changed beyond recognition and one of the things I want to do before I leave is make sure it cannot get in that situation again.
“If someone had said six months ago we would get over £100 million for the Northern Superchargers I wouldn’t have believed it. It has secured the club’s future. We will pay off all the debt straight away. Then we will invest in the future. Don’t waste it, that is the main thing. Do not let the club get in a mess financially again. We will be able to use the interest to help fund the club going forward but we’re not going to go around splashing out money.”
The club faced an annual interest bill of £2 million on its debts and in years when it does not host a Test match, such as 2027 and 2028, it will incur huge losses. It is a perilous position for host grounds when bilateral cricket is in a state of flux. Now they can invest in Headingley, the player pathway for men and women, while letting the Sunrisers run the Hundred team.
“From our point of view, the valuation level now is very high. So to me, we take that money,” says Graves. “What’s the point of being a minority investor with somebody else being a majority investor? Let them run it. Let them do what they want to do with the Hundred team. If they make a lot of money on the back of it, good luck to them, well done. We’ll work with them as part of the partnership agreement but we have enough to do running Yorkshire cricket.”
Likely change of name for team
It is likely the team will change name to the Northern Sunrisers, the franchise adding to its portfolio that includes the Sunrisers Hyderabad and Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the South African T20. It is run by the Sun Group, which owns 37 television channels in India. The Sunrisers are run by Kavya Maran, the 33-year-old daughter of Sun Group founder Kalanithi Maran.
There is a six-week period of exclusivity to negotiate and tax implications to be worked out but Graves believes selling the whole stake should ease the process, with fewer hurdles to overcome because Sunrisers will be the sole owners rather than be in partnership agreements like elsewhere in the Hundred.
Graves is still exploring demutualisation, converting Yorkshire from a member-owned club to a private company like Durham and Hampshire, but it will be on the back burner while the Hundred money is invested.
The cupboard is no longer bare. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the club sound. I am not going to waste the money or let other people waste it after I have gone. I’m going to put measures in place to stop that. We had horrendous profit-and-loss situations recently and Yorkshire will never get in that situation again; not ever.”
