Ryan Reynolds, Red Bull and the Glazers eye Hundred investment

The Glazer family, Ryan Reynolds’ Wrexham group and Red Bull are among the potential investors in Hundred franchises later this year.

The fourth edition of the men’s and women’s Hundred begins on Tuesday against the backdrop of the looming investment into the competitions. In September, the England and Wales Cricket Board will begin a three-month auction-style process of selling stakes in the eight teams as it looks to reboot the competition from 2025.

The ECB said on Monday that it had spoken to all 10 team owners in the Indian Premier League – whose interest in investing varies – and had even sent videos and documents explaining the laws of cricket to the owners of NFL teams in a bid to drum up the appetite to invest in America.

Telegraph Sport can reveal a number of the parties that remain interested in investing following talks with the ECB and their advisers, Deloitte and the Raine Group.

The Glazer family bought Manchester United in 2005 and still retain a majority stake in the club, even after Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Group reduced their control by purchasing 25 per cent that includes control of all football operations. The Glazers have owned Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL since 1995, and have already dipped their toe into the franchise cricket market by buying Desert Vipers in the UAE’s ILT20. They have now expressed firm interest in investing in a Hundred franchise.

Hollywood superstar Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, another American actor, completed a deal to buy then non-league Wrexham in February 2021. Since, there have been three seasons of their Welcome To Wrexham documentary on the streaming service Disney+ and the global profile of the club has been transformed.

Now they are understood to be interested in investing in Cardiff-based Welsh Fire, who are expected to draw the lowest value bids of the eight. After the potential investors held a series of meetings with the ECB, attempts are being made to get them to a game during this season’s tournament to further assess the situation.

ECB executives met with Satya Nadella, the CEO and chairman of Microsoft, on a recent trip to New York to watch India v Pakistan at the T20 World Cup. Nadella is already a co-owner of Seattle Orcas in the USA’s Major League Cricket, and has also expressed an investing in the Hundred.

Knighthead Capital, who own Birmingham City alongside former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, are understood to be attending the Kia Oval for Tuesday’s sold-out season opener between Oval Invincibles and Birmingham Phoenix, who they are interested in adding to a Midlands portfolio.

Red Bull, who recently entered a small commercial deal with the ECB and sponsor England’s Ben Stokes and Alice Capsey, are also interested in investing in one of the teams.

The ECB declined to comment.

The proceeds of the sale will be spread between the 19 first-class counties and the ECB hopes it will provide “seed funding for the financial sustainability of the whole sport”, according to head of strategy Vikram Bannerjee, who is leading the process.

Bannerjee hopes that private investment will help cricket become more like football through fans’ “tribalism”.

“We must continue to maintain best v best of players, both English and from around the world,” he said. “We must continue to turbo-charge the women’s game. The Hundred has done brilliant things for women’s sport but we can’t rest on our laurels.

“We also want to move into more of a tribalism. Football is the example. Everyone talks about their favourite team. I’m an Aston Villa fan for my sins and have travelled up to Middlesborough, down to Bournemouth and wherever else to watch them. That is where we want to get the Hundred to, with fans of London Spirit travelling across the country rather than seeing it as just a day out.”

Telegraph Sport reported last week that some investors in other cricket leagues around the world were cooling on the ECB’s proposals, which would require investors to partner with the host counties, and possibly not receive a majority stake (the ECB will sell 49 per cent of each team, while gifting 51 per cent to the host venue, who can sell part of or all of their shares).

Richard Gould, the ECB chief executive, said competition from the USA’s MLC had influenced the decision to go to market this year.

“It’s a competitive global market,” he said. “There’s a lot of competitions. I don’t think they all have a long-term financial future, because they are not in mature markets, whereas we do occupy a spot in a mature market. We need to retain our best players, both men and women, over the next 10-20 years. We need to make sure we can attract the best overseas players. If we were to delay too much, others may end up stealing a march on us. From an investor side, we see that this is a good time to come to market.

“There’s not enough space for everyone [each country’s short-form competition] to have their own window. There is layering up there. We can see who our competitors are in the English summer and we need to be in a position not just to compete but to win.

“We are likely to have to pay more for our players. One of the prime reasons is that we are seeking investment in teams to provide a better platform to compete on a global scale.”

Bannerjee added: “I think there are 17 men’s and six women’s leagues. That is not sustainable so we have to make sure we are there.

“We’ve just had the World Cup in America. We have a heavy investing league in America, we have the LA Olympics in 2028, plus you map that with the subcontinent’s passion for the sport. We feel that if we wait too long, there is a chasing pack behind the IPL which the Hundred is in, but we need to move relatively quickly to make sure we have a world-class tournament.”

Gould said there were “no active discussions” about changing the unique hundred-ball format to a T20 league, but said more teams could be added, most likely in 2029, when the next broadcast cycle is up.

“We are having good conversations with our stakeholders about the number of teams,” he said. “We understand and see the need for a potential expansion of the competition at some point going forwards. There is an ambition within the game that we would like to see the competition expand at some point.”