American businessman and investor Todd Boehly has purchased a 49% stake in Trent Rockets, a franchise in the 100-ball cricket league The Hundred.
The move significantly expands Boehly’s presence in the business of British sport, as he is already a co-owner of Premier League football club Chelsea FC.
Boehly’s investment was carried out by Cain International, an asset management company at which the businessman is a board member. The firm has paid £40m for the 49% stake in the Rockets.
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, the host club of the Trent Rockets, will retain the remaining 51% stake in the franchise. The Rockets play at Nottinghamshire’s home venue of Trent Bridge, located close to the Nottingham Forest and Notts County football grounds near the banks of the River Trent.
The deal shows that while football may usually steal the show in UK sports in terms of both consumer and business interest – which are often interlinked – other sports like cricket are also good investment magnets.
Cricket consistently ranks as the fourth most popular sport in the UK after football, rugby union and tennis. This is seen in polls around sports popularity, TV viewing figures, in-stadium attendance and social media engagement.
The Hundred was launched by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2021. The league format follows 100-ball cricket, a style of Twenty20 limited overs cricket, with the goal of creating a more fast paced game that would appeal to younger demographics.
Commercial interest in the league has grown in the years since, including a number of purchases, with most instances seeing county cricket clubs retaining majority control while benefiting from substantial investment – as in Boehly and the Rockets’ case.
This week’s acquisition marks the seventh takeover The Hundred has seen in its four-year history, with seven teams now sold for a total of £500m. The deal values the Rockets at around £79m in total, when both Boehly and Nottinghamshire’s stakes are factored in, while the entire value of the seven teams to have sold a stake comes in at £820m.
Boehly has been chasing a stake in a cricket team for some time, having bid for a 49% stake in London Spirit, a London-based The Hundred franchise, though this was ultimately sold to a group of American tech billionaires who also own the US Major League Cricket (MLC).
His main sports business interests remain football, however. Chelsea FC, which he co-purchased along with other investors as part of the BlueCo consortium, established for that purpose, in 2022. BlueCo would later go on to buy French Ligue 1 team RC Strasbourg Alsace.
