London Spirit £144m sale nearly done, insists MCC chief
MCC chief executive Rob Lawson insists a £144m deal between a consortium of US tech heavyweights and the owners of Lord’s Cricket Ground for a 49 per cent stake in Hundred franchise London Spirit is just a “couple of weeks away from getting everything done”.
It comes after the initial timeline for eight Hundred deals involving a range of minority and majority stake sales to overseas investors missed its initial deadline.
But it is understood that the majority of the eight deals – ranging from 49 per cent stake sales to 100 per cent – are close to being concluded, with the Oval Invincibles, Surrey County Cricket Club, the ECB and the Ambani family believed to be still locked in discussions.
Lawson, formerly global head of mergers and acquisitions for BP and executive vice president of Mercuria Energy Group, said the deal to sell 49 per cent of London Spirit’s men’s and women’s teams to a consortium including senior figures at Google, Microsoft and Adobe was “completely on track”.
“Obviously the timetable isn’t the original one that was set,” the Marylebone Cricket Club chief added. “But I don’t think anyone really expected everything to be achieved by whatever date was set.
“Dealing with the tech titans, we haven’t got any substantial issues left. Those issues [remaining] are dependent on the tech titans tying everything up with the ECB.”
MCC mulls London Spirit name and kit changes
Lawson has been in post since February and confirmed ongoing discussions surrounding a potential change of franchise name for London Spirit – whose women’s team won the Hundred title and men’s team finished bottom last year – as well as a potential introduction of the classic MCC “eggs and bacon” colours on future kits.
Another future change to the kits could relate to sponsorship. When the current central deal with KP Snacks comes to an end, franchises could be able to adopt their own front-of-shirt sponsors, as revealed by City PM.
The MCC chief executive said he’d be “open” to the idea, though insisting that central versus individual issues will “need to be debated” on a wider scale.
“What we need to have happen next is for the Hundred board to be established and that’s another piece of documentation that’s taken a while,” he added. “When that is in place those discussions can then happen.”
The Hundred gets underway on Tuesday 5 August, with all eight deals due to be completed before then. Though the investment would have been made, it is suggested that major changes will not take place until at least the 2026 season at the earliest.