T20 leagues should be ranked into tiers, MLC’s San Francisco Unicorns chief says
Global T20 leagues should be ranked in tiers to ringfence the best competitions and players, according to the chief of Major League Cricket club the San Francisco Unicorns.
David White – whose Unicorns team shares investors with Hundred team London Spirit – says world governing body the ICC will be forced to adjust the cricket calendar given the number of domestic T20 leagues popping up. Afghanistan recently announced it was looking for investors for its own, despite Taliban rule.
“I do think at some point the ICC will step in,” White told City PM. “I’m not saying this with any certainty but they will step in and either narrow the number of T20 leagues or classify them into maybe Level One and Level Two.
“There will be IPL and whoever else and we hope that we’re part of that; whether it’s us, the Hundred or the BBL. I think it has to happen.”
White, who thinks The Hundred should not revert to a T20 league and maintain its unique 100-ball format, said that MLC – now into its fourth season – is coming into its own.
There are IPL owners in the league, like there is in The Hundred, and sponsorship is growing – White stated that the Unicorns have signed a new partnership with a “massive Indian tech company”.
Unicorns, MLC and T20 cricket
And with the South Asian influence in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, the Unicorns have signed Indian legend Ravichandran Ashwin in what is one of the first examples of an Indian IPL player signing a T20 contract elsewhere.
“London Spirit and us actually share quite a few owners so there’s definitely an overlap and I’m very lucky I get to hear from those investors,” White added.
“When I moved to the US two and a half years ago, if you told me I’d be working for two guys that pretty much helped create Silicon Valley in Venky [Harinarayan, ex-Amazon] and Anand [Rajaraman, Walmart’s tech arm] and guys like Shantanu [Narayen], the CEO of Adobe, and Neal [Mohan], the CEO of YouTube – I’m very lucky to call these my bosses and very lucky to have access to and and work with. “
The Unicorns, named after the title given to startups that reach a valuation of $1bn, finished fourth in 2025 having reached the final a year prior. MI New York – owned by the mega-wealthy Ambani family, who also have a stake in Oval Invincibles – have won two of the three previous finals with Washington Freedom – whose owner Sanjay Govil is a co-owner of Welsh Fire – winning the other.
White believes that MLC franchises can reach valuations of $1bn in the future after the Rajasthan Royals went for $1.6bn earlier this year after a bidding frenzy, but the Australian chief insisted that cricket’s Olympic inclusion at the LA 2028 Games would not be the decisive factor. “It’s just another step in the process,” White said.