The future of English cricket is here - and it's in Hampshire (2025)

Foreign ownership of football clubs is now so ubiquitous it’s hard to remember where it all began. So here’s a question for your next pub quiz – who were the first to be sold to an overseas investor?

The answer is Tranmere Rovers, who in July 1984 were bought by San Francisco lawyer Bruce Osterman. Like so many of the foreign takeovers that followed, it didn’t end well. Three years later Tranmere went into administration.

Cricket has taken its time to catch up with football, but Hampshire, who last October became the first English county to be taken over by overseas investors, are confident their buyout by the Delhi-based GMR Group will go a little better.

GMR, a multi-billion Indian conglomerate that owns airports, motorways and power stations around the world, are no strangers to cricket.

They co-own the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League, Dubai Capitals in the International League T20 and Pretoria Capitals in the SA20 as well as having a stake in the Seattle Orcas Major League Cricket team.

Their entry into English cricket came last autumn when, after almost two years of negotiations, they completed a £120m deal that initially sees them take a 56 per cent stake inHampshireSport and Leisure Holdings, the club’s parent company, that will eventually convert to full ownership by September next year.

GMR also bought a 49 per cent stake in Southern Brave for £48m during the England & Wales Cricket Board’s sell-off of the eight Hundred franchises earlier this year. That will convert to full ownership when they assume overall control of Hampshire.

That deal saw GMR become the fourth Indian stakeholder in the Hundred.

Private investment into English sport is nothing new. But for cricket, the past few months, kick-started by the Hampshire takeover, have been seismic.

“We’re at a time of generational change,” David Mann,Hampshire’s chief executive, tellsThe i Paper.

“The whole landscape of cricket is changing, I think moving more towards team-based rather than international bilateral cricket – I think there’s too much of that anyway. So, there’s a whole shake-up the game’s delivered but hopefully the real result will be if that helps us engage with more people, get more coming to watch and more playing.”

Mann admits Hampshire were initially only looking for a minority investment but the deal with GMR has worked out well for a club who had £63m of debt and who now have the money to invest in upgrading their Utilita Bowl home before hosting an Ashes Test for the first time in 2027.

“It’s not just financially sustainable,” Mann says of county cricket.

“This was the way of making sure we had our financial viability underpinned with a partner with deep pockets. There also comes a seat at the table with a big player in the franchise leagues. That was important for us.”

Dr Dan Plumley,a sports finance expert at Sheffield Hallam University, believes this is a significant staging post in the history of the English game.

“It’s a new deal in a new era for English cricket in the wider context of the Hundred and opening up to wider investment,” he says.

“I think it will be positive not just forHampshirebut the sport as a whole in this country.

“If you look at GMR it’s pretty clear where their incentive is here. They co-own Delhi Capitals and they’ve got connections into franchises in Dubai, South Africa, the US and have probably got plans to look at the Caribbean and Australia as well. It fits and, for me, financially it’s a really good deal.”

Why is the deal controversial?

There has been some disquiet at both theHampshiretakeover and Hundred sales, with some fearing the English summer is now being sold off.

“Among the sceptics, I think the criticisms of cricket going down this road will remain,” says Plumley. “We saw this a little bit in football, you get this kind of resistance that’s often on cultural grounds.”

Yet other counties are keenly taking note of developments. Dan Feist, chief executive at Essex, tellsThe i Paper: “There are exciting opportunities out there. Would you say investment into Wrexham Football Club has been bad for them?

“Investment into sports has always been there and now we live in a global landscape. So we can’t on the one hand promote cricket as the second biggest sport in the world and then get worried about investment coming from abroad.”

Hampshire are no strangers to seismic change. Since Rod Bransgrove, the pharmaceuticals entrepreneur, bought the club in 2000 they have been utterly transformed, moving from the small, dated Northland Road ground in Southampton to the purpose-built 25,000-capacity Utilita Bowl on a 150-acre site that now comprises a golf course, hotel, and conference centre.

One of the first things Bransgrove did was to convertHampshirefrom a mutual society controlled by its members into a limited company.

This process of “demutualisation”, that allows for outside investment without the need for agreement by members, is something Yorkshire, who have been linked with a takeover by IPL team Rajasthan Royals, are exploring.

Only three of the 18 first-class counties – Hampshire, Durham and Northamptonshire – are currently demutualised.

Expect that to change as others explore foreign investment.“I’ll be amazed [if others don’t follow],” says Mann.

“Quite a few have spoken to us about what we did and how we did it and I think they’re looking at similar things because I think the model at the moment with the ownership structure around cricket is not the most appropriate and probably needs to be looked at.

“I’m sure others are looking at exactly what we’ve done because the way they’re set up at the moment they can’t get investment. There are probably quite a few opportunities for clubs to potentially unlock a lot of value.”

Plumley agrees: “We’ll see more counties go down that road. The caveat on demutualisation is important but it’s something that can be unpicked and changed at any point.”

Other counties following suit

Essex will not be one of those counties anytime soon. “Everyone is aware there are counties who are looking at whether they’ll be members’ clubs,” says Feist.

“It’s not on our radar at the moment. If someone invests and helps us to redevelop the ground that’s a different question.

“Currently the conversation around somebody taking over the whole club isn’t there but you’ve got to be open to the landscape changing because there’s no point saying ‘no’ and then you get left behind. Sometimes you’ve got to be open to conversations and see where that goes.”

Yet one club exploring the option of foreign investment is Leicestershire, who despite not hosting Test matches or a Hundred team might be an attractive proposition given their Grace Road home is housed on a huge brownfield site.

“I’ve said from day one working in cricket private investment is on the horizon,” Sean Jarvis, Leicestershire’s chief executive, tellsThe i Paper.

“Earlier this year we asked our members if they’d be happy for us to explore private investment into the club of which 99.9 per cent said they were. It’s very early days but we’re on that journey.”

And the need for investment is acute given most of the 18 first-class counties are in debt – despite the latest domestic broadcast deal with Sky Sports being worth £220m a year.

The estimated £23m windfall for each non-host county when the Hundred sales are completed will help. But it isn’t a panacea.

“I think we must start looking now at what we do next because everybody knows we had the best broadcast deal we’ve ever done last time around and yet you’ve probably got at least half the counties who are living hand to mouth,” says Mann.

“So if we’re getting record amounts of revenue into the game and still it’s not viable then something fundamentally is wrong. The Hundred money gives us breathing space to get our house in order but this won’t last forever. We must deal with the underlying model why we have a chance.”

It’s why the opportunity to be part of a global group proved irresistible. “We’re going over in a couple of weeks to talk to them about exactly that,” says Mann.

“I do see probably over time a scenario where a core of our players, both men and women, may play for their teams around the globe. I think the schedule will be shaken up a little bit and rationalised so that could be possible.

“There’s a lot of overlap at the moment and it feels like that’s something that’s going to happen in the next year or two.”

Mann says the reception fromHampshirefans to the takeover has been positive, with Kiran Grandhi, GMR’s corporate chair, recently attending a supporters’ event.

“I’ve heard nothing but good things,” he says.

“The chair came down and spoke well and to a lot of people individually. I think that went down well. I think as long as people see it’s got no negative impact on the club they just want to come and watch cricket at the best stadium possible with the best players possible.”

A widening gap

But what of the possible downsides? Plumley believes if others follow Hampshire it could widen the gap between clubs that host Test matches and Hundred teams and the rest.

“We’ve seen a clear financial gap emerging there,” he says. “There’s a bit of a danger the other counties will struggle to close the gap.”

The danger of letting the wrong kind of investor into English cricket is also real. Football has learned the hard way that its fit-and-proper-person test is not as robust as it should be.

“We know that’s not quite always been fit for purpose,” Plumley says.

“There’s been flaws, there have been owners who have got in who shouldn’t have and we’ve seen serious consequences in that regard.”

Cricket’s fit-and-proper-person test is similar to football’s, albeit with fewer safeguards in some areas such as having to provide business plans and proof of future income.

The ECB told The i Paper they are always reviewing their fit-and-proper-person safeguards to ensure best practice.

Feist says: “They’re doing some learning as this thing goes through with the Hundred. It’s not as robust as football and I think it’s something that’s happening quickly. Everyone is aware we have to make sure those right checks are in place.”

As for the overall picture for cricket? When private money enters any sphere, it means profit will take priority. So will this transformational moment herald a bright new era or will it be one where red-ball cricket, including England Test matches, is marginalised in the pursuit of franchise cash?

Only time will tell, but Hampshire’s step into this new world means it is likely the sport in this country will change irrevocably.