Ahead of the Game: ECB threatens to withhold Hundred franchise over Hampshire sale

Hampshire have been warned they will be blocked from taking control of the Southern Brave if prospective new owners Delhi Capitals do not pay a fair market value for the Hundred franchise.

In a significant intervention that could also apply to Yorkshire, who are in takeover talks with Sunrisers Hyderabad, the England and Wales Cricket Board has told counties it will not gift its 51 per cent stake in the related Hundred team to them if the other 49 per cent does not fetch a high enough price in the auction. 

The threat of Hampshire being stripped of their Hundred team entirely, with the Southern Brave franchise moved to another area of the country, has also been raised to stop Delhi seeking to buy into the competition on the cheap. 

“The ECB has robust measures in place to stop carpetbaggers,” a source with knowledge of the sales process told City A.M. 

“This is not a buy-one-get-one-free process. The Hundred franchise could be taken elsewhere if necessary.”

Hampshire have agreed a £120m deal to sell the club to Delhi’s owners, GMR Group, which has sparked fears at Lord’s that the Indian infrastructure company is seeking to gain control of a Hundred franchise on the cheap. 

The ECB is selling off 49 per cent of the eight Hundred franchises to private investors, with the remaining 51 per cent to be gifted to the host venues, including Hampshire. 

In recent talks with the ECB however, Hampshire have been told that they will only get their 51 per cent stake in the Southern Brave after the sales process has been completed – and on the proviso that the governing body gets fair market value for their 49 per cent. 

The fair market value assessment will be conducted by the American bank Raine Group, with the threat of losing the Southern Brave being kept in reserve if Hampshire’s new owners don’t play ball. 

Three-horse race for pool betting

The Tote is facing a battle on two fronts to keep control of pool betting at racecourses, with racing’s stakeholders divided over a three-way fight to deliver fixed-priced punting at racecourses. 

Colossus Bets made a multi-million-pound offer last week to replace the Tote Group, and City A.M. can reveal that the ARC [Arena Racing Company] group of courses has held talks about splitting from the rest of racing and setting up its own pool betting service.

The ARC courses are understood to be giving serious consideration to going it alone, as they believe they have the capability to offer their own pool betting.

The 16 courses own a 45 per cent stake in technology firm i-neda Limited, which provides betting software and operational services to the betting industry, with billionaire businessman and Celtic’s largest shareholder Dermot Desmond also owning 45 per cent of the company.

While it does not own the most prestigious courses, ARC is responsible for putting on around 45 per cent of the UK’s race meetings each year so it is a major player. During talks with the Tote Group and other courses, ARC is understood to have stressed that it will only renew if its own i-neda software is used at its courses.

Senior figures at several ARC courses are convinced that by using their own technology they could develop their own pool-betting brand to replace the Tote at their tracks.

There is some frustration among the ARC group that they are denied access to the lucrative World Pool, which is run by the Tote in conjunction with the Hong Kong Jockey Club. 

Up to 20 of the 28 World Pool meetings picked by the Hong Kong Jockey Club for global pool betting each year take place in the UK, with the large volume of extra betting generating between £500,000 and £800,000 in additional revenue for racecourses whose fixtures are selected.

Most of their courses are smaller tracks such as Lingfield Park and Wolverhampton, although the classic St Leger meeting at Doncaster takes place at an ARC-owned track.

The current contract with the Tote Group expires in October 2025 and the racecourses are hopeful that a resolution over the next deal can be reached by next month. Colossus is understood to have offered the 55 courses between £15m and £20-a-year for exclusive rights to provide pool betting.

Chelsea owners poach from Liverpool counterparts

Chelsea’s majority shareholder Clearlake Capital has secured a significant coup by recruiting a senior executive from Fenway Sports Management, whose parent company owns Premier League rivals Liverpool. 

American lawyer David Beetson has joined Clearlake as managing director with a brief to work across all of their investments, but has told sources that a significant amount of his time will be devoted to Chelsea. 

Beetson spent more than 10 years working for the Fenway Sports Group subsidiary, although he had little involvement with Liverpool, with most of his work focused on baseball’s Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey.

Big fight pay-per-view buys kept under wraps

The viewing figures for Daniel Dubois’ stunning world heavyweight knockout of Anthony Joshua at Wembley last weekend are proving elusive, with even the broadcasters refusing to share them with each other. 

The IBF title fight was available to buy via three different networks in the UK – Sky Sports, TNT Sport and Dazn – and given they regard their data as commercially sensitive, collating viewing figures is all but impossible. 

All three broadcasters will have been hit by the continued growth of illegal streaming, however, with a report for online intelligence company YieldSec revealing that there were more than 774,000 illegal views of Joshua-Dubois, 87 per cent of them in the UK.