What is the future of the Hundred?

Even the most enthusiastic supporters of the Hundred acknowledge the necessity for change. ECB CEO Richard Gould concedes that setting up the teams as pop-up start-ups was a good short-term solution but not a long-term fix.

The governing body's goal is to transform the Hundred into the most appealing, engaging, lucrative, and successful short-form tournament globally, second only to the impregnable IPL. The question is how to achieve this ambitious goal. The 2024 tournament will remain unchanged from previous years, but significant alterations are necessary.

The BBC's deal for international cricket and the Hundred expires at the end of the 2024 season, while Sky's current contract, which provides the ECB with approximately £220m per year, runs until 2028. The governing body is eager to revamp the competition by 2025 or 2026 at the latest. This will allow them to demonstrate the value of the Hundred to broadcasters before it goes to market.

"Money is rocket fuel," says Vikram Banerjee, the ECB's director of strategy and corporate development. With this in mind, the governing body is ready to go on the hunt for investments.

In late 2022, the ECB reportedly received an offer of around £300m from private equity firm Bridgepoint Group for a 75% stake in The Hundred. The offer was rejected

What that looks like is a major point of contention. The eight city-based teams are currently wholly owned by the ECB. Any structural change, regardless of the chosen equity split between the governing body, a team's home or host county and a potential private investor, requires the approval of the counties in the form of the usual two-thirds majority in any vote. The question of who might provide the money, should investment opportunities arise, is a big one.

A Londoner, Mike Fordham grew up watching Surrey and is a staunch fan of all-format cricket. These days, however, he is regarded as one of the world's foremost short-form experts. Currently head of league operations for the ILT20 in the United Arab Emirates, Fordham was previously the chief executive of the IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals, head of hundreds at the ECB, and helped launch the IPL and CPL. So he knows better than most how England's newest tournament is perceived from afar.

However, he is concerned about attempts to promote a hybrid ownership model that would deny private investors full power over their business. One of the problems with the hundred franchises is that they're not like a county. They're not like Mumbai Indians. The IPL franchises, because they are privately owned, are developing an independent brand and fan base. They are becoming more like a Premier League football club.

In the enviable position of turning over almost twice as much as any other county each year, Surrey chairman Oli Slipper relishes the increased ownership of the Oval Invincibles franchise that plays at their home ground, suggesting that he is unlikely to have to sell a stake. "We can then feel it is our team," he told The Telegraph in late 2023.

As well as seeking outside funding, the ECB is also keen to change the structure of the Hundred, possibly even scrapping the unique 100-ball format in favour of more conventional T20 cricket. Where that would leave the name of the tournament is unknown.

Gould and Thompson spent much of the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 discussing the options with the counties, sponsors and broadcasters. One possibility was expansion to create teams in the south-west and north-east of England. Gould also advocated the possibility of one day moving to a so-called "investable pyramid" of either 18 counties in two divisions, or perhaps even up to 39 teams comprising all first-class and national (formerly minor) counties.

Gould and Thompson suggested that such a structure would help to overcome some counties' antipathy towards the tournament, while creating the potential for investment opportunities for all clubs - not just the biggest. However, a proposal to effectively tear up the current competition and start again after just a handful of seasons quickly raised concerns.

Would players still move to other franchises for the duration of the tournament if every county was involved? Would there still be room for the T20 Blast? What would happen if the biggest teams, players and grounds fell out of the top flight and away from televised matches? Would investors risk pouring money into a team that might not be able to compete at the highest level? It would be at odds with the desire to create a world-leading league to have headline stars like Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler playing in a second division.

Suggestions of a graduated salary cap or minimum ground capacity to compete at the highest level have been discussed to prevent such an eventuality. While the meritocratic process of promotion and relegation is a feature of many British sports, it is a relatively recent addition to English cricket, having existed in just one competition (the County Championship) for little more than two decades. An eight-team closed league with no promotion or relegation, modelled on the IPL, is more attractive to investors than an 18-team competition with promotion and relegation, Fordham confirms.

The PCA has raised concerns about the pressure a major expansion of the Hundred could put on an already hectic schedule, with the potential inclusion of all counties meaning the One-Day Cup could no longer run concurrently. The other main area of concern was the impact on the women's game, which has benefited enormously from the Hundred, particularly the happy coincidence of the men's and women's double-headers created by the Covid pandemic.

For all the giant leaps women's cricket has made in recent years, losing the alignment with its male counterpart in the Hundred would severely weaken a product that would suffer immeasurably from having to stand on its own two feet at this fledgling stage. The Hundred's headaches continue.

After its overwhelmingly divisive inception and struggles to win over audiences in its first two editions, the 2023 season of the Hundred began against a backdrop of gloom, largely caused by the end of an enthralling Ashes series that was over by August.

The following month, however, was widely regarded as the tournament's strongest yet, with a healthy crowd in the stadiums treated to an abundance of thrillingly close matches. Affinity for the newly-formed franchises was clearly on the rise, especially among a younger generation without strong historical ties to a county.

Significant problems remain, with the abundance of domestic cricket making the status quo unsustainable in anything but the short term. No other major cricketing nation has two flagship short-form competitions, but Thompson has spoken of a desire to ensure that the Hundred and the T20 Blast "can co-exist ... one doesn't cannibalise the other".