Silicon Valley’s biggest names just dropped £145 million on cricket. That’s not a typo.

When the Tech Titans consortium bought nearly half of London Spirit in January, it became the largest franchise investment in the competition’s history. CEOs of Google, Microsoft, and YouTube lead this investment group that now owns stakes in one of The Hundred’s eight franchises.

Nikesh Arora, who runs the cybersecurity giant Palo Alto, leads this tech consortium and has specific plans for cricket’s future. During London Spirit’s recent match at Lord’s, he showed no hesitation when asked about that £145 million price tag.

“We have never had buyer’s remorse,” he said, adding that more investors want to join the consortium now than before the initial investment.

That £145 million deal gave London Spirit the highest valuation of any Hundred franchise sold this year, while the total auction raised £520 million across all eight teams. Strong figures for a competition that has existed since 2021 only.

Arora keeps referencing the Indian Premier League, which makes sense given the IPL’s worth of around £14 billion now. Gujarat Titans alone sold a 67% stake that valued them at £975 million, setting a benchmark that other leagues aspire to reach.

“The IPL started from nowhere, and became a multibillion-dollar product,” Arora noted before asking the logical question: “Why couldn’t this be that product?”

While The Hundred has already overtaken Australia’s Big Bash League in investment appeal, reaching IPL levels presents a different challenge entirely. The comparison becomes more interesting when you consider cricket betting markets, which have grown dramatically worldwide. It includes some gambling sites that is not licensed in the UK, some of them are trusted online casinos available for UK players at vso.org.uk. You can check the majority of brands there and compare the odds, plus witness increased cricket wagering for yourself.

Hundred franchises play only four home games per season and don’t own their stadiums, while Sky Sports’ domestic TV deal brings in about £35 million annually for the entire competition. Making back £145 million from that setup requires new approaches.

The Tech Titans have started implementing solutions, with Nike reportedly agreeing to kit sponsorship for next season and plans including expanded digital content operations. The core strategy might be more straightforward though: higher player salaries attract better talent, better cricket draws larger audiences.

This year’s top salary bracket increased from £125,000 to £200,000, allowing London Spirit to secure David Warner and Kane Williamson. Arora wants to push salaries toward £500,000 eventually, following Silicon Valley principles.

“In our world we don’t talk about money, we talk about product,” he explained, emphasizing the need to build something people want to watch before worrying about monetization.

Satyan Gajwani, who co-founded Major League Cricket in the US and partners with Arora, shares this philosophy with clear priorities. “If we’re selling out stadiums and people are excited to watch it, that’s the major driver,” he said, though higher salaries mean higher costs and four home games limit ticket revenue potential.

Those “low ticket prices” Gajwani mentioned will likely increase soon, especially since format changes could happen faster than expected. Sources say new franchise owners want to switch to Twenty20 as early as next year, driven by the fact that four of the eight ownership groups come from IPL franchises who know T20 format best.

Sky Sports and BBC appear willing to consider format changes, representing a shift from two years ago when they resisted modifications. The new Hundred board meets in October with format discussions dominating the agenda, and since franchises control 16 of the 20 board seats, investment money talks loudly.

This extends beyond English cricket as Silicon Valley heavyweights bring different perspectives to traditional sport management. Arora compared this approach to Google Maps development, where the company focused on building useful products rather than calculating immediate profits.

“Pretty much everyone uses it and would not know how to get from point A to point B without it,” he said about Maps, explaining how product quality came before revenue optimization.

Cricket has faced criticism for conservative approaches while other major sports leagues like the NBA, NFL, and Premier League operate as private businesses. Tech investment could introduce changes cricket has been missing, and timing works in their favor since cricket returns to the Olympics at Los Angeles 2028 using T20 format.

India’s potential 2036 Olympics bid would further boost cricket’s global profile, though skeptics question the financial logic as sports investors wonder how tech billionaires will recoup massive investments from competitions with limited fixtures and revenue streams.

The Hundred’s current structure looks modest compared to the IPL’s financial machinery, but October brings the real test when new owners take official control. They bring substantial finances, international business networks, and expansion plans, though whether The Hundred becomes cricket’s next billion-dollar product remains uncertain. English cricket just became more interesting though.