Dangers of Private Ownership

 

The Dangers of Private Ownership of Sports Clubs has come to Cricket

Dr Nick Evans

Many of you will know I am opposed on principle to the private ownership of sport clubs. I believe they should be in the hands of their members/supporters such as used to be case in English cricket and still is in the German Bundesliga for example.

However, the ECB decided that private equity would be a good thing. Well of course the cash from the sale of the ‘Hundred’ franchises will do a lot of good in the short term BUT will the downside eventually prove to be the bigger effect?

We already know about the possibility that ‘Hundred’ teams in this country will be selected on racial grounds as a result of ‘Indian’ owned franchises not selecting Pakistani and/or Bangladeshi players. This is not certain yet, but if it turns out to be the case then we are back in the Apartheid era for cricket and spectators watching such franchises will be conniving in racial discrimination. However, we can still hope that this eventuality does not occur – the ECB has made the right noises but the proof of the pudding will be I the rosters for the six IPL or majority Indian-controlled franchises.

The major issue for me with private ownership of sports clubs is that in general the sort of people (usually men) who want to own a sports clubs are exactly the sort of people who shouldn’t be allowed to. Evidence on our own doorstep? English football – fraud, money laundering, sportswashing…

Up to this point English cricket was free of such things, but not now. Let’s look close to home. 49% of ‘Trent Rockets’ has been sold to ‘Cain International and Ares Management’.

Cain International (now just called Cain) is owned by Jonathan Goldstein and Eldridge Industries, i.e. Todd Boehly. You may know that name from his purchase of Chelsea FC from Abramovic. I’m not a supporter of Chelsea but I know their fans are very unhappy about the behaviour of My Boehly, and especially the company he part owns – Vivid Seats.

Vivid Seats is a publicly traded company in the US largely controlled by the Chicago private equity firm GTCR (~58%) and Eldridge Industries (~39%)2 a holding company with its headquarters in Miami owned by Todd Boehly. Vivid Seats is a ticket-touting company which sells, amongst other things, Premier League tickets at hugely inflated prices. To do this in the UK would be illegal, but it is done via the USA so it is merely highly immoral – although some might use harsher words. As of today (10.3.26), Vivid Seats are offering the below Forest home match tickets at prices that start at about USD 500. I know plenty of Forest fans who would love to get tickets for their kids for the City Ground but can’t. 

 

For more detail about how Mr Boehly and his colleagues are abusing the football ticketing system in this country see this article from Sky News – https://news.sky.com/story/chelsea-fans-criticise-unethical-ticket-resale-platform-which-club-chairman-invests-in-13352484.

Now people such as Todd Boehly have been invited into English cricket maybe we will see touting of Ashes tickets? Who will stop it? At present Vivid Seats are offering tickets at hugely inflated prices for England v India at Southampton this summer. Funny isn’t it that Hampshire is one of the non-members owned counties…

 

Why have I chosen to write about this now? Well according to the New York Times3, it transpires that Mr Boehly has been named in the Epstein papers. Emails that have been published show that Boehly had two meetings with Epstein AFTER Epstein’s conviction and imprisonment for sex offences in Florida, including procuring under-18 girls for prostitution. Will this fact be used in the advertising for the ‘family-friendly’ ‘Hundred’ tournament? 

So where was the ‘due diligence’, the fit-and-proper-person test for “Hundred” franchises? The issue with Pakistani players has been well known for some time. Will the ECB be able to outmuscle the BCCI? Unlikely in my opinion. Who did the ‘due diligence’ on the purchasers of 49% of the Trent Rockets franchise – the ECB, Nottinghamshire CCC or both or neither? If ‘due diligence’ was done, do they not care about the character and behaviour of the franchise owners? Were they blinded by the money, or did they just not care?

1. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cx2gnv5w091o

2. Wall Street Journal March 2026

3. www.nytimes.com/athletic/7011575/2026/01/31/todd-boehly-epstein-chelsea-lakers-dodgers/