The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is “beginning to pursue” non-public funding in The Hundred groups, says chief government Richard Gould.
The Hundred, a 100-ball event launched in 2021, is presently funded by the ECB, with capital filtered right down to the related counties.
Gould mentioned discussions had led to funding being sought at workforce degree fairly than within the event itself.
“We’re taking a look at how that may present itself,” Gould instructed BBC Sport.
“The Hundred is an efficient car for personal funding to return into the sport.”
Personal funding in cricket has grown with the homeowners of Indian Premier League groups – the world’s greatest franchise league – investing in sides in South Africa, the USA and the United Arab Emirates.
The ECB has invested a further £100,000 in salaries for the ladies’s sport for 2024, however each the boys’s and ladies’s gamers earn considerably lower than in franchise tournaments in India, which has made it tough to draw the world’s finest abroad gamers.
“Most of our counties are privately-owned members golf equipment. That has offered an incredible steady base for numerous many years however, typically, so as to have the ability to compete on a world scale we have to herald non-public funding additionally,” mentioned Gould at a launch occasion earlier than the brand new English home season begins on Friday.
The Hundred was created by the ECB to draw a extra numerous viewers and to suit into shorter broadcast slots.
A document 580,000 followers attended matches in 2023, with 41% of tickets bought to households and 30% to girls.
Nevertheless, the event has confronted criticism from conventional cricket followers, who’re sad with how a few of the 18 counties are represented within the event.
The eight Hundred sides see counties mixed, reminiscent of Yorkshire and Durham at Northern Superchargers, however others face prolonged journeys with followers of Somerset and Gloucestershire having Cardiff-based Welsh Hearth as their nearest aspect.
Requested if there was a hazard that funding at workforce degree could lead to cash being more durable to filter down and groups feeling extra marginalised, Gould mentioned he didn’t suppose that was the case.
“The best way that our sport is organised and ruled, every thing underneath one umbrella, does enable us to make it possible for any cash that’s out there is invested within the space that’s most applicable and the place we’ll get probably the most return,” mentioned Gould.
The ECB are dedicated to the event till 2028 in a broadcast cope with Sky Sports activities, and Gould feels funding will take the event to new ranges over the following 5 years.
“The joy ranges will considerably enhance,” he mentioned.
“We’ll have the ability to ensure we retain and entice all the most effective gamers on the planet and have a sport that both broadcasters, supporters or new followers wish to be concerned with.
“I am very excited by what that might deliver for the entire ecosystem of cricket, whether or not that’s franchise led groups or county golf equipment.”
Sam Billings, who captained Oval Invincibles to the 2023 males’s title, instructed BBC Sport: “We wish to be the second-best competitors on the planet, so it’s how we try this.
“It is likely to be a partnership, and that could be a actually key phrase, as a result of whether it is and it’s all the time invested again into the material of our sport then these are the important thing parts, as a result of finally we nonetheless need the English sport to be extremely robust in 50-100 years.”
The 2024 version of The Hundred begins on 23 July, with chosen video games on BBC TV.
