Saudi PIF money set to change cricket landscape

By Richard Edwards

The success of the USA in the T20 World Cup could spark a huge influx of investment from Saudi Arabia – and may even be the prelude to a full-scale takeover of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

That’s the view of Professor Simon Chadwick, an expert in the geopolitical economy of sport at SKEMA, a global business school.

He tells The Cricket Paper that Saudi Arabia’s Private Investment Fund (PIF) has already increased its financial influence in the sport in recent years – and he now believes that Olympic recognition, coupled with the sport’s growing footprint in emerging cricket nations, such as the US, is set to lead to a sizeable further increase.

“At this particular period in time, there are a lot of factors at play,” he says. “Globally, you have investors with a lot money who are willing to take a punt on sport. There are Private Equity investors, but we also hear that Saudi Arabia’s Private Investment Fund is contemplating large-scale investment in cricket.

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“The interesting thing from the PIF’s perspective is that cricket has a global footprint but commercially it’s under-developed.

“We know about mature sports like football, but it costs a lot of money to get involved, there are barriers to entry, and you could argue that the market is saturated.

“With cricket in the United States, the influence of South Asian diasporas across the country is very clear. Cricket is very popular in California, for example. There are significant numbers of software engineers, computer programmers and data analysts from South Asia working in Silicon Valley. Cricket is growing and becoming a diaspora sport across South Asian communities in the USA.

“Add to that, the fact that India is now the most populous nation in the world and is an increasingly affluent market. Economic growth in the country is healthy, and so the influence and impact of Indian consumers is very important.

“In 2023, the world record for the most simultaneous streams of a live event was broken in the IPL. Alongside that, the platform of which this IPL game was being streamed was Reliance Jio, which is owned by the Abani family, who own an IPL franchise (Mumbai Indians) and have also invested in the IPL itself.

“At the same time, the PFI and also the Abu Dhabi Sovereign Wealth Fund have taken stakes in Reliance Jio. You’ve got so much going on – and then cricket gets made an Olympic sport, which is significant for all sorts of reasons.”

Chadwick argues that the sport’s re-entrance at Los Angeles 2028 could lead to a massive surge of interest in cricket in some of the world’s biggest Olympic nations, not least the USA and China. All of which serves to make cricket more attractive to investors than at almost any other time in its history.

According to sources close to the PIF, there are currently three options on the table. The first is the purchase of an IPL franchise, the second is an outright takeover of the IPL, or at least the Saudis snapping up significant share of the competition. The final option is the setting up a rival competition.

“In global sport, nothing is off the table,” says Chadwick. “It’s entirely conceivable that we will see some kind of significant presence in cricket over the next five years. And this World Cup will only serve to hasten that process.

“Yes, some traditionalists and more conservative members of the cricket community will be deeply sceptical about this but it’s going to happen. There is market volume, there’s fan engagement, there are so many factors that tick every box for the Saudi investment fund.”