Why Twenty20 is new playing field for billionaires like Glazer
Manchester United owner’s investment in UAE league shows cricket franchises are becoming must-have assets
Manchester United play Leeds at Old Trafford tonight but Avram Glazer, the majority owner of the home club, will be 3,500 miles away in Dubai, watching another sports team he owns: the Desert Vipers.
Glazer’s franchise competes in the new International League T20 competition in the United Arab Emirates and his presence in Dubai for the closing stages of the ILT20 is another illustration of the changing face of ownership in cricket.
T20 is attracting a new class of owner: multi-millionaires – and, often, billionaires – who see buying a cricket team as an essential new asset in their portfolio. Their presence is a microcosm of cricket’s evolution: from a sport anchored on international competition to one in which club v club dominates, just like in football and US sports. Naturally, just like in these sports, privately owned clubs have created opportunities for investment groups. One of those is Lancer Capital, Glazer’s holding company.
On Dec 1, 2021, Lancer’s bid for a franchise in the new T20 league in the Emirates succeeded. Nine days later, Phil Oliver, the chief executive of cricket analytics company Cricviz, received an email from Paul Voigt, the managing director of Lancer Capital. He wanted to arrange a chat about using his skills to help build a new team.
Early last year, Oliver met Avram Glazer for the first time. “He was certainly familiar with cricket,” Oliver says. The meeting “started with the cricket really, which was almost reassuring for me that that’s the most important thing – getting a good team on the field”.
In the three weeks since the International League T20 began, Desert Vipers have excelled. Appointing Oliver as chief executive was an indication that Lancer Capital planned to put data at the heart of the team’s approach, in recruitment and on-field tactics.
Led by the spectacular form of Alex Hales (right), Desert Vipers have reached today’s play-off match. All those at Desert Vipers stress they and United are independent entities.
“The only link is an element of common ownership through Avram Glazer being the chairman of Lancer Capital,” Oliver says.
Yet, despite this separation, the Vipers’ kit, with red shirts and black sleeves, has unmistakable similarities to United’s. “The ownership are involved in key decisions – and as part of that, the red that we’ve gone with is distinctive,” Oliver says. He describes Glazer and Lancer Capital as “very engaged from an ownership perspective”: having input in both the team names and the side’s logo, and – without interfering in any cricket matters – regularly seeking updates on the team. Glazer is in Dubai for 10 days. “It’s great that he’s able to see it up close by being in the stands as well now,” Oliver says.
But to many United fans, Glazer’s presence in Dubai, and investment in a new sports team, is emblematic of a disregard for the football club. “I’d like to see them pay off the debt they put onto our club,” says Duncan Drasdo, the chief executive officer of the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust. In many ways, US owners in T20 franchise cricket simply complete the circle: when it was created, in 2008, the Indian Premier League’s structure was ostentatiously modelled on the NFL. “I think the investment fundamentals of cricket are highly attractive – especially IPL [Indian Premier League],” says Manoj Badale, the owner of Rajasthan Royals. Badale welcomes the influx of owners with significant experience of different sports, saying: “Learning is always a positive.”
Glazer will not be the last prominent owner of a Premier League team to buy a T20 franchise, predicts Victor Matheson, a leading US sports economist who is professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross. He cites Shahid Khan, the owner of Fulham and NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars, and Fenway Sports Group – whose sport portfolio includes Liverpool and Boston Red Sox – as other potential investors in T20.
“There is no reason why cricket shouldn’t be like any other sport,” Matheson says. For Glazer and other owners, T20 leagues represent a “huge potential market”. No other sports league has reached $1 billion (£833 million) valuation or revenue as quickly as the IPL.
To go with United and NFL team Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Glazer now owns three sides in three continents in three sports. “Diversification is good,” Matheson says. “When one sport or region has a downturn, there is another sport or region that isn’t necessarily affected.”
There remains uncertainty over the long-term economic viability of many T20 leagues. But the fact that ownership groups involved in the two new ones to launch this year – all six teams in South Africa’s league, and three of the six in the ILT20 – were bought by companies with IPL involvement, is promising.
Even if a profit in the UAE takes years – if ever – to materialise, owning the Vipers gives Lancer Capital essential knowledge of the cricket market if it is to extend its involvement. The ultimate target, surely, is the IPL.
Last year, Lancer Capital bidded for both the new franchises to join the IPL this season; the attempts failed, but further expansion teams are expected in the future. While Lancer Capital did not buy a team in Major League Cricket, which launches in the US this year, it is another potential avenue. In time, so could the Hundred, if it opens up to private investment.
And so, for Glazer and other US owners, the new investment in the Desert Vipers is merely the start. T20 has brought cricket in line with football and US sports in many ways. Having some of the same owners is, perhaps, the next logical step.