As a man who has negotiated with Roman Abramovich and Daniel Levy, Jonathan Goldstein is no novice when it comes to investing in sport, but even he professes to have been stunned and thrilled when participating in last month’s Hundred auction.
The Chelsea director “maintained discipline” as a rival Silicon Valley consortium featuring the chief executives of Microsoft and Google paid £144m for 49% of London Spirit. He then returned to the England and Wales Cricket Board’s virtual auction room the following week to buy half of Trent Rockets for £40m, in partnership with Todd Boehly, the Chelsea co-owner and chair, and the private equity company Ares Management.
The Chelsea duo will not be splashing out £1bn on new players for the Rockets, but there have been talks with the men’s and women’s coaches, Andy Flower and Jon Lewis, about their plans for next week’s final 2025 player draft. Goldstein is brandishing details of the Rockets’ existing roster, which includes Joe Root and Nat Sciver-Brunt, when we meet at the London offices of their investment company, Cain International, where there is a rather incongruous copy of Nick Compton’s autobiography among the collection of art, architecture and photography books in the boardroom.
As a self-confessed “cricket nut,” whose introduction to the sport was watching Essex at the Ilford festival in the 1970s before following them around the county for Championship matches, Goldstein is the driving force behind the Rockets purchase, but Boehly recognises the Hundred’s untapped commercial potential and will lend his expertise.
Any doubts as to whether the ECB was on to a winner in selling off 49% shares in the eight franchises were blown away by the sale of the Spirit. The American group and the Indian billionaire Sanjiv Goenka spent seven hours aggressively bidding against each other every 15 minutes until the valuation reached £295m, leaving Cain and Avram Glazer’s Lancer Capital as silent witnesses.
For Goldstein the adrenaline rush could hardly have been more different from the drawn-out negotiations in which Cain failed in an attempt to buy Tottenham 11 years ago, before they succeeded as part of Boehly’s group in buying into Chelsea.
“It was quite amazing to watch,” Goldstein says. “We sat there and maintained our discipline and just watched the others go at it, hammer and tongs, for hours.
“On at least two occasions one of the parties, who were blind to us, left it until the last 40 seconds of the 15-minute window to put in their bid. It was incredible. And good luck to Nikesh [Arora] and his group [the purchasers of the London Spirit stake] – they’re an incredibly smart group of people behind that consortium.”
Having initially taken the view that it was Spirit or bust, Goldstein soon changed his mind and resolved to return to the auction, with the Rockets appealing due to his personal connection to Nottingham. Three of Goldstein’s children attended Nottingham University and he owns a restaurant and student accommodation in the city. Memories of watching Stuart Broad take eight for 15 as a fan at Trent Bridge on that extraordinary first morning of the fourth 2015 Ashes Test may also have been a subconscious influence.
“I love Nottingham, I love Trent Bridge so it’s exciting to be on this,” he says. “I do genuinely love the game, but also see this as a huge opportunity. The IPL [Indian Premier League] has done extraordinary things for cricket in India, and the Hundred can do the same for English cricket. With the new investors who’ve come in, there’s no doubt we can make it the second biggest cricket competition in the world.
“I think when you look at cricket in England, it’s been significantly underexploited over a period of time. Sky Sports have done a very good job in broadcasting, but at attendance and a consumer level, there are improvements to be made.
“If you believe in sport, and you believe that sport is a platform for both commercial opportunity and also individual advancement, the potential is huge. And if you love the game on top of that, then it’s a double double, right?
“The reason that everybody is at the table is that they see an opportunity to grow a competition which will be good for the spectator, good for players, good for broadcasters, and good for investors.”
For all his boyish enthusiasm – memories of Essex games at Colchester or watching his childhood hero Graham Gooch score 123 against West Indies at Lord’s in 1980 pepper our conversation – Goldstein is clear that Cain expect to make a return on their £40m investment. There have already been positive conversations with neighbouring Nottingham Forest about future partnerships, new commercial deals for next year are in the works, and match-day ticket prices are likely to rise from the ECB-subsidised model currently in operation, not least as each Hundred franchise has only four home matches each summer.
“Todd would be the first to say that Jonathan is the one who understands about cricket, but he’s a great person to bounce ideas off,” Goldstein says. “He’s got interests across multiple sports, from basketball to baseball to football, and he certainly sees the power of it. Todd will come to a game this summer.
“We’ve already had conversations with the team at Nottingham Forest, obviously the grounds are only 100 yards away from each other. I met the Forest chairman, Nick Randall, last week and had a chat about what we can all start to do together.
“We inherit a lot of commercial arrangements that run out at the end of this season, so there are huge opportunities. Every single Hundred team sells more merchandise with their new brand than they do under the county label. And with eight new investors – and all their global connections – coming in the value is only going to increase.
“The Hundred is similar to NFL in that there are so few matches. We have to make each one a must‑attend event, and really create a premium product for spectators, at the ground and at home. Steve Smith and Kane Williamson have already signed contracts for this summer, and more world-class players will come next year.
“And we need to increase the feeling of fandom. I was on the phone to an engineer in India recently and they were telling me they were a massive fan of Chennai Super Kings, which over there is no different to being a Chelsea or Liverpool fan. The IPL have created that sense of tribalism in 15 years, and if we do this right then the Hundred can do the same.”
