Controversial British cricket league 'will be shut down in three years' as alarm raised

IPL founder Lalit Modi is convinced The Hundred will cease to exist in as little as three years. The league has proven controversial since it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2021. It was designed to improve the spectacle for casual viewers and refresh the traditional limited-over format, with teams instead facing 100 balls in each innings.

However, critics argue the unique format is dumbed down and designed for commercial gain while alienating hardcore cricket fans. It also takes place at the height of the summer, at the same time as the established county championship and limited-overs competitions. It has been on the cricket calendar for the last five years, but there is still plenty of opposition and Modi believes it is doomed to failure.

Asked to predict the fate of The Hundred during an appearance on The Overlap Cricket, he said: "It will die in three years. Completely die. It'll be finished. It won't be there. I guarantee that in three or four years, it won't exist.

"It will pump so much money in it, there was no future in it. Simple reasoning. It's in the month of August. A great window. That's all you have.

"There's no promotional marketing behind it at all. Sky have no reason to promote it. There is no money coming into the game and at the end of the day, the people who bought the team are expecting a return from it.

"The return comes from media rights and nothing else but media rights. The IPL gives 50 per cent of its revenue. In the beginning, it gave 80 per cent of its revenue to the teams.

"Would you buy a Sky package for one month just for The Hundred? No. Simple as that. There's no advertising revenue behind it. The UK market is not an advertising-driven market.

"The UK market is the best market in the world for subscription revenue. That is Sky's model. You need to have a sustainable subscriber base.

"People are fighting for the soccer package. People also fight for the cricket package, but only The Ashes and when India comes and plays. That's what they're watching.

"It's spread over four or five months. You have a short window of one month that you put The Hundred in. You're buying a cricket package that is already diminishing."

Modi also cited a lack of interest in cricket among younger viewers, with football by far the dominant force when it comes to driving subscriptions.

"If people have disposable income and they have young kids and they're coming in with constrains on buying a Sky box, what are they buying? Packages. All sports products have become very expensive.

"The first sell is football, then they're adding add-ons. You want cricket, Formula One. F1 is growing very fast and tennis is growing very fast. F1 is growing faster than cricket in England and around the world.

"Children of this age... it's not you and me. We are old guys. For me, I don't have control of the remote anymore. The young kids in the house dictate what we are going to watch."

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