Silicon Valley billionaires splurge £144m on London Spirit in Hundred auction

Winning bid for 49% stake values London Spirit at £295m
Welsh Fire stake sold for reported £35m to tech entrepreneur

The Hundred is set to deliver an eye-watering windfall for English cricket that exceeds all projections after a Silicon Valley consortium featuring the chief executives of Microsoft and Google claimed a 49% share in London Spirit for £144m.

It was the first of two sales to take place on Friday afternoon, with a 49% stake in Cardiff-based Welsh Fire later sold for a reported £35m. The England and Wales Cricket Board has now raised around £279m after similar stakes in Oval Invincibles (£60m) and Birmingham Phoenix (£40m) were claimed 24 hours earlier.

Topics

How Silicon Valley turned China into its lifeline

Eric Schmidt helped Washington reimagine the west coast tech titans as shields against the world’s second-largest economy
Financial Times - 8h
IPL billionaires and Birmingham City owners win auction for Hundred teams

Mumbai Indians owners pay £60m for Oval Invincibles Knighthead Capital take stake in Birmingham Phoenix English cricket’s landmark Hundred sale produced an eventful first day as the Ambanis, ...
The Guardian - 1d
DeepSeek Might Be a Copycat. Silicon Valley Is Notorious For Them.

The AI world is fretting about the emergence of a low-cost LLM developed by an obscure Chinese firm that may have copied OpenAI.
Inc. - 2d
ECB accused of ‘selling family silver’ as Hundred auction starts with Invincibles

Asia’s richest family, the Ambanis, in three-way battle New names, bigger budgets and star players on horizon The ECB has been accused of “selling the family silver and cricket’s soul” rather ...
The Guardian - 2d
‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley

The industry’s liberal reputation is misleading. Its reactionary tendencies – celebrating wealth, power and traditional masculinity – have been clear since the dotcom mania of the 1990s. An ...
The Guardian - 2d
The Papers: 'Europe's Silicon Valley' and Strictly Wynne's apology

The chancellor's plans for growth and the Strictly live tour axing Wynne Evans feature in the papers.
BBC News - 2d
In Melbourne, the Silicon Valley of Tennis

The four Grand Slams love to one up each other, but the Australian Open is first on more than just the calendar.
The New York Times - 3d
How Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump’s Arms

Marc Andreessen explains the newest faction of conservatism.
The New York Times - Jan. 17