Once upon a time there were well-meaning local businessmen and dignitaries who sat on committees and boards and ran the Counties that made up the game in England and Wales. Money was not bountiful but costs could be kept low: amateurs did not need paying (largely) and most professionals could be retained on a low wage that covered the playing season only.

Then along came the First World War and in the aftermath the Counties faced an uncertain future with the number of available amateurs sinking, crowds declining and costs increasing. The game recovered but a combination of the growing dominance of professional cricketers both in terms of numbers and skill, and a wider boom in the middle-classes, meant that the top professionals were starting to expect, and were getting, more than a labourer’s wage. Costs were rising for Counties just at a time when competition for spectators from football, greyhound racing, motor speedway, and the cinema was growing. Alarm bells were ringing that some Counties may not survive. Gloucestershire’s Bev Lyon was the most vocal advocate of radical change to bring back the punters: one-day cricket, knock-out tournaments with a Lord’s final, cricket on a Sunday!

Beyond the Second World War and the story continued: threats to the viability of the smaller Counties as costs rose further and new forms of entertainment competed for the public’s attention. Heads were scratched and solutions found. In 1963, the first domestic one-day competition was introduced; a 65 over affair that saw Sussex victorious in the first iteration. 1969 brought a new Sunday league, and in 1972 an additional 55 over competition. These endured, albeit with constant tinkering of format, while other experiments such as the ten over, seven players a-side, football ground hosted, Floodlit Cup did not.

Fast-forward to the early Twenty-First Century and the smaller Counties are still under threat and more ideas are bubbling-up to inject money into the game. 2003 was the start of a new era that would impact the world game in, then, unimaginable ways, when professional twenty-over cricket launched. The T20 Blast was a boon for Counties, allowing them to fill grounds when children were out of school and adults had clocked off for the day. Yet it was no panacea and smaller Counties were still reliant on the trickle down of funds brought in to the ECB since 2006 by ever larger Sky TV contracts. So in 2021, the ECB tried to repeat the T20 trick, this time with 100 balls. Crowds came in but the start-up costs had been large, so they played their final hand – sell it off – or at least initially, 49 per cent of every team. That, they said, would be the magic bullet that would finally set the County game on a sound financial footing.

Could it work? The money being raised is huge. With only four of the eight teams sold, the income has already reached an enormous £279 million, with the money to be shared across the 18 Counties. If it spent well, that could make a huge difference to some Counties who, we are told, are living close to the line. Yet, there are some equally large elephants in the room.

Never have all Counties been equal, as the sheer number of Championship titles won by Yorkshire and Surrey attest, but over the last twenty years the gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened alarmingly. The revenue that comes into the ECB is spread across the game but the income of those Counties that host international cricket is significantly more, including gate-receipts, merchandise and ECB payments. The Hundred that was promised to lift all boats has instead disproportionately favoured those whose grounds host the teams, which also happen to be those grounds that host international cricket. The gap widens. Those host Counties also own the 51% of the Hundred franchises not initially being sold-off, allowing them the option to keep or sell as they wish later and pocket the proceedings. The gap widens further, and shows no sign of stopping.

The non-international hosting, non-franchise bearing Counties, have had a few vultures circling recently. Some well-known voices have called for a cull, to cast a few of the poorer ones to minor-league status and put all our domestic eggs in a relatively few baskets. All for the good of the game, you understand, and with a sorrowful shake of the head blaming it on inevitability. So, will the new cash windfall stop those vultures? Can the more cash-strapped Counties use the 20 or whatever million that comes from the Hundred to put them on a long-term footing and finally stop the worries that have existed since Bev Lyon’s day? It can’t hurt but what could that answer be? New stadia? Ones that will let them bid for international games? Doubtful, as supply of matches is limited and, anyway, just for a (admittedly imperfect) comparison: Everton Football Club are currently building a new stadium, current estimated cost, £800 million. Investment in the community, taking Cricket to the people? Possibly. Brighter people than I may have a way to make that money works wonders, but one does fear that in thirty years time, when it’s all spent, we could be back to square one.

Perhaps the biggest elephant of all in this room is control. Until this point the ECB or its predecessors, together with the Counties, has had absolute control of the domestic game. Want to introduce a new 100 ball tournament and clear out the 50 over one to make way? OK, that can happen. But now – with a Silicon Valley consortium investing £144 million for 49 per cent of the London Spirit franchise, and Reliance Industries Limited (owners of the Mumbai Indians) forking out £60 million for the Oval Invisibles, to name just two – who has the control now? At the time of writing the ECB still run and ‘own’ the Hundred, and 51% of each Franchise is still in County hands, so technically they do. However, practically? With such massive private investment, where is the real power? Could the Counties and ECB in a few years or so decide The Hundred hadn’t worked and it was time to shut it down and replace it with a County-based competition? Could they decide to move it out of August and into May and June to stop the current side-lining of lucrative International cricket in the prime month? With all that money invested? Of course not. That may be fanciful, those sort of changes may never be desired, but before it would have been possible. Not now. What are the expectations of these investors as to availability of the biggest England names? What has been agreed? What are in those contracts about guarantees of the future and dominance of the Hundred? And if (when?) the sales of the 51% begin, the control and the votes will have gone completely. It is easy to see a near future where all eight Hundred franchises are owned by wealthy companies who have no stake in the wider domestic game other than as a feeder system. Why should care what happens to the Country Championship, to the One Day Cup, even to the Blast? How long before they demand an expanded tournament: more teams, a longer window for the games, needing the rest of the cricketing country to make room? Don’t we understand how much money they’ve invested into this?

Of course, nothing is ever as straightforward. Control over the game has been shared with broadcasting right holders for some time now – take Tom Harrison’s last hurrah of a lengthy deal with Sky, signed knowing it would tie his successors hands to his decisions until too late to seriously undo any damage done. Privatisation has been knocking around for a while too – Hampshire were taken into private hands in 2000, and since 2024 have been consumed into the GMR conglomerate, owners of the IPL’s Delhi Capitals. They, though, at least now, remain one vote amongst 18 in the domestic game. The worry with the selling of the 49 per cent and beyond is that, when someone invests that sort of money, while they do not get a formal vote on decisions that will significantly impact the future of domestic cricket, it does give them the real power.

The Hundred was sold as a financial lifeline to the County game. The ECB may well have created a highly financed competitor who could become very difficult to control.