UP427 Lalit Modi Exclusive: “The Hundred is a non-starter”

The ECB is currently seeking investors for The Hundred franchises, the short form cricket competition and are selling a 49% stake that values them at up to £150m each. Today’s guest Lalit Modi disagrees. The founder of the Indian Premier League explains exclusively to Unofficial Partner why: “Based on the information memorandum a 100% stake in a team would be between £5m and £9m [for] outside London teams, and maximum, if one really wants a trophy asset, is London teams closer to £25m.”
Earlier this year, Modi was involved in a $1bn (£747m) offer to buy the entire competition – with the intention of turning it into a T20 tournament – which was rebuffed. When an unrelated bid of £400m for a 75% stake was also rejected last year Richard Thompson, the ECB’s chairman, said it would take a bid of “a few billion” to convince them to sell.

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Transcript

Lalit Modi: 0:00

100 is a non starter. Believe me, we'll be sitting here two years from now, I'll tell you it's a non starter. Even if IPL owners buy a team, they will walk away, okay? When there's no return on it.

0:10

That is the unmistakable voice of lawless Modi, the founder, and first CEO of the Indian premier league. talking about the current bidding process for the hundred franchises, something that he is very interested in and brings it inside of a man who's created a multi-billion dollar sports entity. The IPL is arguably the most significant new sporting tournament to emerge over the last 20 years. So Modi comes with some credibility and there's also quite a lot of backstory. The ECB is now selling a 49% stake in the franchises. Valuing them at up to 150 million pounds each. As you're here, mode is valuation of those franchises is considerably lower earlier this year, Modi was involved in a$1 billion offer to buy the entire competition from the ECB in the, with the intention of turning it into a T 20. Tournament. Uh, an offer, which the ECB rebuffed. Welcome then to Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis. I've been following you on LinkedIn over the last week. Fascinating stuff as ever, really interesting.

Lalit Modi: 1:35

I just need to analyze everything. And, you know, analysis is very important when something new comes up. And I just took the numbers that they, they put out.

1:43

But just frame this for me, because were you ever a bidder for a franchise?

Lalit Modi: 1:48

Not for a hundred, the way it is. I was never a bidder for a hundred because I don't believe in the hundred. Primarily for one reason and one reason alone. It is not a format that is well known outside the UK and even in the UK is relatively new to make inroads with a new franchise or a new system or a new game or a new sport. As a matter of fact, it takes time. It takes a lot of marketing and it takes, you know, it takes years and years and years for it to be built up and it should be prevalent. around the world, a format. If it's only UK based, like baseball. Baseball is now actually trans moved into Japan and moved into the Caribbean and in Canada not any other country. Let's take the example of NFL. NFL is predominantly a US based sport, but it has a legacy going forward. It is not very well recognized in any part of Europe or Asia or Africa or any other continent. And people don't even understand the rules. To put a format in cricket, whether there's test cricket, there's one day cricket, there's T20 cricket. Now there's a T10 coming in, and there's hundreds coming in now. The peculiarity with the hundreds is very clear, is that it's something brand new. Why change a format with 20 balls just to make a difference? And then, if you look at the opposition to it, I mean, I've been reading about it for over the years from the Players Association in the UK and from various other people that I've been with. I mean, it's a lot of pressure on the players especially on the bowler where you decide on the death overs, whether he can bowl 10 balls or 5 balls and overs. You know, the rules change and it's very difficult for international consumers to understand. What is this is all about? And so for me either the product succeeds on day one, or if you're trying to relaunch it and you keep relaunching it and you rebrand it or you refix it. You re change the rules and you change and you give it another skin for the new owners. It's not going to make a difference because at the end of the day, nobody's watching the owners, they're watching the players and the players are the same at the end of the day. And and that's a big problem. You also have the bash, which is which is a different format. And so T20 format. You have a T, you have a hundred format. It's very, very different.

4:07

Do you, do you think that the assumption seems to be that there's value in the English window across the year? And you've got this moment because of obviously geography and climate and all the rest of it, that there is something valuable here. is it your assumption that, that T20 is going to evolve into a global circuit of which they're going to be stopping off points. It's going to be funded a lot by IPL owners. Again, I'm going to, that's a question I'm just putting out and whether that's true or not. And. The players, so the hundred relies on the great Indian players playing because they want the Indian audience. We've seen that there is, and you've pointed out in your analysis, a huge step change in the media, the expectation of the media rights income that comes in 28. And we'll get into the detail of that, but do you agree with the assumption that It's going to be a global circuit because when you, you make the NFL comparison, I know the IPL was, the NFL was in your mind when, you know, at the creation point of the IPL that remains. And it's, it's, I think the similarities, the IPL are very, very stark because you've got a very small international media rights market for the NFL. I think it's 3%. I think the IPL is even lower, 2 percent maybe, I'm around about that.

Lalit Modi: 5:25

3%, we

5:25

have

Lalit Modi: 5:26

reached 3 percent

5:27

after 15 years.

Lalit Modi: 5:28

When we started in the first five years. So the hope is that it's gonna be a global international rights market. Can you unpick that for me? I will. You, you have, you asked me multiple question, this question and so let me try and remember them. The first is. Is there a market in England? Absolutely, without doubt. It is the second most important market in the world for cricket after India, but, but it's for English audience. If you're trying to garner international audience. And base your league on international audience. You can forget about it. Everybody's tried it. CPL has tried it. The South Africans have tried it. The Big Bash has tried it. The Middle East has tried it. The Americans have tried it. It doesn't work. And it isn't going to work. Second question that, going back on the first question on this, on whether it's valid in England. Absolutely, it's one of the countries which loves sports and you have team sports, you've established that with rugby, you've established that with, with, with soccer. It is a natural market for it. And as far as going forward, which format, we'll come to that in a minute. In this, in this context. Second issue you had was the hundreds is relying on an Indian player. It ain't happening in this lifetime. I can guarantee you that The B, CCI will never allow the men's team to participate anywhere else than India. Keep in mind, there's, there's a fair logic to that, and the logic is very clear. English have done that also with their players. But India has a complete ban is that I remember my days when I was vice when I was at the ICC that the maximum time a player should be playing in a year is 105 days. Now, if you look at it, the domestic calendar, that is the bilateral calendar itself takes approximately 80 to 85 days out of their life of playing for the domestic side, which is extremely important bilateral. Then IPL comes in as a second product. Okay. It takes away 14 playing days, not 16 playing days. That takes it to 101 or 103. Okay. Number of days that they're participating and taking into account if there's a playoff. Then comes the ICC tournament. They have one every, year now it seems. There, they're participating for the country again. That, that is a mandatory thing, that takes it over the 105 number already, so now if you let your players participate in any other league, there's going to be a fatigue factor, forget the fatigue factor, there's going to be injury factor, without doubt, when there's an injury factor, it affects the entire chain of home games, bilateral games, ICC games, IPL games, so why would you allow your players to to participate in another country's format. So if the, if the hundreds are relying on them doing that, it ain't gonna happen. The Indians will never release their players. If you look at the franchise agreement that I put out in 2007, it has said that the Indian players will be exclusive. So if the IPL, the BCCI governing body decided even to release them, they can't, they will have, they will dismantle the entire IPL and they're not going to do it. That's a cash cow. So it's putting the cart before the horse. It ain't going to happen. Somebody who has not seen and not gone through these issues. is a wishful thinking as far as they're concerned. The

8:59

other bit, I did ask you lots of questions, but one of them was the, the appetite of the IPL team franchise owners for global expansion, because again, that's inherent in this story, and I don't know whether that's true or not. If

Lalit Modi: 9:13

IPL owners are making so much money, you've got to understand it's the only league in the world, only league. In the world, where in any sport, there is no debt on the books. Zero debt. If you look at the English Premier League in soccer, billions of dollars are in debt. And why is the debt coming in? Number one, player cost. It's uncapped. Number two, infrastructure and stadium cost. The beauty about IPL is, there's no stadium cost. It's all born by the BCCI. Okay, because they belong and, and the model I made was that the, when the BCCI keeps 50 percent of the revenue, they have to invest that in upgrading the stadium. And you've seen a great job they've done. They upgraded the stadium over the years. If you go back to 2007, when I launched it, our stadiums were in a very poor condition. We had no stadium that were world class. Today we have many stadiums that are world class. In fact, all of them are becoming world class. And who don't have it are building them now. And spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, that cost doesn't reflect in the IPL owner's book, number one. Number two, we have a cap, a team cap. And I did that purposely because I did the auction system. You had an auction system last year, this year, earlier this year, or last year, I remember, where, you know, 120, 000 was the maximum price you got for a player. That's the minimum price you pay in IPL. And if you look at what the BCCI did last week, they imposed a 10, 000 fee. For every player playing on the field, for every game, for I pm so that means the player gets another 140,000, the minimum extra over and above the, the place. So there is no incentive for the players to go and play in a, in an English league or any other league for 10 grand at the end of the day. I mean, that's what the business plan shows at the end of the day of what they can afford and they can't afford per team. If basically 10,000 pounds a player per game, a maximum 15 or$20,000 a game. Pounds a game. So the Indian players are not going to, with earning salaries of millions of dollars and sub earning up to 300, 000 a game or 400, 000 a game. I'm not going to prone themselves to injury because in the IPL, we have another rule that if you're unfit, you don't get paid. If you're not on the field, you don't get paid. So if you have injury, you don't get paid. So why would anybody risk when the playoff life in cricket is so small, which you know very well. There was no money. In, in cricket before the IPL came in. And, and we made it based upon your talent and based upon how you perform that, that you will get paid. So young players who perform extremely well and the season, all of a sudden they shoot up to a huge salaries, and that's good for the game. I, the game is made by the players and I'm, and I love it when people incentivize the players to play and, and, and get more paid. But in the, in the. English League. You have the big bash out there. Then you have the hundreds out here. You're asking the same players to commit to both of them. You've seen the uproar that has taken place in soccer and football right now, where the, the UF has increased two games. and the players, players are already complaining about two games of fatigue factor. So nobody has asked this question from FICA or from the players association. What are the, what are the toll on their players? Nobody has done the calculation and, and you should do that calculation of how many days your top players are playing, and whether we can afford to have them play in, in any other league.

12:42

There's two bits to that. One is the, There is the supply side, the players. There's also the demand side, which is the audience. So scarcity is a, an old marketing concept, the calendars just get more and more crowded, more events. We see with FIFA, we see it with all, every major governing body trying to expand beyond its, its sort of national or, or its footprint. What do you think about that? Because I'm interested in where the IPL is. is a good example, a good proof of concept for something like the 100. And actually, it could be quite a misleading concept in some ways.

Lalit Modi: 13:17

Again, we keep going back to the 100. 100 is a non starter. Believe me, we'll be sitting here two years from now, I'll tell you it's a non starter. Even if IPL owners buy a team, they will walk away, okay? When there's no return on it. It's the hype that there is. If there's a right price, which I put out, In my document and the surprise that I need to accept wholeheartedly, Alex, I want the IPL player, IPL team owners to buy into English. English cricket. I don't think the English cricket will will have justice with IPL owners only. You need to bring in English owners, the top English companies. You need to bring in top English stars to own the team fans of the game. Whether it's, I mean, take an example. Mick Jagger. Okay, great cricket fan. Why shouldn't Mick own a team? He should go out there and own a team. That's two things. He brings his fanbase into cricket. That's new fanbase. That's what we did when we had Shah Rukh Khan, who was an extremely important element for me, for the IPL, because it brought the entertainment of Bollywood, along with the, with the skills of the IP cricket, with the Sachin Tendulkar, into, into the IPL. Second thing we did was we moved to an eight o'clock time slot. In the evening, nobody played cricket at eight o'clock in the evening anywhere in the world. Why did I do that? The only reason I did it was I had two hats on A, B, C, CI had and a new hat for IPL. I had already squeezed all the revenue out from the advertisers and the subscribers for the BCCI market. It had already reached a billion dollars in television revenue. There was no money left from advertisers, sponsors for the, for cricket and daytime cricket. So where was the money sitting? It was sitting in soap operas, on free to air television and on cable television. That's where the money was. I needed to target that market. To target that market, It was an extremely calculated risk we took because India is a single TV household, where the remote control at 8pm is in the house, is in the hand of the housewife, she has finished cooking, she's waiting for her children and her husband to get home, she has control, she has cleaned the house, she has done all the chores of the day. And now it's her time to relax and she has the remote control in her hand. And that is why the soap operas did extremely well because all the brands that were targeting the soap operas were based there. The Colgate, Paul Muller, the Unilever, the World, the Softdrinks and others. Now those have migrated to the IPL. When IPL is played, Restaurant business goes on flack, the movie business goes flack, the transportation business, everybody's watching the IPL. It is a unifier. It worked. It was magical. But we spent a lot of money also developing it. I mean, if I look at the business plan, there's zero pounds put in marketing. We spent 100 million in year one and we kept spending 100 million, 200 million a year in marketing it. Even though it was, even if we, even if we knew we had sold out a hundred percent and you can't market a hundred based on social media and hearsay and because of what you have, what they're getting today. Let's not forget what they're getting today are people that are going to the stadium who are members of the club, the county club, they get incentivized to buy the tickets. At a fraction of the price and they're given the right to buy the ticket and they enjoy it in the evening. It's a great product. And that's why they're buying it. But, but today the television audience are fragmented. The hundred was made primarily for a free to air business. On a study that was done. And I'm looking at the study that was done by a leading research company in the UK. And they said the 100 was done primarily for a free to air product. And to garner more audiences and advertisers and new sponsors. Not the traditional one, but they were able to do that.

17:16

It's bundled into Sky's deal for the whole cricket industry. Inventory, isn't it?

Lalit Modi: 17:21

It's not separated. There's no calculation of what is going to what. Now, ECB say in their document, in this document of theirs, that we will give a fair value. Now, what is a fair value? Who will determine that fair value? They will determine it, okay? They have a package for 500 million, let's assume, okay? They keep 100 percent of the Of the bilaterals, they keep a hundred percent of the county money, and they only keep 20% of, the a hundred money and the bash, they keep a hundred percent. So what are they gonna allocate the money to? it's a, it's a, it's a wishful thinking. And the market in the UK for subscribers and sky is declining on cricket. It's a declining for everyone because why? Because there are other avenues to watch the sport. There are other sports that are competing with it around the world. They have the European leagues are competing with football. You have many other tennis products competing with Wimbledon. There are many other rugby products competing out there. So you will see a market that is as a subscriber base is either scaling or declining. But they're projecting to go from 34 million to 85 million on the UK market. How is that possible? There is no proof to that. They're projecting that the international market is going from 3 million to 32 million. 10 folds. It, we haven't reached 10 folds in IPL in the timeframe that they have said on the international market and they're projecting it to go to 29 percent to 40 percent of the domestic market. It ain't possible to go to those kind of numbers. That is, again, they haven't applied their mind. They haven't seen it. What are they competing with? Has this Big Bash been able to achieve it? Big Bash is an amazing tournament in, in Australia. And South African League is an amazing product. The CPL is also an amazing product. Yes, the Middle Eastern and American still, I won't hang my coat on that because I don't think those products are value, valuable at all. And, and you will see a lot of exits. from IPL teams from their investment in, the Middle East and in America already. They're not paying the franchise fee for this year for the Middle East and America, both going forward. So those bottles already failed in my view, and I already warned them in advance that you're going to fail because they will not be able to garner whatever they put on the piece of paper. Okay. And same thing is going to happen here. They're saying they're going to deliver X, Y, Z, not even one year they will deliver. Okay. There's an expectation out there that the London team's valuation should be around 300 million. That is, for 49 percent, they're expecting 150 million. Now, in the case of Saray, they're not giving up management control. So, they're going to take somebody else's money. Will somebody give them that money? Maybe so, but not 150. I can guarantee if the day they give somebody 150 million for 49 I will close all my social media accounts down. I guarantee that it ain't gonna happen. I mean, so again, it's wishful thing. What, what, what do you think a realistic price is? I put up, I put the realistic prices on my, on, in, in my document out here. For each team. I've given the upside case. That is the upside case ECB has made exactly the numbers they have projected in the sheet, exactly that. Then the base case is a little bit discounted based upon what the realistic should be. And I set a downside case. So there's a number that is in there on the, on this cell side case. I've given a 15 or 16 multiple.

20:50

I'm just seeing, so for the Oval Invincibles, you're saying that the your entry price, the range is between 13 and 20 million, is that right? 13 being on

Lalit Modi: 21:00

the low side, there'll be a base case on the top side, on their case, that they have presented based upon investors, how they evaluate other projects. See, IPL may be trading at 25 times. Actually, it's not. It's actually trading at 21 times right now. So, so, even on that basis, people expect a discount going forward. Of five years from now, you'll discount it to net present value, which is 5X, which is a minimum. And usually it's 7X. I've given them the benefit of 5X. I put all the different scenarios in place that an investor would need.

21:33

Yeah, I'll, I'll push those out to the, to the listeners. And again, the range goes between the Oval, Invincibles at the top, you just mentioned, and then Welsh Fire is the, is the lowest valued at Invincibles. around between four and seven million. Correct. And those are, percentages of, as you say, the, expectation that is out there in the marketplace or on the sales side. Any investor can

Lalit Modi: 21:54

take this document and apply a different return factor. Somebody must have, may have a lower appetite for return. If they have a lower appetite, they can take the price up by that much. But it won't make, it's not a financial document that will make sense to a financial investor, but there may be a fan who wants a trophy property, or there may be an owner who wants a trophy. He may have a lower threshold and other reason to buy a team of, so be it, then go and buy it. Now look at the IPL. In the IPL, we had a billion dollars. A billion dollars in the bank before the team auction went in. What did it mean? It meant that I've put out a price out there that the minimum team pricing would be 50 million dollars, which would be paid over 10 years. Keep in mind, 10 years. So, in year one you pay five million, in year two you pay five million, year on year you pay five million, and what did I say to them? I said to them, I'll give you back what you're paying minimum from television revenue alone. So I needed a deal in place which paid out a minimum 60 million a year.

22:57

Did you do that guarantee before you had the TV rights signed? No, I did it with the TV rights signed. I did the TV rights first, and then

Lalit Modi: 23:06

I did the option. And then also, we only got 10 bidders. Keep in mind, we only had 8 teams. Okay. Now, some people who fancied it a lot at another issue. There was also, I said, the 5 million will square off your 5 million that you're paying me. If you're bidding higher, so be it. You may be doing for other reasons. But you have additional revenue of ticketing, sponsorship, team sponsorship, other media rights, international media rights. Okay. Web rights, all of those additional revenues that are coming in and you're going to get 80 percent of that and merchandising, all of that extra. And that is what made everybody believe in it, who saw it, but people who didn't see it missed out on it. And that is why the team have continued to perform and outperform. And keep in mind, we, when you're looking at a project, You have different markers that you need to achieve. We said that if you achieve 60 percent of the, of the markers, we are good. We achieved 400 percent minimum, and in some cases 2000 percent of what we were looking at in year one. And then we had a problem in year two. We couldn't play in India because of the election, so we had to move to South Africa. I spent another 150 million dollars, over and above my budget, to market the product in South Africa. to get 5 million revenue. 150 to get 5 million. Why did I spend 150 to get 5 million? Everybody told me I'm foolish to have spent 150 million of the BCCI money to get 5 million of ticket revenue, which is going to the franchises. I said, you don't understand. I could have given away the tickets free. Then I would not build a fan base. I would not build the ocean, but if I price the tickets low enough, and I provided something that the South Africans wanted, that is entertainment, they love music, I package it with a concert, then we might build a fan base, might. And what happened? We did. And then what happened in year three? Immediately, I sold two more teams. The first eight teams have sold for 780 million, the next two teams have sold for 800 million. So, I recouped in the 150, I invested plus much more by selling two more teams and increasing the value of the television. The viewership went up. And let's look at the hundred viewership over the last three years that has gone. It's a declining figure at the end of the day. Secondly, they haven't projected in the sheets out here, are the cost factors related to women. It is hard bundled in there. Now, that has been forgotten somewhere. Or if it's in there, we can't see it. It hasn't been differentiated. And the numbers, at least to the world of my knowledge, and, and, and it's good that they're packaged it together, but again, it has an impact on the revenue side.

25:44

again, just to unpack that slightly, you've got, so the broadcasting package, their assumption is that it's, it's 220 to to 2028, which is the most recent Sky deal. But within that, they're showing. And then an escalation of that's

Lalit Modi: 26:02

right. And that is, that is good because they, but they're saying we are not guaranteeing it. If you look at this, the document that they have with the disclaimer and in this out here, but this came up, they say, we don't guarantee anything. So when I put the IPL out, I guaranteed every number on the sheet. We put out a sheet like this, but we guaranteed every number. And we also said, because the first ball was the ball in April the eighth, and the team auction took place on January the 24th. People will hold your hands in year one and run the teams for you. So we allocated personnel from IMG. For each team to be managed and run for them. And we said, we will guarantee the numbers that you're going to get. Of course, we did 400 times what we present 400 percent of what we projected in a certain case, 2000%, but we guaranteed all the numbers. We put our money where our mouth is. And so people who are not, here they're saying is, take our document, look at it, you have a sell and buy agreement, you've got to abide by it, we are not going to guarantee anything, everything that we say on this piece of paper is, we don't stand by it, I mean.

27:12

So when, so Richard Gould said something interesting, he said that you made a billion dollar bid. What, what's that about? That was for the whole thing. Was it

Lalit Modi: 27:22

for the whole tournament? I made a billion dollar bid with saying, I want to buy the window.

27:29

Okay.

Lalit Modi: 27:30

In that window, I said, you won't have the bash. We will launch an IPL style T20 with 10 teams. We will give you the money, which you can spread to the counties, which you should give 90 percent to the counties. Okay. I said, I'll give you a billion dollars over 10 years, another 22 billion over the next 10 years after that, actually, it was a 3 billion deal, not a billion dollar deal, but it was for the window. And I said, we will sell the window. We will. Unbundle the rights of Sky because you don't have an obligation. We will sell it. I wasn't going to go with Sky. I was going to go free to air, an OTP model, because that's where the market is moving. If you look at the IPL, we get more money from the OTP market than we get for the, for the digital market than we get from the broadcasting market. That is the first in the world where the digital rights and the web rights are more valuable than Then the, then the, the main right. Okay. Of the tv, right. That will, we transformed that. Number two, the way I sold IPL was in a second to second basis. So an advertiser in the Sky deal, as a sky is concerned, he gets a hundred percent of the inventory of the advertising plus subscriber base, right? In our case, it's not the same. They haven't understood it. We, in each T 20 game, and I'm talking about T 20, because I know that very well, they're 2000 seconds. Advertising time available. If you see the IPL, the evolving IPL, we moved to, with strategic timeout in year two. Why? Two reasons. We wanted to give it a differentiation, number one, but more importantly, it was a revenue issue. We needed 600 seconds more of advertising time, tell you the truth, and, and try the inventory of 600 seconds in a, in a 2002nd game. It's extremely valuable because, and thirdly, if there is rain, advertisers are still running the advertising, we own all of it in the BCCI. The broadcaster only gets 20 percent and we keep 80 percent of it. So anything over and above the 2000 seconds in play time, that is the beginning of the match till the end of the match, is ours, the BCCI. Okay. In the sky deal, it all belongs to Sky. Okay. They just pay a flat fee per game, and that is it.

29:42

So so that idea that you are gonna buy the English window, do you think that the ECB is vulnerable to that happening? You know, if it's not a Lali Modi project, it's someone else. It could be a live golf type, could be project

Lalit Modi: 29:56

could, but the, the, you see, if they launch a T 20 tournament today, I would wholeheartedly support it if they just copied what everybody else is doing. They don't need to be innovative. It's a game that is already new. Just copy the G20. Just do the same thing that the IPL is doing, the CPL is doing, the Big Bash is doing. There's no difference.

30:15

they're saying that that is a point of difference. So in a crowded 2020 market, the 100 is a point, a differentiator. That's again, don't put any revenue line for

Lalit Modi: 30:25

increase in sponsorship. Don't put any revenue line for international market because nobody understands it. If you want to be a differentiator, then go out and spend the marketing dollars that you need to market it. Spend a few hundred million pounds marketing it and building the product. You want to be a differentiator by just calling it a differentiator. It's not going to be a differentiator. It's in your mind you're a differentiator. But as for everybody else that's concerned, you're alien. But you're saying, like you rightly said to me, we are looking at the Indian market and Indian players and the Indian television market to support this product. If you're doing that, it's a totally alien product. How many marketing dollars are you putting in India to market it? Zero. When we launched the IPL, we've spent a lot of money in the UK and the rest of the world marketing the product, though it was for Indian market. Because we wanted an international market, but we were only able to achieve 3%. You haven't asked me the question, but a big portion of the revenue is coming from the USA because they had a World Cup there and they think there's going to be an Olympic there, which will have cricket. Again, wishful thinking. Who watched the cricket in the World Cup in the USA? Who filled the stadium? The Indians. England Australia match? Empty. England South Africa match? Empty. England versus XYZ? Empty. Okay? Even in a World Cup scenario. So, and if you go back to 2007 or 6, I remember the West Indies, when India went out, but Bangladesh beat it. It just flopped. Completely flopped. The whole tournament. So, Indian audience is a fanatic about cricket, but they're fanatic about Indian cricket. When the World Cup takes place in India, you'll see matches that are with New Zealand versus England. Empty! In India they're empty. If they're empty in India, why do they expect the Indians to watch a product that is in England at eight o'clock in the night, at 7. 30 in the night? So

32:21

you're, you're the, again, just to pursue the, the English window, because I think it's a really interesting idea. So your project was to say, right, we'll buy the window or we'll create something that talks to the Indian marketplace. You're going to sell it back into the UK market.

Lalit Modi: 32:37

No, to talk to the UK market, the audiences. You know, my project was totally different. I gave you a hint of my project when I said Mick Jagger should buy a team. Okay. I wasn't relying on Indian, Indian. I wasn't looking at more than two Indian teams participating in it. Not, I wouldn't, they don't add value to the, to the league in the UK because you don't attract enough UK audiences. The only two teams I would think that would attract value in the Indian, in the English audience. And, and two different reasons. I don't want to spell it out or that'll get my business plan out. But the point is you've got to have English owners who are fanatic about cricket. And I'm passionate about it. Building the sport here. You're not going to have an Indian owner sitting in India, investing in the South African League, investing in the American League, in the Middle Eastern League. And English is another product for it, investing in it in the UK. They just come and play the game and not invest in it. It's just another product for them. And if you look at it, IPL gets over 1st of June, around. Okay? Then it moves to the South Africa. Then it moves to the U. S. Then it moves to the it starts the year in the Middle East. So you fell in between, in between the Caribbean League and the IPL. It makes no difference to them at that point in time. They'll come here for summer holidays, they'll attend a few games, but are they going to invest any marketing dollars in this market? I'll tell you right now, zero. So there's visual thinking, yes. The Mumbai Indians is a good bet for them because they think that they will get some revenue because the Mumbai Indian owners also own Geo Television and own T18 sports and might want to put in, they will pump in a little bit of money, but they're not foolish people. They understand returns and they're looking at the returns of putting their money somewhere else and then putting their money here experimented at the right price, but at 50 million from 49%. I mean, they would be the obvious choice for a lot in my view, but at a valuation of 300 million, I wish them all the good luck.

34:39

Over the last 20 years, and you're central to this story, I went to one of the first ECB uh, 2020 games at Lords. It was full out, Middlesex, Surrey. I got the initial deck from the ECB 20, 2002 for 2020. And then they sat on it and obviously the, you then took that and the IPL was created. And then you get to Alan Stanford. And it always felt like that was, this is a previous regime, Giles Clark, David Collier, they were trying to recover from the mistakes they'd made initially. They had this cash cow, but they hadn't materialized it in the way that you had with the IPL. I was at the, the Alan's, the famous, press conference with the box, the helicopter, Alan Stanford, the helicopter at Lord's, the box of cash with Botham and Richards and Giles Clark looking at it. And I wonder, I quite often wonder what you were thinking at that point when you saw that press conference.

Lalit Modi: 35:41

You can ask Andrew Wildblood. We sat there and we watched it and we said, what a fool, what, you can't be a bigger fool than this. To go out there and Alan Stanford is definitely going to win the game and he did. I said, this team is going to definitely win the game, you're not going to partner with cash so easily. And that's what exactly happened. They made a big yoo ha about it and I told them about it in writing. I said, you're making the biggest mistake of your life, don't do this. And then we asked them to join our club when we did the Champions League. They, again, they didn't. And that's why Australia, South Africa, and India got together. And by the way, I'm not kidding. Let's not forget that window is still open, that window is still being looked at, that window is going to come into play, and sooner or later, and that means that the IPL teams are again going to be performing in that. So you require a player commitment to that, and more cash is going to come out of that also, and that was a multi billion dollar deal too out there. So, you know, I really feel sad, I live in this country now, I've embraced this country, it's like my, it's my home at the end of the day. And I love this country without any doubt, it's given me a roof over my head at the end of the day. I wish, I really, really wish the English wouldn't go experimenting again and again and look at the rest of the world and embrace the product that there is a not product fourth format into the market and just take the T20, be a little humble and just embrace it. You, you started the T20. England invented the T20. Why run away from it and try and say we're going to invent a new product? They didn't embrace the T20 then. Somebody else took it. I did. And others have followed with it. It's been taken over. It's taken over the world. I think the one day game will die. I think it'll be Test cricket and T20 in a global format. Do you see the ICC putting 100 out? No, it is not going to happen in our lifetime. If it's not a sport that is recognized by the ICC, it's not Also is an issue in terms of getting credibility out there. So there are so many factors against it that I don't understand how you're going to make it work. If you're not going to be recognized as the official sport around the world by an international body, which you're a part of, then why do it? You are more at risk. and doing this and thinking you're going to attract people, then detracting people.

37:55

As ever Lalit, always interesting to talk to you. It's a fascinating interview. for having me. It's a pleasure

Lalit Modi: 38:02

being on

38:02

your show. No, not at all. And as I say, I will share your, or point you, point people towards your work over the last week or so. It's really interesting. And we'll see what happens, I guess. We'll see who's, who's in the market. It's all noise until someone writes a check, right? At the right price. It's a great product. Okay. Thank you.