“A friend once told me you should invest in the things you like, in the cities where you want to spend time.”Silicon Valley technology executive Nikesh Arora smiles as he recalls the advice that helped persuade him to buy into a cricket team based at Lord’s, playing in one of the sport’s most divisive tournaments.The team is London Spirit and the competition is The Hundred, an eight-team tournament in which the men’s and women’s sides from each club play 100-ball matches as double-headers over five weeks.It was launched in 2021 by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to help bring one of the world’s oldest sports to a new audience — specifically, families. The Hundred has not been to everyone’s taste, with its critics bemoaning how pre-existing formats have been collateral damage in the effort to promote it. But at London Spirit, at least, there is no denying its pulling power.Inside the franchise owners’ suite for the game against Manchester Super Giants last month, Arora looks entirely at home. Former Chelsea striker Andriy Shevchenko is among a guest list that also includes basketball great Pau Gasol, ICC chief executive Sanjog Gupta and Amit Bhatia, the businessman leading a consortium in talks to acquire a minority stake in Liverpool.Satyan Gajwani, the London Spirit co-owner and a co-founder of Major League Cricket in the United States, jokes that the room resembles a World Economic Forum event.Behind the scenes with the London SpiritAmelie ClaydonAcross the opening week of the first Hundred season under London Spirit’s new owners, The Athletic was given behind-the-scenes access to see how the changes extended beyond the addition of some famous names to the VIP guest lists.Arora, 58, first moved to London in 2000 and remembers queueing outside Lord’s without a ticket for Test matches while living in the capital. Twenty-six years later, he is wearing London Spirit’s new shirt and cap and moving through the room as its host.“I spent my formative business years in London,” he says. “My business skills were developed here, and I’m a huge fan of London and England. I thought: ‘How can I marry this with my desire to invest in cricket?’. London became obvious.”In January 2025, the Tech Titans consortium submitted the winning bid for London Spirit, valuing the franchise at £295million ($398m), the highest figure attached to any Hundred team. It paid £145m for a 49 per cent stake, with the 239-year-old Marylebone Cricket Club — the owners of Lord’s, and the custodians of cricket’s laws — retaining 51 per cent.The 11-person consortium brings together executives and investors from technology, media and finance, many of Indian heritage and based in the U.S. It includes Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, Alphabet (Google’s parent company) chief executive Sundar Pichai, Adobe chair Shantanu Narayen and Silver Lake co-chief executive Egon Durban alongside Arora and Gajwani. The MCC appoints four members of London Spirit’s seven-person board, including its chair, while Tech Titans appoints three.Across the city, Oval Invincibles rebranded as MI London following investment by Reliance Industries Limited, an Indian multinational that owns the Mumbai Indians of the Indian Premier League, as well as teams in New York, Cape Town and the UAE.It was a controversial move. Oval Invincibles had been the most successful Hundred franchise, winning three men’s and two women’s titles, and the rebranding risked undermining some of the ties forged with its fanbase. They were not alone: rebrandings also took place at the Northern Superchargers (now Sun Risers Leeds) and the Manchester Originals (now Manchester Super Giants). It is one of the possible reasons floated for attendances having dipped significantly this season.London Spirit, however, chose to stay with the identity created when The Hundred began.“When something is working and isn’t broken, you shouldn’t fix it,” Arora says. “People already identify with London Spirit and the team has built five years of history. We didn’t want to call it something like Tech Titans, and we don’t have an IPL team whose name we wanted to impose on it.”Nikesh Arora (Alex Davidson/London Spirit)The consortium arrived from the American technology industry with ideas around data, digital content and attracting younger audiences. On the surface it doesn’t seem an obvious fit with a private members’ club founded in 1787, which allowed women to join only as recently as 1998.“We were initially concerned that those cultures might not match, but it has been the opposite,” Gajwani says.The first matchday under the partnership provided an early demonstration of its reach. Tinie Tempah performed between the women’s and men’s fixtures, the guests watched from upstairs and around 100 of Arora’s employees occupied the seats he had bought for them.“The objective is to make sure people come here and enjoy themselves. If we win as well, then we make money,” Arora says.Tinie Tempah performing at London Spirit’s opening fixture at Lord’s (Alex Davidson/London Spirit)Winning, of course, is harder to guarantee.The Athletic visits for the matchday against Manchester Super Giants, when London Spirit’s women’s side are skittled for 80 and lose by seven wickets with 41 balls remaining. A few hours later, the men fare slightly better, but are still defeated by seven runs, despite Liam Livingstone making 69 from 40 deliveries.“Every team has upped the calibre in The Hundred this year,” Gajwani says. “The squads are substantially better than they were last year. Competition is good. Challenge is good.