Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, PayTM founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Adobe Systems CEO Shantu Narayen are among the top high profile entities and individual investors, who just joined throwing their weight on the American T20 league, namely Major League Cricket (MLC) just a week later Shah rukh Khan’s KKR announced it’s partnership to launch MCL team Los Angeles City.
It seems that the investors tied up in the last quarter of 2019 by American Cricket Enterprise, the owners of MCL. It also seems that all three of the investors have invested their individual stakes at the MLC entity level and currently do not hold allegiances or interests in any of the city-based franchises.
In his school days, Nadella represented his alma mater Hyderabad Public School in the much competitive Hyderabad Schools cricket and have won many trophies and medals too. While Shah Rukh backs Los Angeles, Nadella has to settle for Seattle. Nadella and his wife also own a stake in the Seattle based MLS soccer club Seattle Sounders FC. It is also learnt that the Dallas-based real estate tycoon and billionaire Ross Perot Jr. and his partner Anurag Jain have invested in the Dallas franchise of the said league. Perot Jr is also a minority stakeholder in the NBA team, Dallas Mavericks.
It is also known that PayTM founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who recently collaborated with BCCI as PayTM extended its contract with cricket board to remain the title sponsor for all domestic and international cricket in India until 2023, is also in the list of high profile investors in MCL. The new league is operated by ACE, founded by Vineet Jain, Satyan Gajwani of Times Group and Vijay Srinivasan and Sameer Mehta of Willow TV. US cricket is also in the process of co-bidding for a major Global ICC event in 2023-2031 cycle with West Indies Cricket.
