Saudi Arabia’s $500m takeover of cricket and its many implications

On June 10, 1990, Bangladesh took on Fiji in an ICC Trophy group-stage match in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

The team led by Gazi Ashraf Hossain Lipu, the current chief selector, came out victorious by three wickets with Akram Khan, current director at the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB), scoring an unbeaten 42 in a 190-run chase.

Even in defeat, some Fiji players came off well in that game, one of them being all-rounder Neil Maxwell, who made 36 with the bat and picked up a wicket with the ball.

Maxwell, who had represented Australia at age-level and played first-class cricket for New South Wales and Victoria, represented Fiji, the country of his birth, in the ICC Trophy three more times in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Later he moved on to sports marketing, becoming an agent for many top international cricketers and even becoming the CEO of IPL franchise Kings XI Punjab for a time.

Now, the former Fiji all-rounder is spearheading a new global Twenty20 cricket league backed by Saudi Arabia’s SRJ Sports Investment which could potentially change the power dynamics of world cricket and further devalue Bangladesh’s position in the global cricketing ecosystem.

What is the Saudi League?

Franchise T20 leagues are literally dime a dozen with almost every Test-playing nation having a league of its own. Even countries that don’t have ICC full membership like the UAE, Canada, the USA and Nepal have their own T20 leagues.

So, if Saudi Arabia, a gulf nation which has aggressively invested in golf, motorsports, football, esports, MMA, chess and snooker in the last few years the with its ‘Vision 2030’ in mind, wants to splurge up to USD 500 million out of their USD 1 trillion Public Investment Fund (PIF) for a new cricket league, what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that this proposed new league, which is still in the planning stage, is not trying to carve out a slice for itself in an already congested market of franchise cricket, but is aiming to revolutionise the game as we know it.

Firstly, it won’t actually take place in Saudi Arabia as in the initial blueprint, only the final is supposed to take place over there.

Secondly, seven to eight teams from different countries are expected to compete in not one but four separate tournaments held in different venues spanned across the year, much like the ATP Tours in tennis, culminating in a final like the ATP Finals.

So, the Saudis are not just trying to enter the cricket market, they want to establish a new T20 circuit of cricket with them at the helm of it.

Wider implications

Another aspect that sets this league apart is that the World Cricketers’ Association (WCA), the global body for cricketers, is a key part of its think tank.

WCA has been butting heads with the ICC for years on issues like better cricket scheduling and improved remunerations for players.

The association released a comprehensive review of the game’s global structure on March 26, 2025, where it called out ICC for its short-term thinking, said only 10.5 percent of the global cricket revenue go to the cricketers, proposed reducing India’s current share in the revenues from 38.5 percent to 10 percent and also proposed setting up a global growth and development fund for associate nations.

In the same report, WCA also shared skepticism over whether these proposals would be implemented and said, “A new global cricket product may need to be created that achieves this.”

This ‘new global product’ could be the Saudi league, which promises to distribute its revenue more evenly among all participants and allocating more funds for teams outside the ‘Big Three’ of India, Australia and England so that they can play more Test matches.

Currently, 50 percent of the ICC’s total revenue goes to the ‘Big Three’ and this monopoly has forced established Test teams like South Africa, West Indies and New Zealand to cut back on the number of five-day matches they play.

The situation is even direr for a new Test nation like Ireland, which recently had to cancel its home Test series against Afghanistan owing to a fund crunch.

Funds from the new league could potentially save the future of Test cricket. And as the Saudi-backed league is set to become the first player-led league in cricket, this should mean higher salaries for the cricketers, which would turn it into one of the most lucrative leagues for the players.

Challenges and the India question

Injection of more funds, a new exciting tournament format, more funds for Test cricket and better remuneration for cricketers: till now it seems that this new Saudi-backed league – if it takes off – would be a blessing for the game.

But for all that to happen, cricket’s biggest stakeholder, India, have to be on board.

As the most powerful and influential cricket board in the world, Board of Control for Cricket in India’s disapproval would almost certainly lead to the ICC also rejecting this new league.

Moreover, for this new league to reach its potential, it would require the participation of Indian players. Right now, the BCCI does not allow any of its contracted cricketers to compete in leagues outside of India. If it doesn’t make an exception for the Saudi league, it would greatly hinder the league’s earnings potential.

While venturing into golf a few years back, Saudi Arabia had boldly created a parallel circuit, LIV Tour, offered millions to top golfers to deflect them into their circuit and basically took over the game with its wealth. But till now, the Saudi officials have taken a much more cautious approach in cricket and have been mindful of India’s stronghold on the game.

The IPL players’ auction for the ongoing edition was held in Jeddah in last year’s November, during which, according to media reports, Saudi Arabia’s SRJ Sports Investment’s CEO Danny Townsend had broached the subject of the new league to Jay Shah, at that time secretary of BCCI and currently the ICC chairman.

But getting approval from India won’t be easy as a new league like this would threaten the current hierarchy of global cricket, where India sit on top.

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is also not interested in entertaining this new league, evidenced by its CEO Richard Gould saying, “there is no scope or demand for such an idea,” recently to Sydney Morning Herald. Cricket Australia (CA) is also likely to oppose it.

But that’s how the big wigs are thinking about this Saudi-backed league. What about Bangladesh?

Where does Bangladesh stand?

The first question from a Bangladeshi perspective about the Saudi league should be whether a team from Bangladesh would get to take part.

As the structure of the league is still taking shape, there is a chance that players of different nationalities could mix and match to form a team, just like how it happens currently in franchise competitions.

But even if that happens, the interest for Bangladeshi cricketers is likely to be minimal if not nonexistent.

There are other implications as well.

In the current cricket calendar, there are separate windows for all leading franchise competitions, with IPL having the highest two-month window.

The Saudi officials are unlikely to tinker with the IPL window or try to barge into the windows of England’s The Hundred and Australia’s Big Bash League (BBL).

But if this new league gets approved, four more windows would be sealed off in the calendar, putting other weaker franchise leagues like the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) at a disadvantage.

This new T20 league would reduce the importance of inconsequential bilateral series, and further diminish the importance of the already flailing ODI format, both bad news for Bangladesh cricket.

Unlike the cricket authorities in countries like South Africa and West Indies, BCB is not really in need of funds to hold Tests, so how much value the extra Saudi cash could add is debatable.

So, as things stand right now, if a team from Bangladesh doesn’t get to participate in this league, there is really not much Bangladesh cricket could gain from it.

The solution

Coming back to Neil Maxwell, this is not his first rodeo at trying to start up an improbable cricket league.

Maxwell was one of the first persons to push for the creation of a T20 league in the USA in the early 2010s. It turned out he was a bit ahead of his time as a little over a decade later, Major League Cricket began.

Now, Maxwell is leading the charge to establish a radical new league which could change cricket’s future. But right now, there seems to be more reasons for it to fail than succeed.

Getting approvals from the ICC and the ‘Big Three’, the sheer logistics of holding four tournaments and a final every year and finding the time for a competition like this in an already packed schedule are just few of the many hurdles that lie ahead of this ambitious competition.

However, the solution to all of these problems may be quite simple.

As Dan Ohlmeyer, late American television producer and former president of NBC West Coast, had once said to explain how every problem in the sports broadcast industry gets solved, “The answer to all your questions is money.”

And for the Saudis, money is no problem.