Jude Bellingham, Birmingham Phoenix and The Hundred: When Football Money Meets Cricket

Jude Bellingham bought a 1.2% equity stake in Birmingham Phoenix, the cricket franchise that competes in The Hundred. The deal, confirmed by BBC Sport in April, cost him around £1 million, split evenly between shares sold by Warwickshire County Cricket Club and affiliates of Knighthead Capital Management, the American investment firm that owns 48.4% of the franchise.

Warwickshire retain majority control at 50.4%. At 23, the Real Madrid and England midfielder is a formal part-owner of a professional cricket team in his home city.

When he announced the investment, Bellingham was straightforward about why.

“I feel like I owe the city something,” he told Warwickshire CCC, as reported by ESPN. “And this feels like a good way.” He also described cricket as his favourite thing to watch outside football, and said he and his brother Jobe grew up playing it together. The personal connection is real, and it matters for how this investment reads publicly, because it is not a star writing a cheque for a vanity project. He was, by Warwickshire chief executive Stuart Cain's account, interested before The Hundred's investment round was even finalised. “Jude loved cricket as a youngster and has wanted to be involved since the Hundred first went to market to secure investment,” Cain said.

His 1.2% gives him a formal seat at the shareholder table, access to financial information, and a proportional upside if the franchise’s value grows. Birmingham Phoenix was valued at around £82 million during the investment round that brought Knighthead in. A 1.2% stake at that valuation is worth just under £1 million, which is roughly what he paid.

If the franchise grows toward the valuations that Indian Premier League teams now command, some of which exceed £1 billion, the financial return on an entry point like this becomes very interesting. The sporting angle is that The Hundred is still in its early commercial life.

Getting in now, at a relatively cheap valuation, is the kind of timing that asset investors look for.

What Bellingham brings beyond the money

The financial contribution of £1 million is not the point, and everyone involved knows it. Knighthead and Warwickshire are not restructuring their franchise around a seven-figure cheque. What they are doing is attaching one of the most recognisable names in world sport to a product that is still working to build its audience.

The Hundred launched in 2021 to criticism from traditional cricket fans who felt the 100-ball format was a compromise too far, and while the competition has grown commercially, it has not yet matched the cultural reach of the IPL. Having Bellingham’s name on the Birmingham Phoenix shareholder list puts the franchise into football conversations, general sports media, and global entertainment coverage that cricket-only content simply cannot access.

Knighthead is also building something broader in Birmingham. The firm already owns Birmingham City FC, and Kyle Kneisly, a Knighthead partner and Phoenix board member, has talked openly about creating a Sports Quarter in the city that connects its major teams under one investment thesis.

The Birmingham Panthers netball team is also part of the portfolio. Bellingham’s deal fits that because he is a Birmingham figure with a global profile taking a stake in a Knighthead asset. It reinforces the firm’s positioning as a community investor rather than a purely financial one.

Birmingham City had his No.22 shirt retired after he left for Borussia Dortmund at 17. He is not a neutral commercial partner in the West Midlands. He is a star there, and Knighthead understands what that means.

Every franchise now has overseas investors. Reliance Industries, owned by the Ambani family, holds 49% of MI London, formerly the Oval Invincibles. Todd Boehly’s Cain International has the same stake in Trent Rockets. The competition attracted over £520 million in private investment ahead of the 2026 season, with several teams rebranding to align with their IPL backers.

MI London now plays in blue and gold rather than green, matching Mumbai Indians’ colours. SunRisers Leeds switched from purple to orange to match SunRisers Hyderabad. Bellingham’s investment is on a different scale from these institutional stakes, but commercially, it is the same competition that is globalising fast and using investor profiles, not just player quality, to build its identity.

Footballer ownership stakes in other sports have become more common over the past decade, but the pattern is usually American. We have had the likes of LeBron James with Liverpool, Patrick Mahomes with Sporting Kansas City, and Kevin Durant with various ventures. British footballers investing in domestic sports franchises at an early stage of their career is less common, and the Bellingham deal is probably the most high-profile example of it in English sport.

He is 23. His playing career has at least another 11 to 13 years in front of him. The commercial and financial decisions he makes now will compound across that time.