Cricket set for a Hollywood return

It has been a week to forget for Bernie Ecclestone. The motor racing pioneer appeared in a London court on Thursday morning facing a single charge related to undeclared assets held in trusts overseas.

After pleading guilty, the 92-year old billionaire agreed to pay £652mn — a mix of penalties, interest and back taxes — to settle the case. He also received a 17-month suspended jail sentence.

The British tax authorities have been investigating Ecclestone’s finances since the late 1990s. HM Revenue & Customs said the outcome showed that “no one is above the law”.

The verdict is unlikely to dent Ecclestone’s reputation as the man who turned Formula One into a hugely successful global business. That vision is also what made him rich: the Ecclestone family’s net worth is estimated by Forbes to be around $2.9bn.

But it is the perfect opportunity to revisit his hugely enjoyable Lunch with the FT from 2017, which he shared with Scoreboard alumnus Murad Ahmed.

This week we’re looking at what the addition of cricket tells us about how organisers are looking at the LA Olympics in 2028. Plus we ask if English rugby union can get a grip on its calendar clash. Do read on — Josh Noble, sports editor

Going for gold: cricket set for Olympic turn

This week, the organising committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles put forward a list of new sports they hope to stage when the games come to California. 

The line-up includes a cluster of events with huge popularity in the Americas — baseball/softball, lacrosse, and flag football, which we’ll discuss in a moment — and two that are not favourites in the US: squash and cricket.

The Los Angeles proposal is expected to be ratified at the International Olympic Committee session taking place this weekend in Mumbai, a cricket-crazy country. The men’s cricket World Cup also happens to be taking place in India right now.

The potential return of cricket to the Olympic programme would mark its first staging at the global event since 1900. Cricket at the Los Angeles games would offer a chance to showcase the sport in a country seen as a potential growth market. Though popular with tens of millions around the globe, cricket has almost no footprint in the US.

Getting to this point has been no small feat. Traditional formats of cricket wouldn’t fit into the Olympics’ concise two and a half week schedule. But the growth of Twenty20 cricket in the past two decades, has created an opportunity for the sport to slot into the international tournament. 

Cricket backers have been ambitious about fostering the sport’s popularity in the US, with the launch of the $1bn Major League Cricket this year. If patterns of similar American leagues are any indication, it may take years to achieve profitability. Major League Soccer, which began play in 1996, is still not yet in the black. (Don Garber, the league commissioner, told Scoreboard earlier this year that MLS could achieve profitability but has instead focused on expansion and other avenues of growth.)

Nonetheless, a potential Olympic showcase is as grand an opportunity as possible to juice new audiences. Similarly, American football executives are hoping by including flag football — a non-tackle variety of the game, where opponents snatch flags from players’ waists to end each play — to export the gridiron sport overseas. Ahead of the weekend vote, the president of the International Federation of American Football said he and his partners at the National Football League — were optimistic for the sport’s chances.

Perhaps the broader takeaway is just how focused the organisers in Los Angeles are on milking the commercial opportunities afforded by the games. US media companies have been battling over the domestic rights to the Indian Premier League. The prospect of Indian cricketers batting for Olympic gold will give broadcasters and sponsors something completely new to fight over.

Untangling rugby union’s scrambled calendar

The Gallagher Premiership, the top tier of English rugby union, returned last night with Leicester Tigers travelling to face the Bristol Bears. Three more games take place today, and another on Sunday.

But those hoping to grab the full attention of rugby union’s passionate English fan base have a big problem: the World Cup is entering the knockout phases with quarterfinals due to take place throughout the weekend.

Rugby union’s calendar issues are one of the biggest problems facing the game right now. The best players are off with their national teams, while fans have the option of sitting on their sofas watching top-quality rugby, rather than heading out to watch depleted club sides.

Those running the game both in the UK and internationally are aware of the broader issues. Fans, especially new ones, and broadcasters are better served by a simpler schedule. To that end, the push for a global calendar is high on the agenda for the World Rugby Council.

For the Premiership, the financial crisis that has rocked the game over the past year has a silver lining. The newly slimmed down league — cut from 13 teams to 10 after three collapsed into administration — should help simply by reducing the total number of matches in a season.

Club games will also not clash with the Six Nations tournament for the first time next year. The move to untangle the league and the international showpiece contest is a small sign of how private equity is helping to reshape rugby: CVC Capital Partners has a stake in both competitions.

Highlights

• The International Olympic Committee has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee with immediate effect after the latter sports organisation took the measure of absorbing regional sports operations in Ukraine. The move revokes IOC funding for the ROC and limits its decision making in global sport, although the IOC cautioned it has yet to make a determination about the potential neutral participation of individual athletes from Russia and key ally Belarus at the Paris Olympics next year.

• The PGA Tour has begun a formal process to evaluate outside investor interest, even as it still works to formalise a framework deal with the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. The soft deadline for potential bids — interested parties include Endeavor, Fenway Sports Group, and private equity billionaire Henry Kravis — is December, as the framework agreement between the Tour and the PIF is set to expire at the end of the year.

• DMG Ventures, the investment arm of the Daily Mail publisher DMGT has made its first move into padel, buying a minority stake in Hexagon Cup — a new tournament being launched next year by the people behind Formula E.

Final Whistle

Perhaps the toughest competition in sport this week has been who can jump on the Olivier Giroud bandwagon in the most gratuitous way. The AC Milan forward was forced to go in goal for the final minutes of the Italian side’s match against Genoa last weekend. His antics resulted in a hero’s reception from teammates and supporters.

But since then everyone has been trying to get in on it. The French national team added the centre forward to its roster of goalkeepers, AC Milan started offering GIROUD 9 keepers jerseys in its club shop, while EA FC, the new incarnation of the video game formerly known simply as “Fifa”, gave the Frenchman the “in-form goalkeeper” card in its online game. He even made the Serie A fantasy football team of the week. Enough!