3. Cricket has entered the global sports asset class conversation. For real. The story around global sports investing was shaped by the Big Five European football leagues, US major leagues, and Formula 1 for a long time. Cricket remained a regional story for most Western investors and media. When Blackstone and the Walton family are buying into cricket, that framing breaks. Any sports-tech fund or advisor ignoring the sport now has some explaining to do. As Sportico noted, this marks the first sports investment for the world’s largest alternative asset manager.