English cricket’s most experimental format is undergoing its biggest identity shift since its 2021 launch. The Hundred begins its sixth season at the Kia Oval on 21 July, but the headline in the buildup has not been about bat and ball at all — it has been about branding, ownership and a footballer’s chequebook. Three of the competition’s eight men’s and women’s franchise pairs have been renamed for 2026, and England midfielder Jude Bellingham has taken a small ownership stake in Birmingham Phoenix, becoming one of the more recognisable faces attached to the tournament’s ongoing private-investment era.
Three Franchises, New Names
Manchester Originals will play as Manchester Super Giants this season, aligning the club more closely with the Indian Premier League ownership group that bought into the franchise. Oval Invincibles’ London stablemate has become MI London, reflecting Mumbai Indians’ investment, while Northern Superchargers’ Leeds-based women’s side is now branded Sunrisers Leeds. The changes follow the 2024 sale of stakes in eight Hundred franchises to a mix of IPL franchise owners, private equity groups and, in Birmingham’s case, individual investors including Bellingham.
A Kit Amnesty and a Fanbase in Flux
The rebrand has not gone smoothly with every supporter group. MI London will play in royal blue with gold trim, discarding the teal and mint green associated with the Invincibles across five previous titles — two women’s crowns and three men’s. To soften the transition, organisers have introduced what has been described as a kit amnesty, encouraging fans to migrate their loyalty to the renamed side rather than treating it as an entirely new club. Whether spectators who grew attached to the Invincibles’ colours over five years embrace a Mumbai-blue identity remains one of the more interesting subplots of the summer.
Bellingham’s Stake and the Sponsorship Squeeze
Birmingham Phoenix’s ownership register now includes Bellingham’s small equity share, a move that ties one of the Premier League’s most marketable young stars to English cricket’s shortest format. It comes at a moment when sponsorship money has been harder to find than organisers might like: only three of the eight franchises had confirmed front-of-shirt partners as the season approached, with London Spirit backed by Barclays, MI London by payments firm Sokin, and Birmingham Phoenix by footwear brand Skechers. The remaining clubs are expected to finalise deals closer to the tournament’s actual start, a sign that the commercial market for Hundred franchises, while improved since the 2024 investment round, is still finding its level.
New Rules, New Incentives
On the field, the competition has loosened its overseas quota, allowing each franchise four overseas signings rather than the previous cap of three — a change designed to lift the overall standard of overseas recruitment and give coaches more flexibility when international calendars clash. Organisers have also introduced a new combined trophy that rewards franchises for the cumulative performance of both their men’s and women’s teams across the season, an attempt to knit the men’s and women’s competitions together commercially and competitively rather than treating them as separate products under one roof.
The Skeptics’ View
Not everyone is convinced the changes solve The Hundred’s underlying tension. Traditionalists within county cricket have long argued that private investment and rebranding exercises distract from a format that still divides opinion among purists who prefer the four-day game or even T20. Supporters of the reform point instead to broadcast numbers and attendance figures that have held up well relative to other white-ball competitions, arguing that fresh capital and recognisable investors like Bellingham are precisely what keeps the tournament relevant to younger, casual audiences the ECB is chasing.
What’s Next
With finals day set for 16 August at Lord’s, the real test of this rebrand will be attendance and viewing figures once the first ball is bowled, and whether MI London’s blue kit and Manchester’s Super Giants tag stick in the public imagination the way the old names did. If the combined trophy format proves popular, expect other franchise leagues to examine similar men’s-women’s linkage models. For now, English cricket’s most polarising competition enters its sixth year looking less like a stand-alone experiment and more like an increasingly globalised, IPL-adjacent product with a growing list of celebrity investors attached to its jerseys.