00:00No, not the NFL, NBA, or MLB.
00:03Blackstone's first investment in sports is cricket.
00:06Blackstone joins a consortium to buy Royal Challengers, Bengaluru,
00:10the reigning champions in the Indian Premier League.
00:12The purchase comes at a $1.8 billion valuation.
00:15And Scarlett is here with me on this.
00:16I gotta say, husband-in-law and husband-in-law's family is British.
00:20The family group chat was lit about this deal that's coming from Blackstone.
00:25Pretty incredible because the Indian Premier League
00:27is the world's most profitable and popular cricket league around.
00:31So, you know, good reason for it to be lit.
00:33Basically, this is a league that runs for eight weeks every spring.
00:36It combines high-stakes cricket with U.S. marketing savvy and Bollywood glamour.
00:41So there's a lot of star-studded power here.
00:43The investment here that Blackstone is making
00:45is through its Blackstone Private Equity Strategy Fund,
00:48which is for wealthy individuals
00:49and allows Blackstone to hold stakes for longer than it normally would.
00:52I was surprised this was Blackstone's first sport investment.
00:54I know.
00:54Yeah, Carlisle has moved into this space, as has KKR.
00:57But, you know, they took a while and they found a good one.
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