Abu Dhabi T10 targets long-term franchise stability ahead of 10th season

The Abu Dhabi T10 (ADT10) is looking for a fresh start in the upcoming tenth season of the tournament, with the new league and franchise ownership set to bring in a top annual cricket event in the UAE. The ADT10 was launched in 2017 by a UAE-based businessman, Shaji ul Mulk, making it the world’s first-ever T10 league.

However, the reputation of the tournament has come under question in recent years due to repeated incidents of corruption. In September 2023, eight individuals associated with one of the franchises were charged by the ICC for corruption breaches relating to an earlier season. Earlier this month, USA player B Akhilesh Reddy was handed an eight-year ban after being found guilty of breaching the ICC’s anti-corruption code during last season.

The league has also faced issues over player payments in the past. Frequent changes in franchise ownership have also not helped to establish a clear identity for a league that has fluctuated between six and 10 teams over the years.

The poor track record and the reputational fallout have prompted the Abu Dhabi government to take majority ownership of the league earlier this year, through the Abu Dhabi Cricket and Sports Hub.

"I do think that a number of challenges occurred in the past where that had an impact on the brand name of Abu Dhabi. And that was something that we couldn't control because third-party team owners were making decisions that had a negative impact on the brand of Abu Dhabi,” the Abu Dhabi Sport Council's CEO Matt Boucher told Cricinfo.

Another part of the plan is to give the capital city its own premier cricket event. The UAE has hosted top-level cricket regularly for years, while the ILT20, run by the Emirates Cricket Board in Dubai, has become a well-established tournament. Abu Dhabi now hopes to carve out its own space for cricket within a packed winter sports calendar that already features the Formula 1 race and the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship.

Boucher also said that they’re now deep into a bidding process to find new team owners and are likely to receive final bids this week.

"We want regular team owners, we want long-term contracts, so we don't work in a world where we're on one to two-year rotating agreements and then changing everything from year to year. The strength of any event is based on longer-term contracts, and that's something that we're really focused on now,” Boucher said.

Boucher is hoping that the involvement of the Abu Dhabi government will help attract new investors for the league. He also revealed that they’re in constant touch with IPL franchise owners, who own teams in the ILT20 along with many other T20 leagues around the world.

No plans of expanding team as of now: Boucher

"I think it's fair to say that there's been some outreach with owners and investors that we are familiar with from South Asia. And that gives us a nice moment of recognition that if the world's best teams and the world's best franchise owners are interested in a product in Abu Dhabi, then it makes us confident that we're doing the right thing and we're proceeding along the right steps,” he said.

Boucher also denied the idea of expanding teams in the near future, saying that they have many issues to deal with at the moment.

"We've definitely got enough on our plates at the moment to enhance the governance and where we want to get to with the event. We know we've got five or six areas to improve. And if we can nail all of those then that might be something in the future, but certainly not in the next three years,” Boucher said.