Seattle-area vets buy cricket team – Boston – to continue feeding pipeline of sports talent

After more than a decade building cricket stadiums, sponsoring youth teams, and developing local talent in the Pacific Northwest, a group of Seattle-area tech veterans has taken its investment in the sport to an unexpected destination: Boston.

The five managers of the newly acquired New England Eagles, a Minor League Cricket franchise, are all based in the Pacific Northwest and combine leadership experience at Microsoft, Zuper, T-Mobile, Capital One, and Bee Talent Solutions.

Their hearts, they say, are here, too. But when there was no MiLC franchise slot available and the team was ready to scale, they bought the team they could find.

“We prioritize method over location,” said Anand Subbaraj, owner and CEO of Seattle startup Zuper. “If we have to use a team 3,000 miles away to make sure our home players have a door for Team USA, we’ll always open that door.”

The other four co-owners are Vandana Thomas, senior product leader at Microsoft and one of only two female owners in the entire Minor League cricket program; Gaurav Seth, a partner director at Microsoft with 23 years at the technology giant; Manoj Naidu, founder and COO of Bee Talent Solutions; and Satheesh Santhamurthi, chief technology officer at Capital One and president of the Seattle-area USA Cricket Youth Hub.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This team has been heavily invested in Pacific Northwest cricket for years as coaches, sponsors, and youth program organizers. Seattle already has a Major League Cricket team in the Orcas, and the owners argue that the region should have a deeper pipeline into it. Minor League Cricket is a developmental level that brings together local talent to the MLC and eventually Team USA.

They are not the first tech veterans in the Seattle area to see cricket as worthy of support. Orcas’ investor group includes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Madrona Venture Group Managing Director Soma Somasegar, and Icertis founder and CEO Samir Bodas, among others. The Seattle Thunderbolts, the area’s Minor League Cricket team, was founded with the support of tech industry veterans.

The new owners of the Eagles plan to use the franchise as a sports technology startup, using player health and performance data, managing fan growth as a user acquisition funnel, and building business plans in the same way they will build a product roadmap – a way that fits perfectly with that culture.

“Our team brings best in class product thinking, engineering excellence, and an AI-forward mindset to the traditional franchise model,” said Seth. “If you use structured technology in the love of sports, the ceiling is really high.”

The acquisition comes at an important time for cricket in the US Major League Cricket launched in 2023 with six franchises, including the Orcas, and the sport will return to the Olympic Games at the Los Angeles Games in 2028 – a deadline that accelerated investment in the entire ecosystem.

For Thomas, stakes are personal. His son recently became the first young home-grown male player from Seattle to represent Team USA at the ICC Under-19 World Cup.

“Cricket in the US is at a turning point, and the people involved now will shape what it looks like for the next generation,” Thomas said. “I want my sons and every other kid playing in this country to see that the path from the local field to Team USA is real – and that women, families and underrepresented communities are part of building it.”

While the Eagles will play next season in New England, the ownership group has expressed long-term ambitions to expand cricket programs in the Pacific Northwest. They also want to help seed a broader culture of private investment in sports that, despite its massive global following, still creates the financial foundations that American sports take for granted.”

“Cricket in this country doesn’t just need more money — it needs more believers,” said Naidu. “Player paths, stadium maintenance, youth tournaments, training infrastructure: none of this is built without people willing to put real money and real time behind it. We’ve been doing it at the grassroots level for years, and now we’re doing it at the franchise level.”