The ECB is considering an overhaul of The Hundred, which could see franchises pay players the multi-year, up-to-£300,000-per-season contracts. They will seek permission from the UK Home Office to allow each team in its lineup to include an overseas player above the limit of three that is currently allowed. The ECB began selling stakes in the eight Hundred teams last month and told potential investors that combined wage costs would jump more than 80 percent next year. Each of the eight teams now spends about £1.9 million a year in salaries for both men and women players and coaches. It is expected to rise to more than £3.5 million when deals are finalized. If these plans are approved and the league gets underway soon, major male's players' wages will jump from the present level of £125,000 to some £300,000 before the 2025 season. Women's competition salaries will soar from the current range of £50,000 to over £100,000. In total, it would take the salary spend by the Hundred to become the second-highest in men's leagues after the IPL and in women's leagues after the WPL. While The Hundred has attracted the best foreign cricketers in the women's game, it has not influenced the men cricketers much. For example, Shaheen Shah Afridi left Welsh Fire to go back home when he received a better deal from the league in Canada. And Pat Cummins revealed that it never crossed his mind to play in The Hundred when his mind was preoccupied with Major League Cricket. Also Read | IND vs BAN 2nd Test: Ravichandran Ashwin Reveals Rohit Sharma's Masterplan for Success in Kanpur Test In its quest to attract more talent, the ECB looks to adjust the process of recruitment. All franchises can register with up to six direct overseas players, three men and three women who will hold multiyear contracts, similar to those used in other leagues such as the BBL and SA20. The draft will still be kept intact, but their salaries bands will skyrocket, more so for superstars. ECB sale process overseer vikram Banerjee recently admitted that The Hundred has "fallen behind" other short-form leagues in attracting top male players. Banerjee told the Business of Sport podcast "We are the sixth highest-payer in the men's game. We're about to go seventh if we stay still at the moment - which we won't." Banerjee also mentioned top salaries are expected to rise at a much higher rate than the lower end. He said: "The 15th selection in a 15-man squad, with all due respect, you don't need to pay huge sums for. They might be an up-and-coming player. It's that top three or four players [per team] that you do need to pay to get their time and their effort to be there, and we have fallen behind." In addition, each franchise would be allowed to have one unique "England star" that can be signed for a multi-year contract estimated at approximately £100,000 in the women's league and £250,000 in the men's league. The third overseas player from three to four will make The Hundred match all other parts of the world, similar to the Indian Premier League and Women's Premier League, in overseas players. These plans are currently only in very preliminary stages and only have a chance of enactment as soon as 2026, subject to the continuation of the sale process. The ECB has not made any statements about this situation so far. Also Read | Virat Kohli Gifts Signed Bat to Shakib Al Hasan Ahead of Retirement Criticism of the sale process had begun even before its closure, with ECB's director of business operations agreeing that it might take longer than initially thought. Lalit Modi, the founder of the IPL, branded it "a big fat Ponzi scheme," despite his ban from the BCCI. Richard Gould told BBC: "I don't recognise his particular comments. It wasn't so long ago that he [Modi] had an article in the Telegraph saying he wanted to buy the competition for £1 billion." Gould added: "We've got nearly 100 or so interested parties involved in [the Hundred sales process] which is a huge number… Everyone knows that the money that comes in, we want to use it to protect and then supercharge the game throughout our county network and beyond." The 2025 season of The Hundred will kick off in early August with The Hundred, immediately after England's men have wrapped up their Test series against India.