CricInfo was launched on 15 March 1993 by Simon King, a British researcher at the
University of Minnesota. It grew with help from students and researchers at universities around the world. Contrary to some reports, Badri Seshadri, who was very instrumental in CricInfo's early growth, did not become involved in CricInfo until some months after its founding. The site was reliant on contributions from fans around the world who spent hours compiling electronic scorecards and contributing them to CricInfo's comprehensive archive, as well as keying in
live scores from games around the world using CricInfo's scoring software, "dougie". In 2000, Cricinfo's estimated worth was $150 million; however it faced difficulties the following year as a result of the
dotcom crash. Cricinfo's significant growth in the 1990s made it an attractive site for investors during the peak of the
dotcom boom, and in 2000 it received $37 million worth of
Satyam Infoway Ltd. shares in exchange for a 25% stake in the company (a valuation of around £100 million). It used around $22m worth of the paper to pay off initial investors but only raised about £6 million by selling the remaining stock. While the site continued to attract more and more users and operated on a very low cost base, its income was not enough to support a peak staff of 130 in nine countries, forcing
redundancies. In 2000, Cricinfo was named title sponsor of the
Women's World Cup. By late 2002 the company was making a monthly operating profit and was one of very few independent sports sites to avoid collapse (such as
Sports.com and
Sportal). However, the business was still servicing a large loan. Cricinfo was eventually acquired by
Paul Getty's
Wisden Group, the publisher of ''
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack and The Wisden Cricketer'', and renamed Wisden Cricinfo. The Wisden brand (and its own wisden.com site) were eventually phased out in favour of Cricinfo for Wisden's online operations. In December 2005, Wisden re-launched its recently discontinued
Wisden Asia Cricket magazine as
Cricinfo Magazine, a magazine dedicated to coverage of
Indian cricket. The magazine published its last issue in July 2007. In 2006, revenue was reported to be £3m. In 2007, the Wisden Group began to be broken up and sold to other companies;
BSkyB acquired
The Wisden Cricketer, while
Sony Corporation acquired the
Hawk-Eye ball tracking system. In June 2007,
ESPN, LLC announced that it had acquired Cricinfo from the Wisden Group. The acquisition was intended to help further expand Cricinfo by combining the site with ESPN's other web properties, including
ESPN.com and
ESPN Soccernet. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. As of 2023, Sambit Bal is the editor-in-chief of ESPNcricinfo. In 2013, ESPNcricinfo.com celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a series of online features. The website awards the annual
ESPNcricinfo Awards. On 20 March 2023, ESPNcricinfo celebrated its 30th anniversary by an article from Sambit Bal, its editor-in-chief. ==Popularity==