History
Allen Stanford proposed emphasizing Twenty20 cricket as a way to promote cricket in the West Indies. He created the Stanford 20/20, a yearly tournament featuring teams from the island nations that made up the West Indies. From the first edition of his tournament in 2006 he aimed to have the best players from his tournament play as a team against an international team. Initially South Africa had been planned to play against the Stanford team for a prize of US$5 million, but that effort fell through after scheduling conflicts with the WICB.
In 2008, Stanford looked to expand the tournament, and decided once again to feature a high stakes game featuring the best players in the West Indies versus an international team. Stanford initially wished to invite Sri Lanka, India, Australia and South Africa to come and play a single elimination tournament in Antigua, with the winner facing his all-star team. However due to contractual issues with the ICC and ESPN-Star and scheduling constraints that tournament was infeasible. Instead, Stanford invited the winners of the World Twenty20, India, to play for a prize of US$5 million (later US$10 million) and planned to ask Australia to come as a back-up should India decline or be unavailable. India, who were in the process of launching the highly successful first year of their domestic Twenty20 league, the Indian Premier League, declined as they did not want to be involved in a privately funded programme.
When that deal fell through, Stanford increased the prize money to US$20 million and aimed to get either England or Australia involved. After meeting with the ECB from April through June, Stanford finally signed a five-year deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board to host a series of US$20 million, winner-take-all matches, worth $100 million in total. In addition, the deal included an annual Twenty20 quadrangular involving England (as hosts), West Indies and two invitational teams with a prize of US$9.5 million.
Read more about this topic: Stanford Super Series
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