Will cricket succeed in America? To take the US by storm, the new T20 league
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The field has been constructed, and the dream is in place. On Thursday, Major League Cricket will finally begin play outside of Dallas. But will they show up?
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The leaders of cricket have long desired success in the United States. In a repurposed baseball stadium (capacity: 7,200) outside of Dallas, the biggest, wealthiest attempt yet to get Americans hooked on cricket will start on Thursday. The new league, Major League Cricket, has money: about $50 million has already been spent, and another $130 million is on the way. Its customers are well-off: The list of prominent Indian-American IT professionals who have agreed to invest in the new company is headed by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The International Cricket Council, which is eager to raise the popularity of its sport in America before the 2024 T20 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the United States and the West Indies, supports it.The fact that it has players—some of whom are really talented—is most significant. The new competition features genuine stardust of Wanindu Hasaranga, Kagiso Rabada, Tim David, and Anrich Nortje, among many other seasoned T20 internationals who have made the trek out to the suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex to help launch cricket's newest big shot at success in America. (Corne Dry, anyone?) Sprinkled among the little-known local talents (Corne Dry, anyone?) are the new competition. Will there be any watchers of Major League Cricket, though? Will the American public be enthralled by the sight of Aaron Finch throwing a powerful throw through midwicket? Will it eventually come to regret the missed potential of a squandered PowerPlay, as millions of cricket fans do already? Will it mature to understand the nuances of an
A justification for caution may be found in the history of the flatter-batted ball and bat sports in the United States. Cricket saw a brief "golden age" in America owing to the efforts of the Philadelphia Cricket Club, once regarded as the equal of the finest international teams, when it competed with baseball for local supremacy in the late 19th century. However, because to Britain's late-imperial fear, the US was barred from international competition, and in the years following the First World War, American cricket saw a fast and seemingly irreversible fall. There have been numerous unsuccessful efforts to start a professional domestic cricket league since the turn of the century: The first version of T20 cricket, Pro Cricket, only played one season in 2004 before it was discontinued.
As stated by Sameer Mehta, one of the MLC's co-CEOs, "We are somewhat concerned by and appreciative of USA Cricket's struggles," the league's organisers are aware that the path ahead would be difficult. But he and Vijay Srinivasan, a fellow founder, are planning big. Prior to selling it to The Times Group, the largest media conglomerate in India, in 2016, Mehta and Srinivasan founded Willow TV, the main streaming app for cricket in the US, in the early 2000s. They founded Major League Cricket using the proceeds and contacts from that transaction, and they think the moment has come for America to completely embrace the flat-batted sport. The recent "cosmopolitan turn" among American sports fans, who are now just as likely to watch international competitions, is partly to blame for this.
Can a sport with significant financial support and an existing following among the ex-migrant population of the Commonwealth of Nations in America strike it rich in the land of the free? Can Brooklyn's producers of Australian flat whites spread their infectious excitement for cricket to all 50 states? Sometimes it might be hard to envision how an experiment might be successful. Usually, explaining cricket to Americans is as simple as explaining climate change to a ferret. But there is a kind of framework for MLC. Major League Soccer has grown so quickly from its 'anchor' fan base among the nation's Hispanic migrant population over the past 20 years that the round ball sport now surpasses hockey on most criteria as America's fourth most popular sport.Supporters of MLC believe they have what it takes to win over the American Midwest. Each of the founding clubs has committed to building a stadium in its home city so the league may develop as a genuine home-and-away competition in the years to come, according to Mehta, who maintains that the league is not a bid to attract Indian audience but rather a straight risk on the sport's potential appeal to Americans. The league is promoting local talent development and professional "pathways" for domestic cricketers in all the appropriate places. Teams must fit a minimum of nine domestic players within the squad salary cap of $1.15 million; up to nine foreign players may be chosen, but only a maximum of six may participate in each starting XI. video games
The first event has a simple structure: the six teams play one another once, and the top four teams compete in three qualification and elimination games before the final on July 30. Three of the group matches will take place at a North Carolina stadium with a 3,000-person capacity, while the other matches will be played at Dallas' Grand Prairie Stadium. Major League Cricket has pledged to produce a 30-camera, top-notch broadcast at both sites for the matches, which will be carried live on Willow TV with an announcement of a major broadcast partner expected before the first match. Mehta expects that the league will grow to include 10 clubs and adopt a longer season in the future.
Major League Cricket is surrounded by a hazy sense of mystery as the Texas Super Kings and Los Angeles Knight Riders prepare to kick off the league under the lights at Grand Prairie Stadium on Thursday night. Why did these oddball Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, seasoned foreign cricket administrators, obscure local players, and famous international cricketers decide to congregate for three weeks in the heat of the Texas summer in a renovated baseball stadium in a suburban Dallas neighbourhood? Does cricket really need America when it is expanding briskly in its main markets and is immensely popular among the two billion people in South Asia? It appears that the group's motivations go beyond financial gain, maybe having to do with
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