USA Cricket takes huge step forward to achieving ultimate dream

OLIVER THORPE: With the eyes of the world watching, a successful tournament can boost the profile of cricket in the USA considerably

It was only a few weeks ago that USA Cricket unveiled their vision for the next three years – the first steps towards becoming a full member nation of the ICC by 2030.

The American dream seems a long way off yet, but the governing body for cricket in a country obsessed by NFL, NBA and MLB are giving the American public another acronym to familiarise themselves with: MLC. 

Major League Cricket is the latest idea to be thrown around the cricketing world but, with more and more T20 and T10 franchise tournaments popping up all over the globe, are they setting themselves up for a fall?

Sameer Mehta, a co-founder of Major League Cricket, is optimistic that the competition will be a success from the outset whenever it gets under way. 

“We hope that Major League Cricket will be in the top three or four leagues when it starts,” Mehta says. “We have to make sure that the product is great and that means bringing international players to Dallas, relocating them to the Dallas metropolitan area, making sure they engage with the local community as they showcase their skills.” 

It is full steam ahead for Major League Cricket and American Cricket Enterprises. They have already announced plans to to redevelop an old baseball stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas.  

The AirHogs Stadium can currently hold 5,443 spectators and has 13 suites, but developers HKS have been tasked with turning the venue into an 8,000-seater cricket stadium. 

“Where better to make cricket a mainstream sport than in the great state of Texas and, in particular, north Texas where we have a fantastic sports culture and some fantastic sports teams?” says USA Cricket chief executive, Iain Higgins.

“We’re excited to see the Major League Cricket team here in Texas sit alongside the other sporting franchises in Dallas: Cowboys, Mavericks and Rangers. 

“It’s a core part of our strategy to increase our engagement levels with people in this country and to improve the performance of our national teams so they can compete on the international stage. We see this development as a massive boost going forward to achieve those objectives.” 

However, one stadium is unlikely to cut it on its own; more are going to be needed elsewhere and that will likely mean turning other baseball grounds into venues fit for cricket. 

“It needs a willing city and willing city officials,” Mehta explains. “A lot needs to happen; the area needs the right demographics around it and there are facilities across the US that are situated in the right demographic area who we are speaking to. In some cases, we’ll start from the dirt and in other cases we’ll use existing facilities and refurbish it like what we’re doing with Grand Prairie.” 

_{AirHogs Stadium in Texas will be the first Major League Cricket venue (all images courtesy of USA Cricket)}

Grand Prairie was chosen as the inaugural Major League Cricket venue because of a shift in demographics within the Dallas region. That shift has made the area a prime location to develop the grassroots game. There have also been strides made in the domestic game.  

There was a successful player draft for in August for Minor League Cricket and subsequently exhibition matches were staged over a five-week period, making it the largest national cricket competition in US history. 

American Cricket Enterprises are hoping to launch the first full season of Minor League Cricket in 2021. The tournament would see over 400 drafted players competing in 24 franchises across the country. It would see the best amateur cricketers in the country mix with 48 first-class and international players. 

Research conducted by USA Cricket suggested that there are 150,000 people across America playing cricket and with four million regular viewers there is a huge emphasis on growth; and rightly so. 

On the calibre of Major League Cricket, Mehta added: “Every professional league requires international players to come in. 

“We’re lucky that the window is in a period were professional cricketers are available so we expect to have the best players in the world come down for two to three months in the summer to take part in Major League Cricket. 

“There’s a lot of talent coming through in the US. There are 14 academies in the country with about 1,800 kids playing cricket.” 

We have seen new T20 leagues around the world struggle to get off the ground. For each success story and established competition, others have disappeared as quickly as they arrived.  

_{USA Cricket chief executive Iain Higgins (L) and USA Cricket chairman Paraag Marathe (R) are hoping that USA will be an ICC full member nation by 2030}

“The measurement of growth when you’re trying to build something isn’t just dollars and cents,” USA Cricket chairman Paraag Marathe explains. “We’re looking at building popularity and interest – that doesn’t just mean what your profit is or how many fans are attending. 

“I think we’re going to have a tremendous amount of fan support and we’re wanting to build a viewership and hope that people will be watching it. We’re building a groundswell of popularity for it and putting ourselves on a path.” 

Higgins adds: “It’s not just about putting an international cricket match or a Major Cricket League match in a venue and expecting 30,000 people to walk through the door. It’s about creating opportunities for kids up and down the country around those franchise areas, maybe using plastic bats and balls to learn the game.” 

As ever, organisers of new tournaments believe in their products and Marathe is adamant that there will be vast interest both in the USA and overseas. 

“If you go back to that England v New Zealand match (2019 Cricket World Cup final); that was on in the middle of the night San Francisco time and the millions of people who were watching it on pay-per-view on Willow – we’re talking numbers that rival MLB or NBA regular season games that are on Fox, CBS or NBC for free at prime time. That’s today – I'm not talking about the future. 

“As we bring the sport here and the level of competition up and up and up, growing an organic fan base, the sky’s the limit.  

“This is the second-largest sport in the world and we’re bringing it to the largest media market in the world. That sentence alone, whether it’s cricket or widget-ball, just smells of opportunity.”  

If USA Cricket are wanting to host global ICC events by 2031, they need the Major League Cricket to take off and do so fast. 

With the eyes of the world watching, a successful tournament can boost the profile of cricket in the USA considerably. However, if it fails, will the hope of attracting the country to the sport be lost forever?

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