Can The T20 Cricket World Cup Reach The Unconverted In America?

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the United States last June, he was invited to the traditional White House dinner. Modi took the opportunity to shoehorn in a cricket reference about the then forthcoming 50-over World Cup.

“Amidst the love for baseball, cricket is also getting popular in the U.S. The American team is trying their best to qualify for the Cricket World Cup to be held in India later this year. I wish them good luck and success,” the PM said.

President Biden looked pleasantly surprised – even bemused – at the reference. Unlike the Indian Premier League, the richest cricket pot of gold in the world, it registered just a few decibels among the invited audience. India lives, breathes, eats and digests cricket in every single possible way daily, making up almost 90 per cent of the fanbase of the sport across the globe. In comparison, the United States of America has a bat and ball game but the big B for baseball comes well before the small c for cricket.

At least the U.S. team had no such issues in making it to the T20 World Cup. They are co-hosting the tournament alongside the West Indies in New York, Florida and Dallas. The best of world-class cricket talent is coming to America on a truly big stage. Now it just needs a Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift moment to supercharge it into the American mainstream.

The star match doesn’t involve the hosts. India versus Pakistan at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium at East Meadow on 9 June is sold out. If they could cram in 100,000 spectators as in Melbourne, the tickets would have gone just as swiftly. There were still hospitality tickets available for this clash of the giants at an eye-watering $10,000 for those who want to hang on every word by a cricket legend in a private champagne lunch.

The challenge comes when selling the game to Americans who are not invested in the cricket bubble. This may be a Ripley’s Believe it or Not statement in the coming month, but the first international cricket match was between the United States and Canada at Bloomingdale Park, New York in 1844. These two nations open the tournament on Saturday evening.

Everybody else is doing T20 franchises so why not the U.S? The inaugural edition of Major League Cricket in 2023 has certainly assisted the growth of the game in America as top stars like Nicholas Pooran, Heinrich Klaasen and Trent Boult starred in the six-team franchise. Most games were played at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, which hosts the clash of the two North American countries on Saturday evening.

The International Cricket Council and Cricket USA sanctioned the league and its backers including big Tech Giants like Adobe
Adobe
CEO Shantanu Narayen, and Microsoft’s
Microsoft
Satya Nadella. They promised that the initial $120 million funding would go into infrastructure and the grassroots of the game.

Former USA Cricket CEO Iain Higgins announced a foundational plan back in 2020. It aimed to make cricket a mainstream game by 2030 through a number of steps.

In that missive, Higgins mentioned that “increased immigration over the last few decades from countries where cricket is part of the way of life, most notably from the Caribbean and South Asia, has helped to regenerate significant interest levels in the sport in this country.”

He’s right. Tim Schmidt is a travel expert and entrepreneur who lives among such a populace in South Florida where the Broward County Stadium will host the U.S’s match against Ireland. “I get the sense that curiosity is piqued in the wider community as well. I really think the ICC’s social media strategy is going to be a masterstroke for growing this sport in new markets,” Schmidt told me.

“In today’s world, if you aren’t utilizing platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to the fullest, you’re just leaving audiences on the table. The way (the ICC) they’re leveraging influencers through programs like the Creator Squad is brilliant – it’s the perfect low-pressure way to introduce younger fans everywhere, including here in the US, to the players and tournament without intimidating them with hardcore stats or anything.

Digital engagement was one of Higgins’ essential blue ticks. Another prerequisite was to improve national performance. The American team has just beaten Bangladesh, ninth in the current T20 rankings, twice. The only way to reach full ICC member status is to keep climbing the charts by beating the best.

In March, the Wall Street Journal stated that many Americans “still have only a passing familiarity, if that.” with cricket. After the T20 World Cup can sweep through like the storm that hit the Dallas stadium earlier in the week, then progress will be made.