‘Can work here’: America’s surprising cricket history and the bold, $1b bid to go ‘mainstream’

As administrator Justin Geale assessed the arrival of a jewel of world cricket to the USA, he declared “the train has left” Grand Central Station when it comes to establishing the sport in the United States.

The Canberra-born Geale is the tournament director for Major League Cricket, which was granted List A status by the International Cricket Council in May, and is among the Australians featuring heavily in the expansion of the sport across America.

An historic summer in the US, which will host a World Cup for the first time in conjunction with the West Indies, is a significant step forward in what shapes as an important decade for cricket in America — a nation that already boasts a rich and eventful cricketing history.

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The USA will host 16 of the 55 matches in the T20 World Cup ahead of the second edition of MLC — featuring Australians Steve Smith, Travis Head and Glenn Maxwell — which runs throughout July and involves six franchises across the country.

As important as hosting a World Cup is, the biggest step forward for cricket in the US is its inclusion in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, according to Geale.

“The LA28 Olympics is going to be huge for cricket. For the first time, what that does is open up different funding avenues in terms of America, so there are great opportunities there,” he told foxsports.com.au.

“It’s no surprise we’ve got a franchise base (in Los Angeles). That’s a key market for us to get going, because they’re going to play cricket at the Olympics.

“I think it’s all going to happen together over here. The MLC is really important. The minor leagues are important. The US national team is getting stronger and being competitive, which is really important.

“The bigger play here, though, is to make cricket a more mainstream sport is to get into colleges and high schools. It’s a phenomenal setup here in terms of high school and college sports.

“(But) that’s a much longer term play and that’s going to take all main stakeholders from the ICC, USA Cricket and the MLC pulling together.

“But I think that momentum, if you look at the successful MLC launch last year (and hopefully) a strong follow up season on the back of a World Cup, and the US getting stronger into LA28, I think it shows that cricket can work here.”

CRICKET? IN AMERICA? WHY HISTORY SUGGESTS THE WHITE BALL GAME CAN FLOURISH IN THE USA

“A tiger? In Africa?”

The Monty Python quote sprang to mind when the location of this year’s T20 World Cup was confirmed by the ICC in November, 2021.

“A Cricket World Cup? In America?”

The tournament serves as a litmus test — America has been earmarked as one of cricket’s growing markets due to its financial power and thriving South Asian immigrant community.

It is hoped the World Cup will broaden awareness and have a similar impact to what was achieved with soccer in America following the FIFA World Cup in 1994.

The ICC estimates there are around 30 million cricket fans in the US and the organisation is embarking on a mission to rebuild the sport to mainstream status in a country it considers a sleeping giant.

Cricket Victoria’s chief executive Nick Cummins noted the prospective fanbase in the US after his state affiliated with the San Francisco Unicorns ahead of the MLC launch last year.

“It’s not something you would expect to say about America, but there is a significant cricket-supporting population in the country,” he said last year.

“If we just focus on the Bay Area with the Unicorns, there are about 500,000 South Asians interested in cricket just in the Bay Area – so that’s Tasmania. So you’ve got a potential cricket fan base of Tasmania in just one city.”

It is a point made by Geale, whose organisation is looking to expand the number of cricket venues across the US for a competition currently hosted at grounds in Texas and North Carolina.

“We don’t shy away from the fact that we have an existing fan base here which is really massive by world standards,” he said.

“That is first or second generation (and) there is a strong Indian, Pakistan, Afghani and Sri Lankan population. We break down to an Australian, English, West Indian population on the East Coast.

“The expat market is huge. It’s a very well educated market over here, particularly in the Asian markets, because they have come here to go to college, or their parents have come here, and they are second or third generation now. So we have that fan base already.

“We need to tap into that properly and not shy away from that. So if you come to a ground, you will get a samosa, but you’re also going to get a hot dog as well. The bigger play is to make it more mainstream.

“Do we need to be Major League Baseball? No, absolutely not. But they’re constantly looking at what we’re doing and trying to make sure we’re not stepping on their toes, though I think it’s a big enough market for all of us, to be honest.”

REBUILD CRICKET TO MAINSTREAM STATUS? THE SPORT PREDATES THE ASHES IN THE US.

Cricket was one of America’s first outdoor team sports, with archived references to it being played in the United States from 1709.

George Washington’s troops are said to have played a version of the game at Valley Forge during the American Revolution in 1778, while Benjamin Franklin owned a copy of the 1744 Laws of Cricket.

As cricket spread across the globe via the British Empire, embedding itself into the national identity of Australia and India, the sport also became a popular pastime in the US, with nearly 1000 cricket clubs across 22 states during the 19th century.

The first international cricket match was played between the USA and Canada in Manhattan in 1844, more than three decades before Australia’s first Test match against England, and is reported to have drawn 10,000 fans.

President Abraham Lincoln reportedly attended a match between Chicago and Milwaukee in 1849, while the Philadelphia Cricket Club had first-class status between 1874 and 1913 and rivalled some of the world’s best teams during the late 19th century.

But perhaps it is best that some history is left unknown, for the club defeated Australia three times through this period.

Cricket’s golden age in America came to an abrupt end when the Civil War started in 1861, with baseball becoming entrenched in the national identity.

American cricket went into a seemingly irreversible decline over the coming decades, fading into obscurity following the world wars.

The sport’s popularity grew marginally after the United States was admitted to the ICC as an associate member in 1965, but cricket remained relatively unknown until the turn of the millennium, with about 30,000 people playing or watching cricket in America.

Courtesy of the mass influx of immigrants from cricket-obsessed South Asian nations such as India and Pakistan, that figure has since ballooned to more than 200,000.

America’s South Asian population has increased exponentially from 3.4 million in 2010 to 5.4 million in 2023, while the Indian diaspora in the United States is among the wealthiest of any migrant community.

Meanwhile, North America is already the third-largest television market for cricket behind India and the United Kingdom.

A WHITE BALL FUTURE FOR THE STARS AND STRIPES

The 2024 T20 World Cup is cricket’s latest attempt to push into the largely-untapped American market but it is not the sport’s first attempt to win over the US.

A prototype of T20 cricket called One Season was played in America in 2004 before West Indies legends greats Clive Lloyd and Desmond Haynes launched an early edition of Major League Cricket the following year. Both competitions folded and faded into insignificance.

A decade later, cricket icons Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar hosted a series of exhibition matches across the United States, recruiting former teammates for games in diamond-shaped baseball stadiums. It drew the attention of expats from South Asia and the Caribbean, but failed to capture the attention of the wider American public.

The US didn’t have the multipurpose facilities required to host an international-quality cricket tournament, partly due to well-documented governance issues between USA Cricket and the ICC.

However, the sport’s recent privatisation paved the way for the development of purpose-built cricket stadiums across the country.

In 2019, American Cricket Enterprises received exclusive sanctioning rights to set up a T20 league in the United States, pledging to invest in local cricket pathway tournaments and help fund cricket stadiums nationwide.

The deal meant more than $US 1 billion would be invested into the development of domestic US cricket and a couple of years later, the organisation announced the inaugural season of its new T20 tournament — Major League Cricket, the most ambitious attempt yet to establish professional cricket in the US and a competition being steered in part by Geale.

Bankrolled by four Indian Premier League franchises and leading Indian-American tech executives, including the likes of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan, MLC quickly became one of the wealthiest T20 tournaments in the world, receiving investments that exceeded AU$174 million.

Cricket NSW and Cricket Victoria also joined the venture, signing on as operational partners for two of the competition’s six franchises.

MLC’s inaugural season was played across three weeks at Texas’ Grand Prairie Stadium and North Carolina’s Church Street Park in 2023.

Each of the six franchises — based in Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Seattle and New York City — were given a $1.5 million salary cap to secure 18 players, including seven overseas stars.

The roster included former Australian captain Aaron Finch, World Cup champion Adam Zampa, T20 globetrotter Tim David, West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell, New Zealand quick Trent Boult and South African prodigy Dewald Brevis.

The 2023 season surpassed financial expectations, with most of the 19 matches selling out.

MLC has already secured the services of Smith, Head and Maxwell for an expanded 2024 campaign, along with Ricky Ponting as a head coach, while plans are in motion to build more stadiums and infrastructure over the coming years.

“When I came to Seattle in 1989, there weren’t any cricket teams,” Soma Somasegar, co-owner of the Seattle Orcas, told The Athletic.

“Today, there are about 250 to 300 cricket teams in Seattle spread across multiple leagues. That grassroots energy and excitement is true, not just in Seattle but in a lot of cities in the country.

“We’re trying to think for the long term. Attracting the stars is part of how we start; using what they do to penetrate school and college environments to help people see cricket is interesting. Our dream is that kids can see that and then grow up here to play at college or professionally.”

Head, for his part, is excited to be heading to the US to represent the Washington Freedom.

“I just wanted an opportunity to see what that circuit looked like. It is going to be nice to be in the States after the World Cup,” he told foxsports.com.au.

“It is important to have a little bit of a spell before we go to England for those one-dayers and I have to try to prioritise a little bit of rest at some point.

“But to get my first look at T20 franchise cricket, I’m early in the scheme of things in terms of the IPL and there is still a lot of touring to go, but I am enjoying it. It is good. It is fun.

“I feel like I am at the right stage of my career to be able to prioritise all three formats, which is nice. It is a nice feeling from my end.”

HIGH HOPES FOR THE MLC POST THE WORLD CUP

The 2024 MLC season kicks off four days after the T20 World Cup final and is aiming to capitalise off the buzz generated from the marquee tournament.

The T20 World Cup will have legitimate cricket fields with drop-in pitches and temporary grandstands, including a $30 million venue in New York that will host the blockbuster match between India and Pakistan.

Currently, ticket prices for the event range from $2,000 to $22,000, but those prices are expected to leap further closer to the game.

The 34,000-seat modular Nassau County Stadium, located in a repurposed public park about 50 kilometres east of Manhattan, has finished construction just in time for the event.

A drop-in pitch was grown in the temperate subtropics of Florida and transported in sections across a 2000-kilometre journey along America’s east coast.

Geale believes the wicket for the MLC-operated venue in Dallas, which hosted the opening match of the tournament between the USA and Canada, is world class.

“It has taken four years to get this stadium up in Dallas and the head curator, who is from Adelaide, has done an amazing job,” he said.

“It really is a world class wicket and we can’t wait for the world to see that with the World Cup and with the best players,(which) means that we can showcase the game the best it can be.”

The T20 World Cup will be competing for airtime alongside the NBA Finals and Major League Baseball, but there otherwise aren’t any major sporting events happening in the United States in June.

The window in July used for the MLC is also favourable in terms of the international calendar, with the only competition The Hundred in England during July.

Cricket has thrown everything it has got at the United States.

The next decade will provide a gauge as to whether the sleeping giant has awoken and has the muscles to become a power.