After many false dawns, professional cricket is finally poised to cross the much-coveted frontier into the United States. To an ever-expanding list of global T20 franchise leagues comes the addition of America’s Major League Cricket (MLC), which some believe could be the biggest disruptor the sport has seen for some time. The recent history of cricket in the United States has been riddled with broken promises and failed enterprises that have sunk almost without trace. Choosing Nasa’s iconic Houston space centre for its glitzy inaugural player draft held earlier this year, MLC will hope it does not suffer similar problems. The initial 19-game season will feature six teams – MI New York, Texas Super Kings, Los Angeles Knight Riders, Seattle Orcas, San Francisco Unicorns and Washington Freedom – competing in regulation T20 format matches over a 2.5-week period. Although because the US is an associate member of the ICC, the matches themselves, like the International League T20 held in United Arab Emirates earlier this year, will not count towards a player’s official T20 domestic career statistics.
Confusingly, the locations in each team name bear little relation to where matches will be played, with a dearth of suitable venues meaning the entire tournament will take place either at a converted former baseball stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas, or a smaller cricket facility in Morrisville, North Carolina. The initial infrastructure issues have had little impact on the quality of players attracted to the league, with a host of marquee names on board. England’s sole representatives are World Cup winners Jason Roy, who gave up his England white-ball contract to play, and Liam Plunkett. It is understood MLC also sounded out Moeen Ali before his decision to come out of retirement for the Ashes. Other seasoned internationals include Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan, South Africa’s Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock and Kagiso Rabada, West Indians Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell, and Australian pair Marcus Stoinis and Aaron Finch.
How has it attracted such big names?: No surprises here: money talks. The tournament has been co-founded by The Times of India Group, India’s largest media conglomerate, and secured a hefty $120 million (£94m) in initial funding through some influential backers, including the likes of Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella. Owners of Indian Premier League (IPL) clubs — Kolkata Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians, Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals — have stakes in four of the six MLC teams, with the other two supported by Australian state organisations Cricket New South Wales and Cricket Victoria. Each of the six teams had a purse of $1.15m (£900,000) to spend on a squad of between 15 and 18 players, putting the finances on par with the likes of The Hundred, despite having only one-third as many matches. Roy is likely to earn in the region of £150,000 for his stint in the MLC, dwarfing the £60,000-£70,000 he earned annually from his incremental England contract.
With Indian owners, Indian co-founders and a whole host of backroom staff employed by IPL franchises, it is easy to assume the MLC might aim to be a smaller copycat version of the world’s most lucrative cricket league. MLC will tap into traditional US sporting rituals by playing the national anthem before games, adopting cricket’s equivalent of baseball’s ceremonial first pitch and providing glitzy entertainment during the innings break.
How big a deal will it be?: It has strong financial backing, an impressive roster and has been three years in the making, but in an oversaturated franchise league market there are few guarantees the MLC will thrive. The long-term hope is that the US could be the sport’s untapped superpower.