How successful was cricket’s America experiment?
What did the media and fans think of the ICC's multi-million dollar gamble?
Here’s a weird fact you may not know; America was cricket’s fourth biggest market before the World Cup started.
Brett Jones, chief executive of the T20 World Cup USA organising committee, is optimistic about the World Cup’s potential to boost cricket’s popularity in the States. "I don't think you could've scripted a better outcome for cricket in the USA than for their team to go through to the Super 8s.”
But, as with anything to do with cricket, the truth isn’t that simple.
The ICC spent $30 million setting up a stadium in New York. And yet, the arena is already being torn down, with no reminder of the tournament for any locals who didn’t visit the Nassau County Park during a couple of weeks in June.
The ICC gave America a huge chunk of the group stage, including the lucrative India-Pakistan match. But, most of the matches were played at 10:30 AM to attract subcontinental viewers, impacting the ability to interest local audiences.
The ICC has been talking up their great American adventure for months, and yet they spent almost nothing on local marketing beyond one front page ad in The New York Times. It’s not for a lack of money; the ICC made $719 million on the ODI World Cup in 2023 against a spend of just $147 million.
Moreover, the ICC didn’t even help the Americans who wanted to give them free publicity.
Nate Hays, one of only three part-time cricket journalists in America, struggled to get accreditation to enter media zones at the matches. “When you hear them [the ICC] on one side talk about how they want to spread the game…and then they don’t give you accreditation for that, it’s doublespeak.”
Peter Della Penna, the best known of those three American part-timers, has said that he’s probably going to lose upwards of $5,000 covering the World Cup.
“All these people are writing stuff about Cricket’s growing! Cricket’s exploding! Man, this World Cup is gonna…leave such a big legacy,” Della Penna said. “What does it say about the legacy of cricket in the country if…the only person who was a full-time paid professional journalist to cover cricket in the USA is gonna be five thousand dollars in debt at the end of the World Cup?”
So, we can’t trust the organisers’ statements, and there aren’t really any American journalists documenting cricket’s impact on the country. That left me relying on cricket’s traditional reporters; I looked at 69 articles by 25 writers working for 8 different publications to answer a simple question;
Did the World Cup make a difference to cricket’s fortunes in America?
If you want to skip ahead to a particular section, here are the sub-headings;
What did the media think of the World Cup’s American experiment?
The fan experience in New York
What now for American cricket?
What did the media think of the World Cup’s American experiment?
Before we jump into the data, a couple of qualifications. The articles I chose were specifically about some facet of America hosting the World Cup; the pitch reviews, the match atmosphere, infrastructure at the American venues, fan experiences, etc.
One specific exclusion from this criteria was the US team’s fairytale run; that wasn’t coverage of a host country falling in love with a new sport, it was coverage for existing fans to fall in love with a new team.
With that being said, the first question is simple. Was the media positive, negative or neutral in its coverage of the American leg of the World Cup?
As you can see, there’s a massive jump in negative articles during the first week of June. There’s a simple explanation. For a couple of games, there was a lot of panic about the state of the New York pitch and how it was such a bad representation of cricket for new American fans1.
But, the negative stories ended as quickly as they popped up. The ICC put out a statement saying they realised the pitch wasn’t perfect on June 7, and the India-Pakistan match on June 9 was a success - and suddenly no one cared about a pitch that still had to host another 3 matches2.
If we take away the TWENTY-SEVEN reactionary articles complaining about the pitch and the New York stadium (literally 39% of all the articles!), the picture is far more balanced with 19 positive stories, 12 negative stories & 11 neutral stories.
In general, the optimistic articles focussed on how quickly & efficiently the New York stadium was built, the incredible fandom of the South Asian diaspora in America, & how well the India-Pakistan match did.
The pessimistic articles focussed on the ICC’s failure to appeal to a new fanbase in America, and the abysmal fan experience. The multiple washouts in Florida, especially on days with minimal rain, attracted some flack too.
The fan experience in New York
Institutional media outlets brought up important points that would affect ticket purchases; Why was the tournament organised during the hurricane season? Should the matches be played at 10:30 AM? How are you marketing the World Cup in USA?
But, none of these concerns talked about the issues faced by the fans that paid hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars to go for the matches despite those hurdles. Their experiences are the best indicator of whether the tournament was a success or not; did they feel good about how they spent their money and time?
South African commentator Neil Manthorp published daily entries of his journey as a fan; staying in a place literally called Hicksville, the overpriced tickets (a $5,000 box seat got you a limited number of cheeseburgers and samosas), & an overbearing amount of armed security that made him miss the start of multiple games.
Australian writer Peter Lalor had a rough experience trying to get to the India-Ireland game. He couldn’t afford a $164.49 one-way Uber from Manhattan, so he took a train out to the suburbs. That got delayed, so he jumped off and hitched a ride - and the car got stopped multiple times for security checks. He left his hotel 90 minutes before the game started; by the time he entered the stadium, Ireland were 9 wickets down3.
However, both Manthorp & Lalor agreed on one thing; the bouncy, unpredictable, “dangerous” New York pitch made for fun cricket. The general theme of exhausting infrastructure made up for by an incredible cricketing experiences also came through in Peter Della Penna’s incredible documentation of fan stories on Twitter.
I looked at 54 tweets that Della Penna put up about the matches conducted in New York, of which 38 reported fan testimonials. Astonishingly, 73.68% of the fan experience interactions were positive.4
In general, the experiences were fairly similar; the excitement of being at a World Cup, entertaining matches, and absurdly expensive ticket prices. Another common theme of the interactions was the novelty of America hosting a cricket tournament.
As one group of excited Pakistani-American fans who watched the India clash said, “It's not often you get a cultural event like this to come together.” [However, the ticket] process was a mess & overpriced. “We can go to the US Open for $20.”
Della Penna also reported on some odd decisions by the stadium authorities. One Indian-American fan bought a $20 knock-off jersey in the parking lot because the official store was charging an absurd $120. Another young Pakistani-American fan didn’t buy a jersey at all because the store only sold India shirts!
The ICC struggled to sell out any New York match apart from the India-Pakistan game, with an average attendance of just 18,945 fans in a 34,000-seater stadium. The stadium was at least an hour and a half away from Manhattan, the premium seats were empty for most games, and tournament organisers confided to the BBC that they probably should’ve reduced ticket prices.
Overall, the South Asian diaspora seemed to love the opportunity to watch world class cricket in their backyard. It’s questionable how many would come back if it were a regular opportunity though.
What now for American cricket?
That’s the billion dollar question. No, literally. Reports suggest nearly $850 million has already been invested in Major League Cricket, with another four to five franchises in line to join America’s newest sporting venture.
As The Playbook’s Venkat Ananth writes,
“At the heart of the modern US cricket story is a one-year-old T20 league, the Major League Cricket (MLC), backed by prominent Indian-Americans such as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, alongside IPL franchises such as CSK, Kolkata Knight Riders, and the Mumbai Indians, to name a few.”
It’s pretty clear by this point that the ICC did not make a real effort to grow the game in America during the World Cup. They focussed on gouging a South Asian diaspora audience that were ecstatic about getting to see their idols in the flesh, and they’ve already moved on to the (equally badly planned) West Indies leg.
But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t scope to grow the game in America. Remember that ridiculous-sounding factoid about America being the fourth largest cricket market in the world?
Well, here’s the explanation; The Indian-American demographic has the single highest median income in America (ahead of traditional elite minorities like the Japanese & Jewish folks). Additionally, the increasingly richer and more connected South Asian population doubled in number between 2010 and 2020.
Which all explains why people are excited about the few million South Asians in America. Willow TV, the primary subscription streaming service for cricket in America, hit the 4 million household mark during last year’s ODI World Cup.
More importantly, the MLC organisers understand that they can’t just sit on their laurels and gouge this audience. They are trying to grow a new, local fanbase.
The first season of the MLC was largely held in Dallas, and saw some incredible audience numbers. 70% of its matches sold out, 80% of seats were filled up, and a 100% of the hospitality tickets were sold. More importantly, ticket sales, broadcast revenue, and sponsorships each contributed around 30% of total revenue.
For comparison, only 5% of the IPL's money comes from match day revenue while 65-80% comes from broadcast rights sales alone. The MLC is already a more diversified tournament.
And, they’re not playing in a small sandbox. One of the San Francisco Unicorns’ co-owners claims that the MLC made $8 million in Year One. Satyan Gajwani, vice-chairman of Times Internet (which has a vested interest in the MLC), won't confirm that number, but says that he expects revenue to grow by 50-60% this year.5
That’s the potential of American cricket. A rich, connected South Asian diaspora that’s watching cricket AND building an America-first league aimed at local fans.
The less involvement the ICC has, the better.
Never mind that multiple players - including Heinrich Klaasen, Anrich Nortje & Jasprit Bumrah - all really appreciated the New York pitch from day one.
A lot of the media came around to the idea of pitches that gave bowlers a fairer chance by the end of the US leg. A June 20th piece by ESPNcricinfo’s Sambit Bal entitled “T20 can be fun without the ball-bashing too” doesn’t mention the New York pitch by name, but does say that bowler-friendly tracks are more exciting AND better for the game!
Lalor’s version of the story is a lot more fun than my dry fact-finding mission. Definitely worth a read if you want to kill 10 minutes!
These numbers reflect Della Penna’s reporting on fan experiences from multiple matches at the Nassau County Stadium, and from the Mets Stadium in Queens where a screening of the India-Pakistan match was set up.
All the MLC numbers come from the aforementioned Playbook article by Venkat Ananth. It’s a great piece if you want to understand the MLC’s business model and hurdles to success.
I’ve tried looking everywhere for pieces that take on this question, and they are very sparse on the ground. As for analysis? This is the very best one, by leagues and leagues. Thank you!