America’s New Major League Cricket Has A Footprint From Cashed-Up India

After years of intrigue and anticipation, and of course speedbumps that has been the norm for a long troubled sport in a goldmine of a location, Major League Cricket was spectacularly unveiled in Houston on Sunday.

With a pool of overseas stars limited – due to international commitments and India’s contracted players unable to play beyond their homegrown Indian Premier League – the MLC did well to recruit several well-known players still at their peak.

Salary caps were reportedly around $1 million per team with top players set to receive similar remuneration per game to cashed-up start-up leagues in the UAE
UAE
and South Africa.

Also drafted were a host of expat players, who are flying the flag for a pro cricket league hoped to finally fuel the rise of cricket in the world’s biggest market. While born and bred players were perhaps predictably outnumbered, MLC is hoped to spark interest in the younger generations amid such fierce competition for eyeballs.

Previous attempts at launching a pro league proved unsuccessful, but through such dedication to legitimizing the U.S. – with the sport’s governing body identifying it as the No.1 target growth destination – there has been serious investment into MLC.

MLC has secured more than $40 million in funding and over $100 million in “handshakes” with private investors including tech giants Microsoft
MSFT
.

Around the gaudy inaugural draft, the six franchises were unveiled ahead of the 18-day tournament starting in July. Three of them are owned by franchises from the IPL, cricket’s biggest and most lucrative tournament.

Thus their names are strikingly familar: Texas Super Kings (Chennai Super Kings), Los Angeles Knight Riders (Kolkata Knight Riders) and MI New York (Mumbai Indians).

It is obviously quite a deep imprint from the IPL, whose franchises are keen to expand beyond India and become global brands. Several of the them have already planted a stake in other T20 tournaments, but MLC has to be wary it doesn’t become labelled as merely an IPL ‘satellite’ like some of those competitions.

There is obvious cache for MLC to be business partners with these franchises but it has led to cynicism from some quarters over the tournament’s motivations and whether it will actually spur development of cricket at the grassroots level, where the sport’s long-term success in the U.S. lies.

For the IPL, which is starting its 16th edition soon and essentially forces a shut down of international cricket in April and May, it is a chance to further strengthen its multi-billion dollar empire through tentacles into the highly coveted American sports landscape.

Industry sources say that the IPL’s ultimate goal is to become something like the NBA and essentially have seasons that run for more than half a year. To do that it would need international players to start committing essentially full-time to their franchises.

As IPL franchises expand into different leagues, there is the chance for contracted players to play year-round including in the fledgling MLC.

If the IPL’s ever burgeoning media rights deal keeps exploding, like the NBA, then there will be more cash to throw at cricket’s stars who might just be tempted to forgo allegiances to their country.

That’s still all very much down the track, but the eagerness of those IPL franchises to be involved in MLC underlines long-held sentiment over cricket in America.

There is a lot of money to be made.