Is BCCI concerned with the game growing in the USA market?

[Major]

There were reports of Kohli not being selected for the World T20 in WI and US, but than Kohli gave a simple reply that, “My name is being used to promote T20 cricket in other parts of the world. I still got it, I guess,”

This indicates that ICC wants him there because the only way for the game to grow in USA would be through him.

But than, could it be BCCI doesnt want the USA market to tap into this sport as it could ruin the BCCI hold on the sport?

It seems to me BCCI might be looking to drop Kohli for the purpose of him not featuring or allowing the game to grow in North America, because North America has a big sports market and ends up making leagues that are bigger than others leagues in the world.

 

[ahmadharis1]

As an American, there's absolutely no way cricket grows strong enough here to threaten BCCI even remotely

 

[Statpadder Inc]

Cricket in the us is never going to be big, it's only for the consumption of the desi immigrants.

Indians in the us are the wealthiest ethnic group and are starved of cricket, the bcci wants to make money out of them

 

[JaDed]

It won’t even reach the level of soccer here.

Kohli will do for US cricket at best what Beckham or Messi are doing.

Even first generation aren’t into cricket..doubt Kohli can threaten BCCI though.. considering RCB is still in a BCCI purview.

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Why would they be worried about it when they know that all the investors would still be Indians.

 

[PakLFC]

Like in the UAE the USA side will be full of Pak's, Indians, Bangs and Lankans. They don't even take Cricket seriously in that country. Cricket always was and will be a minority sport in most countries. Even the Canadians, Brazilians, Russians and Chinese want nothing to do with it.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Cricket in the us is never going to be big, it's only for the consumption of the desi immigrants.

Indians in the us are the wealthiest ethnic group and are starved of cricket, the bcci wants to make money out of them

Yep, they have their dozen of other sports engagement.

 

[jnaveen1980]

First Men's soccer grow first before Cricket lol Only Women's soccer is popular here. Most people don't even care about world cup soccer

 

[JaDed]

First Men's soccer grow first before Cricket lol Only Women's soccer is popular here. Most people don't even care about world cup soccer

Wait for 2026 buddy!Its coming home

 

[DeadlyVenom]

BCCI isn't worried.

For the foreseeable future anyone who wants to make it big in cricket needs to focus on Indian market. They need Indian viewership and engagement. Nobody is going to want to upset a market of 1 billion people. It's suicide. and the Indian market are quite a patriotic bunch.

If a player sells out and joins a rebel league they will collectively turn their back on them.

 

[U$ofA]

There were reports of Kohli not being selected for the World T20 in WI and US, but than Kohli gave a simple reply that, “My name is being used to promote T20 cricket in other parts of the world. I still got it, I guess,”

This indicates that ICC wants him there because the only way for the game to grow in USA would be through him.

But than, could it be BCCI doesnt want the USA market to tap into this sport as it could ruin the BCCI hold on the sport?

It seems to me BCCI might be looking to drop Kohli for the purpose of him not featuring or allowing the game to grow in North America, because North America has a big sports market and ends up making leagues that are bigger than others leagues in the world.

First and foremost, cricket will never be a sport to recon with of any kind here. No way. We have the Big2 in NFL and MLB. Then the NBA and NHL follow. These are the mass sports that keeps people busy year round. Add to that some golf and tennis, there is barely any room to squeeze in another sport.

As far as the T20 WC, let alone the BCCI, the ICC don't want cricket to spread in the US. Look at the timing of the games, 9 and 10 am in the morning? Really? What utter crap. That too the NY games. Which means 7am in the west coast. This is no way to spread the game.

 

[BouncerGuy]

BCCI has nothing to worry about. USA will need a few decades to match the level of cricket-playing nations like Afghanistan because there is simply no interest in cricket atm in US market when compared to a nation like Afghanistan or Bangladesh. BCCI is safe

 

[AMSS]

Shouldn't PCB be worried more?

Size of India+Pak+rest of subcontinental+SENA+carib diaspora in US would be ~6-7 million. Might even touch 8 million if you bring in Canada into the mix. That's about 1.5x the size of NZ with about the same or perhaps even more disposable income.

BCCI/IPL should absolutely target this market the same way NFL/MLB targets UK holding matches in London.

 

[Nasty Naz]

There were reports of Kohli not being selected for the World T20 in WI and US, but than Kohli gave a simple reply that, “My name is being used to promote T20 cricket in other parts of the world. I still got it, I guess,”

This indicates that ICC wants him there because the only way for the game to grow in USA would be through him.

But than, could it be BCCI doesnt want the USA market to tap into this sport as it could ruin the BCCI hold on the sport?

It seems to me BCCI might be looking to drop Kohli for the purpose of him not featuring or allowing the game to grow in North America, because North America has a big sports market and ends up making leagues that are bigger than others leagues in the world.

Haven't India played WI quite a few times in US in recent times? Theory doesn't hold much weight.

Outside of desi's, no one will remotely care about cricket in US or Canada. Time for that is long gone for cricket. If they wanted to tap into that target, they needed to try harder decades ago. There is already such a big sports following for so many different types of sports like NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB + growing MLS + Tennis + UFC etc. It's going to be nearly impossible for cricket to carve out a market and most people here have never even heard of the sport. It's hard to imagine anyone bothering to care about the sport outside of the asian market.

Most sport matches here end in approximately 2.5 hours so there won't be much interest in people sitting around for 4 hours for a T20 match. ODI matches wouldn't be on the table to begin with.

 

[WengerOut]

Let the men's football grow first. They are the hosts for FWC in 2 years. Second time in 30 odd years. Still the majority dont care about football. Now think about a niche sport like cricket.

OP just want to beat the BCCI with any stick he can get hold of.

 

[U$ofA]

Shouldn't PCB be worried more?

Size of India+Pak+rest of subcontinental+SENA+carib diaspora in US would be ~6-7 million. Might even touch 8 million if you bring in Canada into the mix. That's about 1.5x the size of NZ with about the same or perhaps even more disposable income.

BCCI/IPL should absolutely target this market the same way NFL/MLB targets UK holding matches in London.

Indians are the most successful ethnic group in the country. Even better than Caucasians. Indians have the highest avg. income among all ethnic groups.

A lot of disposable income to tap into. Throw in all the others you have mentioned, it makes the 4th largest market for cricket in the world.

 

[FearlessRoar]

Former India U19 standout Harmeet Singh has been named in the 15-man USA squad for the 5-match T20I series against Canada. He has been rewarded for his relentless performances in domestic competitions.

 

[moghul]

There were reports of Kohli not being selected for the World T20 in WI and US, but than Kohli gave a simple reply that, “My name is being used to promote T20 cricket in other parts of the world. I still got it, I guess,”

This indicates that ICC wants him there because the only way for the game to grow in USA would be through him.

But than, could it be BCCI doesnt want the USA market to tap into this sport as it could ruin the BCCI hold on the sport?

It seems to me BCCI might be looking to drop Kohli for the purpose of him not featuring or allowing the game to grow in North America, because North America has a big sports market and ends up making leagues that are bigger than others leagues in the world.

I'm still trying to make sense of your point .

 

[FearlessRoar]

Cricket, a big business in India, brings star power to the U.S. with the country’s first world cup​

A major cricket world cup is coming to U.S. soil for the first time in June as the sport sets out to chart its future in the U.S.

Cricket, a game similar to baseball, originated in England and has long been popular there. But the sport has boomed in India, the world’s most populous country, as well as some other former British colonies.

In the U.S., it is mostly immigrants and their children who enjoy cricket. But in 2023, the sport got a boost as Major League Cricket debuted in the U.S. with six teams: the Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom.

And now, the U.S. men’s national cricket team will represent the home country in this year’s International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup. The teams play in the Twenty20, or T20, format, the shortest and most popular form of the sport. While traditional cricket matches can last as long as five days, a T20 match typically lasts around three hours.

This year’s world cup is co-hosted by the U.S. and the West Indies and will take place in three U.S. stadiums — in Texas, Florida and New York — as well as several locations in the West Indies.

“This is a historic opportunity for the U.S.,” said former ESPN cricket writer Peter Della Penna.

Success in India

While it hasn’t broken through in the U.S., cricket has seen success in such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and the West Indies. But it’s arguably made the biggest mark in India, where it’s the most popular sport in a country of more than 1.4 billion people, according to research firm Statista.

Cricket is already a big business in the Asian subcontinent. In 2022, it accounted for 85% of India’s national spending on sports, according to ISPO, which hosts trade shows for the sports business.

And viewership continues to break records. Disney said its Disney Star Network broadcast of the professional Indian Premier League, or IPL, tournament in 2023 saw a record 505 million viewers in India, making it the first one to draw more than half a billion viewers.

The average value of an IPL team has exceeded $1 billion, according to Forbes, and investors are taking notice. In June 2021, private equity firm RedBird took a 15% stake in IPL team Rajasthan Royals for $37.5 million.

A year later, the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the country’s governing body for the sport, sold television and digital broadcasting rights for a record $6.2 billion. That gave the IPL the second-highest per-match value for a sporting league in the world, behind the NFL, according to Jay Shah, honorary secretary of the BCCI.

The early June world cup matchups will bring some of that star power to the U.S., with a high-profile India-Pakistan competition and culminating in a U.S.-India match.

″[The U.S.-India] match has already been sold out with 34,000 seats at the venue in New York,” Della Penna said. “That just gives you a sense of the magnitude of the opportunity that [the U.S. is] going to have during the world cup — with a television audience that’s unprecedented for any match that the U.S. has ever been involved with before — when you consider the Indian market and other markets like England or Australia.”

The ICC’s decision to host part of the world cup in the U.S. — and especially the highly anticipated India-Pakistan match — was a strategic move to take advantage of the potential for growth in the country, according to USA Cricket. The U.S. will host the tournament a few years before cricket comes to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Della Penna, who has covered cricket for nearly two decades, also said the move is financially motivated.

″[The ICC] made sure to put the India and Pakistan match on U.S. soil because they know there’s a couple million people in the [South Asian] diaspora who are massive cricket fans,” Della Penna said.

Tasmai Krishnan, a teenage cricket enthusiast in India and host of podcast “Cricstatic,” said the sport is an “integral part” of Indian culture. With new sports such as pickleball gathering popularity, Tasmai said he hopes cricket will also grow in the U.S. and he’s interested to see how the U.S. will fit into the global cricket circuit after the world cup.

“Coming from an Indian perspective, this opens another range of cricket here because it unlocks another country that is going to be a fierce competitor in the future,” Tasmai said. “This is a great learning opportunity for the U.S. team, and to see a nation like the U.S. participating, it really fills my heart with joy.”

‘A dream come true’​

The match between the U.S. and India will strike an interesting balance for Indian Americans in choosing which country to cheer for, Della Penna said.

One of those people is George Samuel, a resident of Nassau County, New York, where some of the world cup games will take place. Samuel is the head coach and director of Queens United Cricket Academy, which cultivates cricket skills for children and teens. Though he immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1987, he also coached cricket in England, Australia and South Africa. When he got to New York, he wanted to pass down the sport.

“I was super excited,” he said about learning the world cup would be taking place in his backyard. “I never thought that this was going to happen when I came to this country — it’s a dream come true.”

Samuel, who already has his tickets secured, said he believes this world cup will be a launching pad for cricket to take off in the U.S. — but he’s not rooting for either side in the final match.

“I like to see good cricket. I don’t have loyalty. I want to see the U.S. show good talent, and I want to see that good bat and bowl and lots of sixers,” he said. A “sixer” is the cricket equivalent of a baseball home run.

Samuel’s teenage son, Jeremy, said that despite his family’s Indian roots, he’s cheering for the U.S., the country he was born in, because he wants to play cricket professionally and for the U.S. team.

Jeremy also has his tickets for the world cup, along with his friends, none of whom have witnessed a major cricket match before.

“It’s really exciting to be able to watch it here — it’s 15 minutes away from my house,” he said. “It’s a big moment for us to finally see one. ... It makes me feel happy because now more people will know about cricket and will start to play it.”

Others are more interested in supporting the Indian team against its traditional rivals.

California resident Mythili Sankaran, who said she has watched every match India has played in the last 25 years, said she isn’t even watching the U.S.-India match and is traveling to New York only for the India-Pakistan installment of the world cup.

“Growing up in India with the Indian team, we were always the underdogs. Now, India is one of the most, if not the most, promising and powerful team in world cricket,” said Sankaran, who said she played cricket at the university level in India before immigrating to the U.S.

“To be able to watch all these international stars, to watch an India-Pakistan match in the U.S. — I didn’t think I’d do that in my lifetime,” she said. “I think the cricket audience in the U.S. is maturing largely due to Indian Americans, and it’s about time.”

And ultimately, Sankaran said, she hopes the world cup marks the start of a new era.

“What I’m hoping is ... people get to see women’s cricket in the U.S. as well,” she said. “The U.S. women’s cricket team is actually doing quite well, so I’m hoping that there will be a lot more awareness and visibility to that.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/21/cricket-big-business-in-india-brings-star-power-to-us-with-world-cup.html

 

[deltexas]

The White House has acknowledged the US cricket team - this is very encouraging. The USA cricket team getting recognition from the USA government!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1803104659109798009