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American dreaming: the audacious bid to bring pro cricket to the USA

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American dreaming: the audacious bid to bring pro cricket to the USA

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AMERICAN DREAMING:
THE AUDACIOUS BID TO BRING PRO CRICKET TO THE USA

by

Aaron Lawton

__________________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM)

May 2013

Copyright 2013 Aaron Lawton
2
Acknowledgements
A big thanks to my committee chairman Alan Abrahamson for all of his support.
Thanks also to my other committee members, Michael Parks and Dan Durbin, for putting up
with a seemingly endless barrage of emails. Finally, thanks to my wife Sarah for being my
rock and No. 1 fan.
3
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 2
Abstract 4
American Dreaming: The Audacious Bid to Bring Pro Cricket to the USA 5
References 21
4
Abstract
In late 2010, a press conference was held in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles to announce a
groundbreaking and unlikely partnership between New Zealand Cricket and the United States
of America Cricket Association. At the time, officials outlined their audacious plans to join
forces and launch a professional Twenty20 cricket league in the United States by the
American summer of 2013. According to research, there are more than 15 million cricket fans
in North America, many of them expatriates from the West Indies, the Asian subcontinent and
England, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. This venture was aimed at catering not
only to them but also the casual American sports fan. But in early 2013, Neil Maxwell, the
chief executive of the cricket partnership, revealed his organization would be postponing its
proposed league until the middle of 2014 after a number of major setbacks. This thesis
explores the proposed venture through first-person interviews with many different
stakeholders, both in the United States, New Zealand, Dubai and India. It also attempts to
depict the current state of cricket in the United States and highlights the challenges
confronting those who hope to introduce everyday Americans to what to continues to remain
a very foreign sport. This story will be published across two consecutive weekend additions of
the Sunday Star-Times in New Zealand in mid-2013.
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American Dreaming:
The Audacious Bid to Bring Pro Cricket to the USA
In December 2010, the five men gathered beneath the iconic Beverly Hills sign in Los
Angeles to pose for a photograph. Dressed in neatly tailored suits, they would have looked at
home in any boardroom across the United States if not for the red and blue baseball caps that
sat awkwardly on their heads, trumpeting the dawn of a new era for the fledgling sport of
cricket in the United States (Della Penna 2010a). On the far right, Neil Maxwell, former
Australian first-class player and agent to retired superstar Brett Lee, grinned. It was a day to
celebrate. After months of legwork, he’d been instrumental in putting an unlikely partnership
together (Maxwell 2013). The purpose of the day was to unveil a landmark deal between New
Zealand Cricket (NZC) and the relatively unknown United States of America Cricket
Association (USACA). The collective goal, the suited gentlemen announced, was to bring the
sport of cricket to the American masses by audaciously launching a professional league to
showcase it in all of its glory (Della Penna 2010b). Of course, they also needed money. That
was why Rajiv Podar — a respected Indian businessman with more pies than he had fingers to
put in them — stood posing alongside the other officials. In a country that proudly remembers
its history, this was a day not to be forgotten (Maxwell 2013).
More than two years on from the launch of Cricket Holdings America (CHALLC) —
a limited liability corporation based in Delaware — there has been plenty talk but little in the
way of action. The master plan was to bring Twenty20 (T20) cricket, a 40-over, rapid-fire
contest which finishes within three hours and is a far cry from traditional test cricket where
matches can last for up to five days, to an American fan-base reportedly starved of the sport
(Della Penna 2010b). A professional league, initially made up of six franchises, and populated
6
by players from both the United States and stars from abroad, was also expected to be up and
running by now (Della Penna 2012f). The franchises were to have been sold, each with a $40
million price tag, to private investors, with help in the publicity department from Australian
actors Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman (Panja 2012). But as of now, the league remains
nothing more than a vision. There are plans to launch it in the American summer of 2014
(Maxwell 2013; Podar 2013). But on the basis of recent events, that is by no means a
certainty.
Think of American sports, and cricket does not come to mind. Wickets, overs, bowlers
and players who catch the ball without the assistance of a leather mitt are all foreign concepts
on these shores. Football is undoubtedly No. 1, with baseball and basketball following closely
behind in popularity. Cricket might be something of a religion on the Asian subcontinent, but
in America it seems almost nonexistent. Things, however, are not always as they appear to be,
and research suggests that while its popularity is not immediately apparent in the United
States, there are more than 15 million cricket fans in the country (Anderson 2013; Alderson
2012a). Last year, during the World Twenty20 championships in Sri Lanka, ESPNCricinfo —
the most popular cricket website on the planet — surprisingly registered more page views
during the course of two weeks from within the United States than anywhere in the world but
India (Chong-Adler 2012). Similar trends are seen in other major cricket websites including
the home page of the International Cricket Council (ICC) — the sport’s governing body based
in Dubai (Anderson 2013).
But while cricket fans in the United States may number in the millions, the sport is by
no means flourishing here. Cricket is run by USACA — an organization with a track record of
poor governance and infighting — and the majority of the 25,000 registered players at the
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1,000 clubs across the United States are foreigners (Della Penna 2012i; Aaron 2013). Aditya
Thyagarajan, who hails from Bangalore, India, but now represents the U.S. national team,
admits that getting actual Americans to play the sport remains a monumental challenge
(Thyagarajan 2013). When Thyagarajan, a top first-class player from the state of Karnataka,
moved to California in 2001 to pursue his graduate studies, he discovered two former Indian
internationals, including Ajay Jadeja, then serving a five-year ban for alleged match fixing,
playing for the local Hollywood club. What he didn’t find, though, were any Americans. “I
would say that it’s a total expat sport over here. Once in a while, here and there, I’ll come
across an American who is actually interested in cricket,” Thyagarajan said. “The exposure,
though, is not there at all.” As well as being dominated by expatriates, the game is also top-
heavy with few junior cricketers taking part in organized competitions. Peter Della Penna
(2012i), a New Jersey-based American freelance sports writer for ESPNCricinfo, says there
are fewer than 1,000 junior cricketers in the country and lays the blame at the feet of
administrators, who he feels have struggled to sell the merits of cricket to the wider public.
“The USA is a sports-mad country, and so if other sports are thriving there’s no reason why
there can’t be room for cricket to thrive as well,” Della Penna said. “But it’s not thriving here
because the administration is hopeless and so rudderless. There’s no direction. There’s no
leadership.”
USACA president Gladstone Dainty has been in the job since 2008 and is blamed by
his many critics for the mire the organization is in (Aaron 2013; Della Penna 2012i;
Williamson 2012). Last year, he won reelection to his position in a landslide after only 15 of
the 47 USA member leagues were deemed eligible to vote at the USACA annual general
meeting (Della Penna 2012d). The 32 other leagues, many of them headed by Dainty’s
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dissenters, had been controversially ruled non-compliant after a nation-wide audit carried out
by Texas attorney Robert Chance in early 2012 (Della Penna 2012b). The purpose of the
audit, USACA treasurer John Thickett told ESPNCricinfo at the time, was about improving
“the financial accountability of the organization” as a whole, although many of the affected
leagues scoffed at the suggestion, feeling it was simply a ruse in order for Dainty to retain his
position as president (Della Penna 2011). On top of the board room squabbles, the cash-
strapped organization has also had its funding cut by the ICC on numerous occasions due to
poor governance, including as recently as last year, and remains in a precarious financial
position (Della Penna 2012c). Dainty (2013), though, insists his vision is to see Americans
play cricket and also dismisses the criticism as “noise.” “It’s about selfishness, it’s about egos,
it’s about everybody wanting to be in charge,” Dainty said. “And then, of course, the other
part about U.S. cricket and this environment and this marketplace, is that it’s maybe the next
El Dorado. I don’t know if it’s exploratory or piracy but that’s what you see right there. It’s
not about people looking at and respecting the game and wanting to give. In a lot of cases, it’s
people who have failed in their clubs and leagues and they have this notion that if they get rid
of the top, that’s going to make everything magical. It doesn’t work that way.”
Still, if, as Dainty says, the United States is the next “El Dorado,” it’s no surprise that
New Zealand Cricket has arrived on America’s shores, eager to start mining for gold. That’s
not to say it will be easy. Others have attempted to grow the game in this country before and
come up short, starting with the launch of American Pro Cricket — an eight-team T20 league
unsanctioned by the ICC — in 2004 (Aaron 2013). But with poor attendances and no
television coverage, the first season turned out to be its last (Perera 2011). Then, in 2009, Jay
Mir, a 32-year-old entrepreneur from New York, unveiled plans to launch the North
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American Premier League (NAPL), yet another T20 competition that was supposed to feature
many of the world’s stars (Cricinfo Staff 2009c). During the NAPL’s formative stages, Mir
even managed to recruit the iconic Sir Richard Hadlee, undisputedly New Zealand’s greatest
cricketer, to serve as an executive consultant (Donaldson 2009; Cricinfo Staff 2009b). The
matches were scheduled to take place at a baseball diamond in Staten Island but again without
ICC approval, the league quickly vanished into obscurity. Next came a proposal to launch the
North American Cricket League (NACL). This time, the organizers sought a commercial
arrangement with USACA in a bid to ensure the success of their venture. Agreements were
reached but funding problems scuppered any plans before the league even got off the ground
(Aaron 2013; Dainty 2013). The NACL has since filed a breach of contract and fraud lawsuit
against USACA and the case is ongoing. According to ESPNCricinfo, USACA has already
spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal bills (Cricinfo Staff 2010f), although Dainty
(2013) wouldn’t confirm the exact figure. “That is a legal battle that is still going on, and I’m
not going to comment about the specifics,” Dainty said. “But what I will say is that in my
opinion, USACA has always acted fairly with its partners. We’ve always been patient because
developing the sport in a country like this is not an easy thing.... Quite frequently people
underestimate the magnitude of the task. There’s a lot of overreaching.... I am confident that
once the court looks at the facts, this is going to be settled.”
Clearly, the path to El Dorado is not an easy one to tread. But there’s a belief that with
the right approach, cricket can — and will — win over the hearts of Americans (Vaughan
2013). And it was with that in mind that NZC officials decided back in 2009 to make an
audacious bid to launch the professional game, more than 6,000 miles from home. The
unlikely partnership came at a time when Justin Vaughan, the former chief executive of NZC,
10
was searching for ways to increase the sport’s revenues in New Zealand (Vaughan 2013).
Nearly 80 percent of NZC’s income comes from the sale of its television rights both within
New Zealand and abroad. But the emergence in recent years of private cricket leagues in
countries like India and Australia has saturated the global market, forcing the price cricket-
playing nations like New Zealand can command for its television rights down (Mills 2012;
Vaughan 2013; White 2013). The opportunity to enter a foreign market, Vaughan believed at
the time, was a way to reduce his organization’s dependency on a dwindling — but major —
source of revenue. In the United States at the same time as Vaughan was casting his eye
overseas, former USACA boss Don Lockerbie had begun calling for ideas from the cricket
world on how to grow the professional game in his backyard (Aaron 2013). Vaughan (2013)
recalls seeing the request one day on USACA’s website and felt instantly as if the creation of
a league in America would be a perfect fit for NZC, not to mention a good way to make
money. NZC submitted its proposal and a partnership was soon formed.
With a common goal but limited financial resources, NZC and USACA needed help
funding their vision (Vaughan 2013). Maxwell (2012), who had previously worked in NZC’s
marketing department but was now based in Sydney, came on board and reached out to the
well connected Podar to find a wealthy Indian investor prepared to bankroll the whole
shebang. With privately owned businesses in sectors ranging from consulting, mining, media,
finance, and information technology, success came sooner than either party had expected.
“The opportunity came to us through an advisory opportunity for some investors,” Podar
(2013) said. “But when we were looking at it, we felt it was a great market so we jumped into
it and said, ‘Why don’t we invest in it ourselves?’ So that’s what we did.” While Podar is by
no means a household name, Cricket Holdings America is not his first cricket venture. Several
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years ago, his company partnered with Cricket Australia to launch a cricket education
program aimed at developing the skills of 9 to 14-year-old players in a number of different
countries (Podar 2013). Maxwell sits as a director on that company board and his client,
former Australian fast bowler Lee, is a brand ambassador. “We spent a lot of time with Rajiv
and checked him out in a lot of different ways,” Vaughan (2013) said. “He’s a very respected
business leader in India... He saw the opportunity in the United States and for a guy like
Rajiv, it’s not a big amount of dough that he’s put in. It’s several million dollars, but he does
pretty well out of his other businesses.” As the only investor to actually put money into the
venture, Podar, through two companies associated with him — the Singapore-based Top
Bloom Corporation Ltd and Podar Holdings International Pvt. Ltd — holds 40 percent of
CHALLC. Maxwell, who is working as the company’s CEO, holds close to 3.6 percent,
USACA 31 percent, while NZC has the remaining share (Aaron 2013; Della Penna 2012i;
Maxwell 2012; Podar 2013; Vaughan 2013). “We came in with our eyes and ears open and
knew that we were the only investors putting cash into this,” Podar (2013) said. “The different
partners have brought different things to the table. USACA brings the license (to play cricket
in the U.S.), New Zealand Cricket has some expert knowledge on how to govern cricket and
has a full ICC membership and Neil was the guy who put the deal together.”
With an investor on board, the blessing of the all-important ICC and the chance to
grow the sport of cricket in a new — and potentially very lucrative — market, the work began
(Vaughan 2013; Dainty 2013). While the plans for a professional league were some time
away, NZC’s first venture on American soil had actually come before CHALLC was
officially unveiled when New Zealand played Sri Lanka — one of the top cricketing nations
in the world — at America’s only purpose-built cricket facility in Lauderhill, Florida, in May
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2010 (Cricinfo Staff 2010a). The two-match series was drawn one-all but the poor quality of
the playing surface resulted in low scores and uninspired performances. With an average of
just 4,300 fans per match at a venue capable of holding 20,000 and little sponsorship revenue
from American companies, the series was not exactly the sort of splash NZC had been hoping
to make in the market (Della Penna 2012i). Although the exact figure has not been released,
sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the venture lost hundreds of thousands of
dollars — an amount which was covered by Podar’s initial investment in CHALLC (Aaron
2013; Vaughan 2013).
Last year, on their way through to a tour of the Caribbean, the New Zealand team
returned to Florida, this time playing host to the West Indies at the same venue. With a better
playing surface, higher scores and huge Caribbean-flavored crowds, the series, won by the
West Indies, was considered a resounding success (Della Penna 2012i; White 2013). All the
same, it was also a sign that New Zealand players were not going to draw the same sized
crowds as stars from the Caribbean islands and India. “The first Florida games were a
disaster,” Della Penna (2012i) said. “The New Zealand players are, in theory, supposed to be
the anchor players of this league. But the Indian expat is the prime target for this league in the
U.S. and the West Indian expat as well. The major difference between the Sri Lankan T20s
and the West Indies T20s in Florida in 2010 and 2012 respectively was the fact the West
Indies were playing. This had nothing to do with New Zealand participating. It was all about
who their opponent was. If the anchor players are not players who the target audience are
interested in seeing, it’s going to be very difficult for the league to be financially successful.”
Still, what the series against the West Indies did prove was that with the right playing
surface and teams made up of players expatriates could relate to, the game had a potential
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following in the U.S (Della Penna 2012i; Aaron 2013). Hot on the heels of that, CHALLC
officials began to fast-track preparations for the mooted T20 league. As recently as last
November, Maxwell (2012) was confident everything would be in place in time to stage the
inaugural games in the 2013 American summer. By January, his outlook had changed, and the
league announced it was postponing the games for an additional year (Williamson 2013).
Even now, more than 16 months before the expected inaugural season, there is much work to
be done. The initial six franchises were supposed to have been sold to private investors by
now and yet they remain up for grabs. ESPNCricinfo reports say the market is not as bullish
as CHALLC officials had hoped (Della Penna 2012f). But Podar (2013) is confident they will
not only be sold by the middle of this year but also for the desired $40 million price tag, an
amount payable over 10 years. “The plan is still the same. We want to sell six franchises in
year one, and we have not yet started the process for that,” Podar said. “There is a fair amount
of interest. And when I say fair amount, I mean that we’ve got about 25 people who have
written to us wanting to buy a franchise... But we are not yet there. We are not going to go
actively after them.” Podar’s bullishness aside, there are still significant challenges that stand
in the way of the proposed league. For one thing, venues suitable for hosting top-level cricket
remain scarce in America (White 2013), with Florida’s Central Broward Regional Park, built
at a cost of $70 million in 2007, the only ICC-approved facility in the country (Cricinfo Staff
2009d). Podar (2013) says CHALLC is writing incentives into the first six franchise
agreements to ensure “everyone makes a profit”. His logic is that if franchises make money,
the owners will reinvest their earnings into new infrastructure.
But having venues appropriate for cricket is not the only hurdle to overcome. There
are also concerns the league will not generate enough money to lure the world’s best
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cricketers to the respective teams (Della Penna 2012i; Klee 2013). Heath Mills (2012), head
of the New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association and a big supporter of NZC’s foray into the
U.S. market, says the top players stand to earn “six figures plus” for just two weeks’ work.
But with deals in excess of a million dollars being offered to players by domestic leagues in
other countries such as the rupee-spinning Indian Premier League (IPL), that might not be
enough. Aaron Klee (2013), manager of New Zealand star Jesse Ryder, who recently signed a
$260,000 deal with the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL, says while Kiwis are likely to feature
prominently in the league, ultimately whether they commit to playing will come down to
money. “If the U.S. concept doesn’t rate alongside the IPL, Australia’s Big Bash T20
competition and English county cricket in terms of the financial and playing standards, there
is a risk that the U.S. league will only attract the second and third tier players,” Klee said.
Della Penna (2012i), meanwhile, fears if New Zealand players are the main stars, the league is
going to struggle from the outset. “I don’t know too many Indian guys who live in New York,
New Jersey or Los Angeles who would pay $30 to go and watch Ross Taylor (New Zealand
batsman) play,” he said. “That’s not to say that Ross Taylor isn’t an exciting player. He’s a
fantastic player. But does he have the box office appeal in the States that, say, a Mohendra
Singh Dhoni, a Yuvraj Singh (Indian internationals) or a Chris Gayle (West Indies) has to
draw in the hardcore fan or even the curious fan? That’s what’s going to determine the
success of the league in the first couple of years. If they can’t get that then they are going to
be in trouble I think.”
Still, while the financial viability of the league could hinge on getting the best players
from the subcontinent and the West Indies on board, there’s no doubt any competition will be
better than nothing for players in the U.S. national team — a side ranked well outside the top
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10 in the world (Aaron 2013). The organizers have made it clear U.S. players will feature in
every team in the hope they will learn from the best in the business (Dainty 2013; Maxwell
2012). “If the league goes ahead it will be the best thing that’s ever happened for cricket in the
U.S.,” Thyagarajan (2013), arguably America’s top player, said. “I had very high expectations
for the league... I’ve heard now that it’s not going anywhere and it’s a big disappointment.”
One of Thyagarajan’s team-mates, Abhimanyu Rajp (2013), who also hails from India, shares
his sentiments. “It would the best learning experience to have as a cricketer,” he said. “What
more could you want than to play alongside the very best in the game and learn from them? It
would be tremendous and probably the best thing that could ever happen to a USA player.”
Supporters of CHALLC point to soccer and how the sport developed in the United
States as one of the strongest reasons why the proposed league should be successful (Mills
2012). In the 1970s after the legendary Brazilian player Pelé signed to play for New York
Cosmos in the North America Soccer League, the sport became increasingly popular with the
American fan-base. But by 1984, attendances had plummeted and the league disbanded. It
wasn’t then until FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, accepted the United States’ bid to
host the 1994 World Cup that the sport experienced a resurgence. As part of the bid process,
the United States Soccer Federation agreed to resurrect an outdoor league and in 1996, Major
League Soccer was born (Hopkins 2010). Today, the U.S. team is competitive on the world
stage, and some of the sport’s biggest stars like David Beckham and Thierry Henry have
played here. “We wouldn’t go down this path if we didn’t believe we could make it work,”
Maxwell (2012) said. “I think Twenty20 cricket can work over here... The way to enter the
market is not to try and grow the game organically. You have to come in with a splash. FIFA
did it with a World Cup. That’s how they tackled the U.S. market. I thought what they did
16
was fantastic.” Mills (2012) agrees and says that if an American T20 league can increase the
sport’s profile in this country, all of world cricket’s nations, some of whom have been vocal
detractors of the proposed expansion (Della Penna and Hopps 2012; Vaughan 2013), will
benefit in the future when it comes to selling their television rights into a United States market
crying out for more content. “There’s one other point that’s really lost on everyone and it’s
the football (soccer) model,” Mills (2012) said. “When FIFA decided to put an event in the
States and help set up the MLS, it resulted in huge benefits for game globally. The States is
massive for world markets. This will have an impact on all cricket events around the world
because the U.S. broadcasters will pay more broadcast fees for them. It’s in everyone’s
interest in the cricket world for cricket in the States to grow. It’s just sensational that New
Zealand Cricket is at the forefront of that and has a shareholding in it.”
Whether cricket can follow in soccer’s well documented footsteps remains to be seen.
The sport is undoubtedly more complex than soccer and needs to be played on specially
prepared surfaces (Della Penna 2012i). But officials from the ICC believe it can be done and
say this market is too big to ignore any longer (Anderson 2013). They also highlight how the
product of cricket has changed in recent years with the introduction of T20. “Historically, the
fact that we’ve had five-day test cricket and, to lesser extent, one-day cricket, which is still
seven or eight hours long, I don’t think that resonates well with the U.S. sports market,” Tim
Anderson, global development manager for the ICC, said. “However, now that we’ve got
Twenty20 as a fast-paced, three-hour product, it will probably resonate a lot more closely to a
U.S. sport. That’s a great start.”
The importance of television on the potential success or otherwise of any cricket
venture in the U.S. shouldn’t be understated either (Maxwell 2012). ESPN, the market
17
heavyweight, has signed two deals in the last two years to screen cricket on its online
platform, ESPN3, until the end of 2015 (Myers 2013). In the past, the network has also
broadcast the Caribbean regional T20 tournament and Bangladesh’s recent home
internationals against India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Sources say last year’s World T20
Championships rated higher than expected and there also appears to be an appetite amongst
the network’s key officials to bid for the rights to CHALLC’s proposed league. “The cricket
fan-base in America was very enthusiastic about the fact that cricket coverage was available
for no incremental fee,” Todd Myers, director of programming and acquisitions at ESPN, said
of last year’s coverage. “We had the opportunity to tap into that passionate fan-base and it
was well received.”
A potential television deal would undoubtedly be a boon for CHALLC, and soccer has
proven that even non-traditional American sports can cut it to at least a certain extent in the
United States (Hopkins 2010). But cricket is a different, more complicated product, and there
are no guarantees, even if significant investment is made, that CHALLC will become a viable
business (Della Penna 2012i). Current NZC chief executive David White (2013), who
inherited the project when he took over from Vaughan in late 2011, is at pains to point out
that the road ahead will be difficult. “It’s a very brave project, and I think it is a lot bigger
than people actually realized,” White said. “There have been a number of challenges. The big
challenge is that there is no infrastructure for cricket in terms of the professional game in the
States. That provides a massive challenge.” Vaughan (2013), though, who now works for a
private health insurance company in Auckland, remains convinced in spite of recent
developments that his decision to enter the American market was the right one. “It definitely
can work,” he said. “Sachin Tendulkar (the most famous Indian cricketer) is about to retire,
18
and his brand is enormous throughout the cricketing world. Imagine what it could do for
cricket in the United States if Sachin came and was like the Pelé of MLS in the United
States.... We always believed that cricket could follow in the footsteps of how the MLS was
developed and how soccer became an accepted sport in the United States… There’s even
more of a reason to believe that cricket can do it because of its significant expat Pakistani and
Indian population there. It can definitely work. It just needs someone with a bit of belief, it
needs some money and it will take a decade probably to get fully up and running before the
sport’s really being driven in the United States.”
With the ICC also desperate to see the sport prosper in the United States (Anderson
2012), it would appear that cricket in America has never been in a better position to grow.
Anderson, whose role at the ICC is to oversee associate nations like the United States, also
believes the numbers don’t lie. “There is no other emerging cricket market that has more
interest in the game than there is in North America. That includes Canada as well as the U.S.
where there’s a significant interest in cricket as well,” he said. “In terms of markets where we
think significant progress can be made, the U.S. is the focus... With a foundation of around
about 15 million cricket fans already in the States, and such drive and passion to make the
game bigger and better, I’ve got no doubt that it’s possible. If we didn’t think it was possible
we probably wouldn’t be working as hard as we are to try and make it happen. I don’t expect
change overnight but over the next five or 10 years, there’s every chance that cricket is going
to be a much bigger and more important sport in the U.S. than what it is today.”
But questions remain about whether the sport of cricket will ever resonate with
everyday Americans and not just those who have moved here in search of fresh opportunities
from far-flung shores. John Aaron (2013), a long-serving cricket administrator in the United
19
States and former USACA executive secretary, believes that if marketed the right way there’s
no reason why it won’t work. There are challenges, many in fact. But, he argues, they are not
insurmountable. “The American culture is a sporting culture. If you can climb a greasy pole
with a greasy pig under your arm, that becomes a sport, instantly,” Aaron said. “Twenty20
cricket would be perfect for here. You’ve got dancers, you’ve got drums beating between
sixes and people screaming at the big hits. What’s not to like about that? Will it transcend
beyond that to the point where those people like the sport enough to want to take their kids on
a Saturday morning for Pee Wee cricket? It remains to be seen but at least they’ll be offering
it and the potential is there.”
For now, the league is expected to be launched in the American summer of 2014
(Maxwell 2013; Podar 2013; White 2013). On the back of the success of the West Indies
fixtures in Florida last year, there are also plans for some exhibition games at American
venues in 2013. White (2013) says New Zealand’s schedule is already booked out for 2013,
suggesting that any fixtures will feature players from other overseas teams. “We are trying to
form a league in a new territory. We’ve got some real challenges and we want to make sure
we get what we are doing right,” Podar (2013) said. “We don’t want to rush into something
and come up with a product that’s not really up to a high standard.... What we’ve decided to
do is have three or four different international games in America this year and then announce
the league and come out with a bang in 2014. We want to get the product correct.” Officials
also insist they won’t compromise on quality (Dainty 2013). They’d rather do it right than
rush into something that fails to win fans over. “It’s not a case where we can’t put a league
together. It’s a case where we want to put a quality league together,” Dainty said. “We’d
rather be late and better than early and inferior.”
20
If the league even goes ahead, it’s still a gamble as to whether it will be successful. At
$40 million a franchise, with limited facilities available to play on and no guarantee that
crowds will flock to see cricket matches on artificial surfaces, it could be a struggle to get
investors to commit their capital alongside Podar (Della Penna 2012i). Still, if it was easy, in
the words of Vaughan (2013), someone else would have succeeded by now. “Will we have
100,000 fans at every game? No. Is this going to be as big as the Super Bowl? No. But will
there be 5,000 people or 10,000 in the stands? Yeah,” said Thyagarajan (2013). “Will they
show a clip or two on ESPN’s Sportscenter? Yes. You have to start somewhere, right?”
You have to start at all.
21
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22
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23
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24
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25
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract In late 2010, a press conference was held in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles to announce a groundbreaking and unlikely partnership between New Zealand Cricket and the United States of America Cricket Association. At the time, officials outlined their audacious plans to join forces and launch a professional Twenty20 cricket league in the United States by the American summer of 2013. According to research, there are more than 15 million cricket fans in North America, many of them expatriates from the West Indies, the Asian subcontinent and England, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. This venture was aimed at catering not only to them but also the casual American sports fan. But in early 2013, Neil Maxwell, the chief executive of the cricket partnership, revealed his organization would be postponing its proposed league until the middle of 2014 after a number of major setbacks. This thesis explores the proposed venture through first-person interviews with many different stakeholders, both in the United States, New Zealand, Dubai and India. It also attempts to depict the current state of cricket in the United States and highlights the challenges confronting those who hope to introduce everyday Americans to what to continues to remain a very foreign sport. This story will be published across two consecutive weekend additions of the Sunday Star-Times in New Zealand in mid-2013.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Lawton, Aaron (author)

Core Title American dreaming: the audacious bid to bring pro cricket to the USA

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism

Publication Date 04/15/2013

Defense Date 05/01/2013

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag CHALLC,Cricket,New Zealand Cricket,OAI-PMH Harvest,T20,Twenty20

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Abrahamson, Alan Y. (committee chair), Durbin, Daniel T. (committee member), Parks, Michael (committee member)

Creator Email aaronlawton85@gmail.com,alawton@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-235845

Unique identifier UC11292730

Identifier etd-LawtonAaro-1549.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-235845 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-LawtonAaro-1549.pdf

Dmrecord 235845

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Lawton, Aaron

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA