Espn Article: Would Twenty20 Format Play In U.s.?

[Bariaga]

Cross-posted from BigSoccer's cricket section ..

Interesting article on the front page of ESPN.com. The new CEO of Cricket Holdings America is saying all the right things (or the things I wanted to hear anyway ).

"One of the key stats for me is that 15 years ago, FIFA were making $50 million in broadcast revenues in [the U.S.] market in one cycle," Maxwell said. "Now they're making half a billion. They've invested time and effort in this market and all football countries around the world benefit from that. We're looking at that from a cricket perspective. We want all full-member countries and all associate countries to benefit from the growth of cricket in this country."

...

"I think you've got to put this into perspective," Maxwell said. "It's a monumental task that we're taking on. It's hugely exciting. The general feeling that we have is that there's so much support for this to occur. We've had to change the opinions of a few people, whether it be the ICC or others, but the one thing that everyone agrees on is that there's huge potential and someone's got to unleash that potential in time."

http://sports.espn.go.com/extra/cricket/news/story?id=8456148

The only thing that makes me worry is that they will play mostly in baseball stadiums. I guess they couldn't find investor groups with deep enough pocket or committed enough to build cricket-specific facilities. Or maybe they just wanted to get it off the ground first without any more delay (the project is already a year late) and have a better long-term plan than that. We'll see.

 

[Bariaga]

bigsoccer post about maxwell interview

I've read a lot of articles over the last 12 months about this upcoming T20 league but some were confusing with different writers interpreting the words of the top officials differently. A quote on a topic sounded one way one day and different the next in a different article. So it was refreshing to finally see a live interview of the CEO of CHA by a notable business media company like the Bloomberg.

Here are the plans and expectations, straight from the horses mouth:
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/holl...ll-cricket-in-u-s-62ovEscQTCay4aBROwdKtA.html (video duration: 13:41)

And the full article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-help-to-sell-cricket-franchises-in-u-s-.html

Key points from the interview (for those not being able to watch the video or read the article):

- Six-team tournament based competition will be held in just one city, New York, in the first year. Lack of proper facilities was a big problem I'm guessing. In year two, 6-8 teams will play in their own markets in a proper league set-up. Unless I misunderstood they plan to move into 8-20,000 seat temporary stadiums in those cities. One such stadium is at the planning stage somewhere in New York. They are studying 3 sites.

- Teams will consist of mostly international players but the main goal is to raise the skill level of the Americans playing cricket. I guess they do want the US national team to become competitive in world cricket. So over time they plan to include more and more American cricketers to the teams.

- They expect the franchises to sell for $40 million each (yeah .. good luck with that) to be paid over 10 years. Why the steep price? MLS sold its 19th franchise for $40 mil after being in existence for 15 years, and this cricket league wants that kind of money by the 10th year for a league that will have less than 80 games?

- Salary budget will be about $1 mil per team. Each team can have 1-2 stars whose salary would have no ceiling (like the Designated Players in MLS).

- The business model is to be based on mostly TV revenues (national and especially international). I expected this to be the case, as cricket won't likely have much success at the gate (because the action takes place far away from the stand which would be a big hurdle to overcome in a developing market like the US). It's very risky though. I'd prefer they scaled back the operation enough to be able to survive in case the TV revenue goal isn't met. I'm not asking for a semi-pro level league like the rogue American Premier League of 2004 was but $1-2 mil starting payroll seems like asking for trouble.

I did like Neil Maxwell's ending quote about soccer going from a broadcast revenue of $20 mil in the US to $1.5 billion in under two decades. (If cricket can get 1/4th of that someday it will be golden.) "A journey starts with a first step and we're about to take it".

 

[Ljp86]

T20 is the format to introduce the USA to cricket. It's fast, action packed and only takes three hours which is less than a baseball game.

What sort of players are going to play in this tournament though? Are they going to be fully-fledged internationals or domestic players from around the world? I imagine it would hard to integrate American players alongside well-known internationals as their skill set would be a lot lower.

It's a good start nonetheless though.

 

[Bariaga]

bigsoccer post about maxwell interview

Oops. That's the title of file I've saved on a notepad..forgot to remove it after copy/pasting here.

What sort of players are going to play in this tournament though? Are they going to be fully-fledged internationals or domestic players from around the world? I imagine it would hard to integrate American players alongside well-known internationals as their skill set would be a lot lower.

From an article on DreamCricket,

According to the Bloomberg article, the T20 league will have a salary cap of $1 million in the first year.
According to unconfirmed reports, each team will have 2 marquee players, 4 top tier players, 6 to 7 tier two players and two US developmental players.

http://www.dreamcricket.com/dreamcricket/news.hspl?nid=16751&ntid=4

My guess would be .. two Chris Gayle type players (top, expensive stars), 4 Thisara Perera's (middle of the order types from the top 8 test nations and perhaps top players like Tamim and Ervine from the other 2 test nations), 6-7 top non-starters from the top test nations, regular starters from Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and the best few from all the affiliates like Ireland, Afghanistan, and Netherlands per team. The 2 'development players' would be from the main US squad I'd guess. I wouldn't complain with a line-up like that. I'd attend every game if the tickets aren't too costly (under $30).