Cricket in America

[MLSfan22]

MLS is geh, only Mexicans follows it :

If you're gonna insult at least learn the facts first. Otherwise you sound retarded (nijeder bangalikey eta bolar jonno dukkhito), at least the way you worded it. Vast majority (70%) of the MLS fans are Americans. Mexicans by and large ignore it and follow their own leagues from back home. If all soccer fans living in the US were united and followed this league it would be more popular than the NHL. And, they'd have their dream league with many stars right here in their backyard instead of having to musterbate to the European leagues on TV. But they'e either too dumb to realize it or just impatient.

MLSfan22 added 11 Minutes and 58 Seconds later...

But didn't you know Beckham was going to take football to the yanks and they would adopt it as their sport and him as their saviour.....................?

If you think one person would completely change the soccer landscape in America (without even playing much due to injury) and that anyone in the MLS circle actually believed that, you've just been caught with the googly the typical soccer bashing media threw at you. Only they 'expected' that much so that when it doesn't happen they can say Beckham and soccer has been a failure and you're too dumb to fall for it.

He was brought in to give the league small lift in some areas (sponsorship, investor recruitment, player acquisition, jersey sales etc) and he has achived pretty much all of that without even playing a lot. The league has gone from 13 teams (before Beckham signing) to 19 in just 3 years at 3 times the expansion fee. Beckham has at least some hand in it.

 

[pcfan123]

Feel free to make a Soccer in America thread so the rest of us don't have to read this dribble. Thread is off-topic enough as it is.

 

[MLSfan22]

Lets build the game here!

I have a message for ICC:

I hear you're interested in making the game more global? Really? That's about time! For a long time I thought you really wanted to keep the game a secret, at least in the United States it looked that way. If you want to make cricket more popular here, first thing you should do is give the game away to free/cable TV networks, even if it costs you $50,000 or whatever you get from closed circuit/pay-per-view networks. I've been very angry at you for being so short sighted for so long with every world cup being on pay-per-view channels with an expensive subscription model that ensures no one except the most hardcore fans will ever hear about it. This is a great game, at least the short twenty20 version of it, with so much potential in the US, and I'm disappointed that neither ICC nor any group of wealthy people made any significant investment in it (ICC investment has to come first of course).

Cricket has many of the aspects Americans love in a sport. They are in love with statistics and cricket provides more meaningful stats than just about any sport on earth. Americans also love any aspect of a sport that makes the players look more 'manly'. With every baseball players wearing gloves, cricketers would look much tougher catching those hard balls bare-handed. There are also more running and a lot more diving catches and exciting plays in cricket than in baseball. They would also like the fact that there's more scoring and more ways to score and get the batsmen out in cricket than in baseball and the fact that you can hit the ball in any direction (in baseball if you hit a ball behind the keeper it's a foul ball and doesn't count and there are dozens of those per game which are basically waste of time).

Some soccer tournaments (Euro cup, champions league etc) get decent to great ratings in America but they don't get much money from TV because of lack of commercial breaks. Cricket on the other hand has mini-breaks between overs that you can squeeze in a 30 second ad and some timeouts where you can air more ads which American TV networks would love.

I could go on and on but I have no doubt the average American sports fans would fall in love with this game if they were actually able to find a cricket game on TV. Maybe the first few games they wouldn't bother but many of them would become curious and learn about it.

Anecdotal evidence: on ESPN website's Streak4Cash game (a daily contest of several sports that hundreds of thousands participate in) they had 5-6 IPL props for people to pick and win this year. While following those IPL games on illegal internet feeds (yes, this contest is known to make people watch just about anything, even French 2nd division soccer), a lot of Americans had questions and some of us did our part to educate them. Many came away intrigued and impressed and are now calling for more cricket props there. If following it on a small-screen, horrible internet feed where you can barely read the stats can still make people interested in this sport imagine how much better it would do if it was on real TV sometimes.

We have hundreds of TV channels, including a dozen plus sports channels showing just about any sport on earth, even bowling, poker, fishing etc but cricket is nowhere to be found, thanks to the people in charge of international cricket. In this day and age there's no excuse for keeping the game hidden anymore.

If FIFA can make $425 mil from the US every 8 years, with a decade of small investments the ICC can make at least 1/4th of that. That's a huge difference from the measly $50,000 they now make per tournament from the US pay-per-view companies. Come on ICC, have a vision and get really serious about spreading the game here!

 

[pcfan123]

I like your general idea except for the IPL. I can't stand that tacky Bollywood element to it and it will turn off many other Americans as well.

 

[McLOVIN]

At least my post woke up a MLS fan.

3 years, 5 posts. :laugh

 

[MLSfan22]

I like your general idea except for the IPL. I can't stand that tacky Bollywood element to it and it will turn off many other Americans as well.

Well, showing IPL games here is not my idea. I said ESPN included some of the IPL props in their sports-pick contest and even those were enough to spark interest in a lot of the contest participants. I would prefer ICC start with showing tournaments like the World Twenty20 and some exhibition games between countries on Cable TV. With more than a dozen sports channels in America some are always looking for new/different contents, especially those that don't cost them a rights fee. ICC would easily be able to find a deal with one or two of these networks if they really want to.

MLSfan22 added 5 Minutes and 48 Seconds later...

At least my post woke up a MLS fan.

3 years, 5 posts. :laugh

Hehe .. don't flatter yourself, my friend. The World Twenty20 and my frustration of not being able to find it on any of the 350 channels I have is what brought me back to this forum (exhibit: the long 'get serious, ICC' post above), nothing else.

 

[Cricketman]

Youtube worked. A lot of my friends told me they caught the IPL final on it and watched it, and liked it. That is positive signs. Imagine if it was aired on TV!!

- We need to have some exhibition games here. Get a bunch of WIndians - Gayle, Bravo, Pollard, will be HUGE hits. Australians like Warner, TAIT, Johnson, Nannes too will fly well with Americans. Indian big batters like Dhoni I think would be immensely popular.

- We need to market it well. From what I have heard the media coverage for the upcoming NZSL tour is like, nonexistent. We need to advertise on TV, Internet, get the word out. We need high profile interviews, American commentators need to get involved so we don't get boring dudes with heavy Brit/Indian/Aussie accents to get involved so there isnt' as much of a cultural gap. Shastri, Danny Morrison, guys like that who are active and entertaining while calling can be good picks to lead.

- The cricket boards have the money. Someone needs to take the initiative, this is important for the future of the game. Personally, i feel the Champions League can do it best - Domestic teams from all over the world have some of the most exciting players under the sun, and the richest boards cricket has ever seen. Imagine the BCCI, CA, RSA, etc putting their heads together to organize an event in America. These guys are the best hosts in the game of cricket, South Africa has organized the best tournaments, Australian tours are always entertaining, and BCCI has done its fair bit in the cricketing scene too.

I was actually kind of sad that Allan Stanford got busted. He was giving quite a boost to WI and American cricket in general. We were getting cricket for FREE on TV (the stanford T20) and it was awesome. Black bats, daynight games, exciting, players - fast bowlers, big hitters, great atmosphere, everything.

They need to fork over the money to get anything happening. I just think the boards are just too...conservative (poor word choice) to get anything happening here.

 

[pcfan123]

Well if you know the history of USACA, you know things are on an upswing. It started out as the most crony filled organization but now thanks mostly to Lockerbie we are hosting an International series for the first time in over 100 years. We got ICC associate status a few years ago and have a beautiful and ICC approved limited overs venue

Things are definitely improving, our boys were also only 1 win away from qualifying for the World Twenty20

 

[Cricketman]

Afghanistan!

Time to send 30,000 more troops :laugh

 

[Params7]

I would prefer ICC start with showing tournaments like the World Twenty20 and some exhibition games between countries on Cable TV.

Only ESPN is the one that can bid ICC rights away from DirectTV (DTV shows all ICC cricket on PPV, DishTV did the same before, and DirectTV holds all exclusive ICC rights until end of next year).

Well guess what, it was Lalit Modi that convinced ESPN South Asia to start broadcasting cricket in 1996. We need somebody like him to do that again with ESPN USA, there's the proof for presence of demand for cricket because USA clocked in 2nd behind India on youtube.com/ipl

As much as I hate to say, with Lalit Modi also goes down great chances for cricket to happen fast in USA. However unrealistic it may seem what drove him the most was to one day compete directly against NFL and NBA. Given time I'm confident he would have at least opened up cricket on TV for Americans. Youtube was driven by Modi and they had to struggle with DirectTV/Willow to be able to stream at least the semis+finals.

 

[pcfan123]

WTF , how can you guys just ignore the fact that we are hosting an International series! That is the proper way to introduce cricket here, with that will come TV rights

 

[Params7]

And nationwide broadcast of ICC-level cricket on TV isn't proper? I think it would be better if locals actually know who Mccullum is and they'd probably understand the game better with commentary and stats on TV first too. When they haven't seen the game, don't know the players, would they even show up in the stadium? And if cable doesn't air it this year, why would it air next year?

Hopefully I'm wrong somewhere and NZ-SL tour generates enough buzz among the non-cricket watching locals but I'm just saying if somebody could get ESPN to air World Cup 2011 then cricket would have officially arrived in the U.S., like for real.

 

[sohum]

I'm interested to know how long the DirectTV/DishTV contracts last. It would benefit everyone except the ICC if that oligopoly was broken up. Right now these guys automatically get the rights for all cricket matches in North America (except for a few tours here and there such as those hosted by Bangladesh). Their packages are way overpriced and their content delivery method is archaic and SD.

We could really benefit from opening that market up a bit.

 

[McLOVIN]

And nationwide broadcast of ICC-level cricket on TV isn't proper? I think it would be better if locals actually know who Mccullum is and they'd probably understand the game better with commentary and stats on TV first too. When they haven't seen the game, don't know the players, would they even show up in the stadium? And if cable doesn't air it this year, why would it air next year?

Thats true. They should be making TV adds, showing clips and interviews of the players. behind the scenes and stuff.

If they cant organize it properly, this will be yet another fail attempt to bring cricket in the US. It will just stay among the cricket locals

 

[McLOVIN]

YouTube - Sportscenter Top 10 Plays 5/1/10

YouTube - Cricket on ESPN SportsCenter

Lol. I'd make SC every week

MacLovin added 1 Minutes and 38 Seconds later...

Cricket makes to Sports center once in a while. You guys wanna start postin em here?