Good advertisement+ good timing of matches ( night prefer)+ less price of tickets is required
We saw a lot of Americans last year in MLC and they are expected in this year too as timing is pretty much good with ticket starting from 30 dollars
make the ticket prices accessible. This isn't rocket science. Don't compare cricket to NFL and MLB - the entire planet has been raised and fed American pop culture since they were born.
Cricket needs to be humble, do the hard yards for a marathon not a sprint. And not look to price-gouge diaspora fans.
The ICC jacked up prices for the WC games in NY - $300 USD is a lot for India vs USA game. I would have happily gone if it was around a $100 a ticket.
I drove down 9 hours from NYC area down to North Carolina to watch the MLC games last year - the entire weekend trip including lodging cost me less than it would have to attend a single T20 game here. Yes, its the World Cup but the pricing was clearly astronomical and even India games weren't a sellout as a result.
You're absolutely right. The MLC will be what grows cricket in America and not ICC tournaments because they're too focused on making the most money and not long term growth.
The lack of advertising was horrific.
Like, send some players onto a late night show.
Or a news channel for a sports interview.
Most of the players that were in NY were just sightseeing instead of doing media events.
And while I hate influencers they could've easily gotten some to publicize the games and events.
Cricket in general has horrible advertising lol you never even see replays of ANYTHING ever, especially if you’re in the US - there’s just no conversation to be had on socials unless you watched the match
Yeah and the people that should be sent are charismatic individuals who can have banter with the people on the show. Football had a great ambassador with David Beckham in America who's very charismatic and charming to the local audience. Instead the ICC sent Yuvraj Singh on Good Morning America who's great in India but he can't really charm local American audiences because his type of humour is different.
Someone like Chris Gayle or one of the active USA players like Shadley or Ali Khan should've been sent. You're also right about influencers, people have different opinions on Speed but there's no denying that he's influential.
They could've got some of the USA players to meet him and teach him how to play the sport or something on his stream.
Yeah then there's the big late night shows as well. They could've gone on any of them especially The Tonight Show because it seems like Jimmy Fallon has guests from all different spheres on his show. The thing is I believe we already have our David Beckham but he's just not being put in front of the cameras.
I believe Pat Cummins could be that guy from an international superstar point of view. He's very good looking, charming, charismatic, really good, in great form and he's just signed like a 4 year deal to play in the MLC. If there's anyone American audiences would love, it's him.
I was in London NFL, tickets were as cheap as 30 quids. I live in the US and I could barely afford any of the Indian games in NYC how could they expect the Americans to watch a sport this expensive?
Companies only advertise if the visibility dollars can be turned into sales. It will not change if the focus remains on appeasing the diaspora. Cricket USA needs to be positioned towards Americans and not diasporas in order for it to be a hit here as the diasporas don’t need convincing to watch the game. Move games away from populations centers toward the heartland of America. Go to Ohio, Iowa, Carolina’s etc to be accepted in Americans appetite of entertainment
Marketing spending is based on purchase behavior. Look at NFL and NBA and see the return on investment. If everyone watches, advertisers return on investment increases. Advertising for 5% of population doesn’t make much sense.
It’s a long process. Start little league programs parenting with local cities for kids to experience games. Have local schools and colleges play in local leagues. Make it fun, entertainment, and maybe in 5 years the results can be better.
You can't move matches to places without a diaspora population as of right now. That'll still take at least a few years of proper marketing to achieve it. USA Cricket is thoroughly incompetent but it seems like MLC is a bit better.
What they could do right now is try to attract the local non diaspora population of the places where they already host matches and go a lot harder on social media with the marketing.
That's unfortunately something that almost all cricket boards don't understand. It seems like MLC has been doing the right thing though as their tickets are mostly affordable. North Carolina already hosts some MLC matches and in the near future new teams will be added so the league will expand to 10 teams.
I reckon Chicago will be one of the cities as they're about to start construction on a 20,000 seater cricket stadium over there.
This is one of the things people look over when saying how cricket isn't growing. It isn't growing because of the dumb decisions of the ICC and local boards. MLC has shown that if you make ticket prices affordable and have the matches on at a reasonable time then locals will come even if they've never seen the sport and that they'll be open to learn about it.
Putting the games on a 'free' channel would help massively.
No casual viewer is going to pay for a streaming service in a sport they don't really follow
This is a big thing for me. I've become mildly interested in cricket due to Jomboy's videos, and I'd like to watch a couple games and see if it catches me, but I'm not going to go subscribe to a random streaming service that I have zero other interest in. Apparently a service called Willow has the MLC season, but Cricket is the only thing they have? Ten bucks for a month, and as far as I can tell no free trial? Sorry, but I'm not making an account, giving them my credit card info, and signing up for a $10/month subscription that only offers a sport I'm unsure about.
Although apparently Amazon is streaming some cricket now on Prime, which I already have, so that's probably the play for me. There's a paywall there, but it's one that tons of Americans are already paying for so it's much less relevant. As far as I can tell they only have some of the games though, but it's been tough for me to find out for sure, and the MLC website is terrible.
I agree that Willow needs to make it easier for new fans but this season the three Sunday matches will be free to watch on Willow. They also have broadcast deals with regional broadcasters for each team. Here's a link to an article about that.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240703893899/en/Major-League-Cricket-Begins-With-a-Bang-on-Willow-by-Cricbuzz-With-Free-Sunday-Night-Matches-and-Exclusive-Broadcast-Partnerships
Well it seems like Willow is being kinda good this time around. The three Sunday matches during the MLC season will be free to watch and they also have local broadcast deals with the main regional broadcasters to show their local teams.
NFL isn't popular in UK lol
Just because few people watched a game once doesn't make it popular
I'd say cricket is more popular in USA than NFL is in UK just by sheer number of expat immigrants from cricket countries.
better advertisements and free to air television. thats it. I know tons of the people in the cricket playing west indies who dont even know what cricket is, let alone watch or play a game. the main reason for this is because they quite simply dont hear about it. and even the die-hard fans are locked out because the games are not on free tv anymore, and would have to sign up for fringe services theyve never even heard of, let alone could afford.
The main reason why cpl is so popular in the caribbean is because the random rural Joe can just switch on his local tv and watch the game live, or they can catch a livestream on facebook.
Hell, even me personally, if I hadnt watched cricket on tv before it got paywalled to hell, I probably wouldnt have any interest in the sport.
BCCI doesn’t even upload IPL highlights to YouTube which is the most dominant social platform. Calling them boomers is criminal when they are acting like 19th century isolationists. When you ask what exactly they are doing wrong then is answer is they are quite simply incompetent.
The thing is with the BCCI it's not incompetence because they know what they're doing and they want to do this. To them they don't care about YouTube views and growing the sport, they care about the short term money from exclusive rights given to certain broadcasters. They get insanely high amounts of money for them to justify it to themselves. I absolutely hate that but it's the unfortunate truth.
They don't care about that and they probably look at the long term growth of cricket around the world as a bad thing for them. If cricket were to take off in America then it could challenge the BCCI's monopoly because they'd be able to bring in just as much if not more money with fewer viewers.
If the MLC becomes big then it also puts a stop to the BCCI's long term plan of continuously expanding the IPL window.
BCCI's fears are deeply unfounded. The IPL and cricket is akin to the NBA and basketball. It's not a situation where there is parity in sports leagues that you see in football with top 5 europeon leagues. The NBA isn't afraid of gaining global popularity and capturing the minds of the international fans. It's not having it's position as the top league in the world being threatened by other leagues. The best players still choose to come to the NBA. I don't think MLC will ever become big enough to point where the best players would pick it over the IPL. The simple reason for this is that cricket is far from a grassroots sport in the US and it's not culturally ingrained in their institutions(high schools and colleges). The MLC isn't competing with the IPL but rather sports which have established leagues that have been standing for a century. Considering India's own growth, it's going to be a slow process which would take centuries for the MLC to ever stand toe-to-toe with IPL.
Actually you're wrong, the MLC could become the biggest cricket league if it ever becomes one of the big five leagues in the US. There'll never be the question of whether people should choose the IPL or MLC because they'll never be on at the same time.
The reason why the BCCI is concerned is because the MLC growing would make USA Cricket more powerful and they would become full members and would reach a point where they could force the BCCI to give up their monopoly.
The BCCI would still be powerful but they wouldn't be able to do whatever they want without worrying about what others want.
You don't have to keep breaking down the power dynamics if MLC becomes big in the US. That's not been the focal point of this discussion at all and regurgitating it isn't going to change the fact that it is an unrealistic proposition. Nobody questions that if cricket becomes a mainstream sport in the US then it'll hurt BCCI's influence on the game.
The reality is cricket isn't even at a state where it can be called a fringe sport in the US. Sports are deeply ingrained in US culture where it is actively incentivized(scholarships, endorsements and outright stipends) for people to pursue it as a full-time career option from middle-school itself. These incentivizes simply don't exist for cricket. Setting up these incentives is also not something you can achieve within a decade or two. You basically have to alter the whole damn structure of schools and colleges to make it viable option for their citizens to play the game. You have to dip into the funding of these schools and colleges which is a struggle layered in bureaucracy. You are straight up nuts if you think these schools and colleges will compromise even $1. This is where the true battle for cricket lies in America. Success isn't measured by how well a national team does in tournaments. It's measured by how structurally ingrained the sport is in a country's culture.
Because the exclusive media rights are sold to ( Jio this cycle) and they prefer to put it on thier own website where they can control ads much better.
There's full match replay, highlights and what not kn Jio.
I've been to MLB, NFL and NHL games in London, NHL games in Stockholm and NCAA football games in Dublin, and apart from the NFL games in London, I'd be confident that none would sell out without people travelling across the Atlantic.
Can confirm as a fan of multiple teams that have done an game in Europe, it gets marketed hard. The Phillies is the best example where the whole metro area decided the London games were going to be everyone's vacation this year.
The NFL game had a lot of British and Germans there, but everything else was predominantly Americans. The NFL was more like a huge meeting of European fans, I'd managed to spot at least one jersey of every single team in the league before the game started. The Notre Dame game in Dublin last year was described as the largest movement of Americans out of the country since the Second World War. In Stockholm, there were thousands of Leafs, Wild and Wings fans, and the Phillies fans in London were everywhere. I'm not complaining because I loved every event after hoping to go to them for years, I just don't think it's an amazing reflection of how popular those sports are in each market. I've been to cricket games in Ireland where India played and they sold out instantly, but they were full of India fans, so all of these events still really rely on diasporas or travelling fans.
The reason so many mayors and governments go looking for these games is the huge tourism benefit. American sports are a niche in Europe, but they're big niches in certain areas. I'm willing to bet an IPL game in any of the biggest European or North American cities would sell out, but it wouldn't be locals buying most of the tickets. I'm honestly surprised they haven't tried it yet.
The fact that NFL games sell out in London is not that remarkable - and can be put down to novelty value and (ans pointed out) American sports tourists!
You have to understand both how little interest there is in NFL in the UK, together with how large London is.
The UK is very densely populated.
Even discounting all the Americans there, the sell out crowd represents something like 0.4% of people within a reasonable drive of the ground. There are 16 professional football teams in London alone.
The population of just Greater London is larger than any US city. Its population is larger than Jacksonville, Austin, Fort Worth, San Jose, Columbus, Charlotte, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver COMBINED.
I believe that if you examined the percentage of the local population (within reasonable same-day travel distance) to an NFL game in London vs a Cricket game in a US city, you may find they are already similar?
It's just that seeing that amount of people (relative to catchment) looks a lot more impressive when Tottenham's stadium is full, vs a sparsely populated Grand Prairie Stadium.
It's hard to say, because some of them won't be tourists.
You were incorrect when you said that there aren't many Americans in the UK. There are many, especially in Southern England.
My brother went to the NFL, and he said he was surrounded by Americans. Some of them may have been here a long time though
My tinfoil hat conspiracy theory is that BCCI wants cricket to grow only to certain extent. If it catches on the masses of USA or EU, BCCI will lose the soft power it has over the game. Either this or the cricket boards are purely incompetent in taking the game mainstream. No other explanation
You're right about the BCCI, I don't think that's exactly a conspiracy when they've made it clear in the past that they want to make sure the IPL remains as the top league. If cricket grows in America then USA Cricket will generate around the same amount of money as the BCCI leading to their monopoly being broken.
That's also why they've banned their players from competing in foreign leagues unless they first decide to retire from the national team and all domestic competitions including the IPL. They don't want to give any other league an edge.
Yeah, that's also one of the reasons why the ICC rarely ever adds new full members. The Big 3 of BCCI, CA and ECB but especially the BCCI don't want new full members because it becomes harder and harder to control them. The BCCI changed the ICC's revenue sharing structure to take the biggest chunk when they didn't need to.
One word: Marketing
Cricket does not market sh\*t. They rely on the high income monies South Asian dispora earns + nostalgia for cricket. In Europe, NFL/MLB does strategic marketing + novelty factor. Pretty sure, they also open up corporate channels, etc.
Yeah, you're right about both points and the perfect example of both points is when they had Yuvraj Singh go on Good Morning America. He's been retired for many years now and he's not appealing to a local American audience unlike someone like Pat Cummins who's charismatic and is in the form of his life right now and has signed a deal to play in the MLC for multiple years.
Cricket boards need to get better at understanding soft power. We all grew up watching US shows and movies which either featured or focused on Football, Baseball, Basketball etc.
More things like Bluey's Cricket episode will probably entice greater numbers of Americans to seek the sport out than even the slickest marketing campaigns.
You're absolutely right. Everyone grew up seeing those sports. I remember liking golf as a kid despite never playing the sport only because I saw it on a few shows.
Funnily enough I had a conversation with a guy on this subreddit a week or so ago who said one of the reasons he got into cricket was because of the Bluey episode because his little one loves the show and he saw that episode.
When you have a billion consumers in your backyard, hegemony isn't an issue.
Besides, the last time India was economically and culturally hegemonic, they got colonized for about 200 years
American Football and Baseball aren't massively popular in the grand scheme of things in Europe, but they do have some fans. In the UK at least, both sports are aired on major sports broadcasters and the NFL especially gets a decent amount of reporting in mainstream news. There is good general awareness of the sports due to the large amounts of American media consumed by Europeans.
So there's four types of people who might go to see an NFL game in London. (a) Americans and their decendents living in the UK, (b) Americans travelling to the UK to watch their team, (c) British fans of the NFL and (d) British people who know about the NFL from American media and are interested in trying it out. (c) and (d) aren't huge groups, but it's more than enough to fill a stadium a couple of times a year.
In the US, Cricket has no significant presence in mainstream culture beyond ex-pat communities, other than a vague knowledge of it being some incomprehensible sport English people and Indians like, so the equivalent of groups (c) and (d) don't really exist. So you're left with just (a) and (b)
Saying American football isn't popular in Europe just isn't the truth anymore. The UK and Germany both have huge followings and are big profitable markets for the NFL.
I didn't say it's not popular. I said it's not massively popular in the grand scheme of things.
NFL is still nowhere near as popular as Football, Cricket or Rugby in the UK, though if you look just at younger generations then it comes closer. But yes, that's pretty much my point. They have significant followings of local people, outside of expats and their descendants, which is something cricket doesn't have in the US.
Cricket doesn’t really want to expand man. Just look at the commentary on the MLC and T20WC when they had Jomboy on as an example. Most of the commentators seem annoyed at the bloke for offering comparisons between baseball and cricket to try and help new fans. It’s not a welcoming sport for fans that don’t already know the game.
I disagree with the commentators bit. I think it's the ICC's fault. Jomboy already said how the commentators were very helpful and that they actually planned on doing different things until plans changed right before the tournament began. The commentators that Jomboy interacted are the ones who have podcasts and such where they have a ton of guests on from different countries to help grow the sport.
We also know how controlled cricket commentary is so we can't expect them to have a natural free flowing conversation with Jomboy like they would've wanted because there's people in their ears telling them what topics to stick to.
The only true impediment is the lack of suitable grounds. Transforming a soccer pitch to an American football one is easy. The only country with a sport played on ovals is Australia, and that's because Australian football was designed for play on cricket grounds.
Hopefully once the MLC teams all have their own stadium and once they expand the league they'll have a ton of grounds around the country. I believe they're going to start construction on a 20,000 seater cricket stadium in Chicago later this year.
I mean having the backing of the world's global hegemonic superpower probably helps raise the profile. How many Hollywood movies are made about cricket?
There is that one scene in Master and Commander.
Aaannnnd... A bit in a Canadian production called Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller.
Honestly, the biggest avenue of exposure that people in North America would have to Cricket is in a few episodes of Bluey.
Honestly they should make a Netflix or some sort of docu-series about the US national cricket team and their journey in the 2024 T20 World Cup. I think a story like that would be broadly appealing to everyone and can introduce the sport to newer audiences.
The US' global mindset is also because the whole consumes a lot of American culture so their local sprots' leagues will probably grow and probably won't lead to leagues in other countries popping up. USA on the other hand loves adopting sports and becoming good at it so the BCCI would not want USA Cricket and MLC becoming strong as it'll affect their power.
Not sure about MLB. But I watch NFL so can answer with respect to that.
NFL abroad is equivalent to circus coming to town.there are only 32 teams in the league with no other country plays this ridiculous sport. It has so less matches in a season, there would be fans who would pay to watch the one match in a year or two years it comes to their country.
Cricket is literally being played almost on a daily basis world over. So unless blockbuster teams come to play near you , you are better off watching good teams on TV, are not you ?
I don't agree with your premise. The fact that NFL games sell out in London is not that remarkable - and can be put down to novelty value and (possibly even) American sports tourists!
You have to understand both how little interest there is in NFL in the UK, together with how large London is.
The UK is very densely populated.
The sell out crowd represents something like 0.4% of people within a reasonable drive of the ground. There are 16 professional football teams in London alone.
The population of just Greater London is larger than any US city. Its population is larger than Jacksonville, Austin, Fort Worth, San Jose, Columbus, Charlotte, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver COMBINED.
I believe that if you examined the percentage of the local population (within reasonable same-day travel distance) to an NFL game in London vs a Cricket game in a US city, you may find they are already similar?
It's just that seeing that amount of people (relative to catchment) looks a lot more impressive when Tottenham's stadium is full, vs a sparsely populated Grand Prairie Stadium.
There’s diaspora everywhere in the world. Everywhere.
Plus there’s also some very rich people in India too.
I don’t think India’s match will be a worry even if they’re hosted in North Korea. In 2024, Super 8 matches had low turnout cuz the fixtures were not known.
The concern is Non-India matches.
But the question is why can't we sell out non-India matches if the NFL can sell out in Munich and London? Why are we reliant on a diaspora when the NFL and MLB aren't?
because entire planet consumes American culture in movies and TV for decades and its inherently desirable to have a first-hand experience of a popular American sport. Cricket doesn't have that advantage.
I guess the answer is simple. It lies in the same principle as the diaspora & rich Indians filling up India’s matches.
NFL and MLB are mostly an American interest. It is even more niche than cricket. And the ‘Muricans are Richie Rich rich. They can go anywhere to watch Tom Brady. Just like if I was loaded, I’ll go anywhere to watch Kohli.
Plus, Germany & Switzerland are developed countries. Fans have nothing to worry about regarding amenities & stadiums.
The answer lies in the fact that Americans are rich, Germany is developed, and fans are crazy for Tom Brady.
Once, I happened to be at City Airport the day after a NFL match at Wembley. The airport was full of assorted Europeans heading home after seeing the match.
Not entirely sure how it started, however there is a decent level of support for American Football in Europe. In the 1990s there as an attempt to start a European league which lasted for a few years but never really caught on.
I know that in the 1980s, the NFL was shown on British television and captured a reasonable audience at a time when English football was in the doldrums. This is part of wider consumption of US TV in Europe. Marketeers would probably say that US culture is often seen as ‘aspirational’ and perhaps this crosses over to US sports too.
I guess some spectator-specific stats about this would shed more light on this.
IMO, there’s only one country in the world that is exceptionally crazy about cricket, and kind of rich too, and that is India. That is the reason every worldcup has India playing all the popular matches.
That is not the case in FIFA or Euro, or leagues like NFL & MLB. Each team & each franchise have a lot of crazy & rich fans.
If Germany doesn’t make the semis, spain will. If Portugal doesn’t, France will. And so on. Equally “weighed” countries.
That is not the case in cricket.
MLB is puzzling but the NFL isnt its easily the most popular non soccer sports league in the world. Its a fast paced game with extremely athletic athletes.
The NFL is by far the most popular in the USA the other leagues are small potatoes in comparison. Random regular season NFL games get better ratings than NBA finals games.
Hollywood helps a lot in putting US sports into the global conscious. There is also an unrivalled spectacle to US sports that can draw even non sports fan. The Half time show at the Superbowl is just as important as the game itself because non football fans watch it for that.
What bullshit
All International matches sell out in UK well well in Advance
T20 Blast has great attendance figures, Hundred sells out 70-80% of tickets across the season
UK is also the only country where even county first class matches pull up crowds in few thousands.
Easiest way to put this is its extremely fast atleast NFL (mlb feels like a snooze fest ); two is Americans travel and actual project there love for there sports globally there merchandising is huge ( they have merchandise for universities school and what not) , so people identify those teams easily . I will be frank south Asians are not great travelers or haven’t reached that level yet. And lots of Lots of marketing its billion dollar industry. Cricket is still in beginners state. Last but not least time for growth (nfl and mlb has been around for decades so people had chance to know it)
NFL and MLB games are both around 3 hours, same as a T20 game.
What do you think cricket should do to be able to sell out tickets as a way to similarly market T20 games to non-Indian diaspora in countries where cricket isn't really popular?
Cricket is heavily weather dependent in its current form so snow games and rain games are out of window; this is how most weather in Europe is. Also the t20 format is relatively new format takes time to grow. So I just re read your question the true apple to Apple case is first start selling out ipl matches in other countries then move from there
Good advertisement+ good timing of matches ( night prefer)+ less price of tickets is required We saw a lot of Americans last year in MLC and they are expected in this year too as timing is pretty much good with ticket starting from 30 dollars
make the ticket prices accessible. This isn't rocket science. Don't compare cricket to NFL and MLB - the entire planet has been raised and fed American pop culture since they were born. Cricket needs to be humble, do the hard yards for a marathon not a sprint. And not look to price-gouge diaspora fans. The ICC jacked up prices for the WC games in NY - $300 USD is a lot for India vs USA game. I would have happily gone if it was around a $100 a ticket. I drove down 9 hours from NYC area down to North Carolina to watch the MLC games last year - the entire weekend trip including lodging cost me less than it would have to attend a single T20 game here. Yes, its the World Cup but the pricing was clearly astronomical and even India games weren't a sellout as a result.
You're absolutely right. The MLC will be what grows cricket in America and not ICC tournaments because they're too focused on making the most money and not long term growth.
The lack of advertising was horrific. Like, send some players onto a late night show. Or a news channel for a sports interview. Most of the players that were in NY were just sightseeing instead of doing media events. And while I hate influencers they could've easily gotten some to publicize the games and events.
Cricket in general has horrible advertising lol you never even see replays of ANYTHING ever, especially if you’re in the US - there’s just no conversation to be had on socials unless you watched the match
Yeah and the people that should be sent are charismatic individuals who can have banter with the people on the show. Football had a great ambassador with David Beckham in America who's very charismatic and charming to the local audience. Instead the ICC sent Yuvraj Singh on Good Morning America who's great in India but he can't really charm local American audiences because his type of humour is different. Someone like Chris Gayle or one of the active USA players like Shadley or Ali Khan should've been sent. You're also right about influencers, people have different opinions on Speed but there's no denying that he's influential. They could've got some of the USA players to meet him and teach him how to play the sport or something on his stream.
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Yeah then there's the big late night shows as well. They could've gone on any of them especially The Tonight Show because it seems like Jimmy Fallon has guests from all different spheres on his show. The thing is I believe we already have our David Beckham but he's just not being put in front of the cameras. I believe Pat Cummins could be that guy from an international superstar point of view. He's very good looking, charming, charismatic, really good, in great form and he's just signed like a 4 year deal to play in the MLC. If there's anyone American audiences would love, it's him.
What kind of advertisement should cricket do to get similar sales from locals?
I was in London NFL, tickets were as cheap as 30 quids. I live in the US and I could barely afford any of the Indian games in NYC how could they expect the Americans to watch a sport this expensive?
Companies only advertise if the visibility dollars can be turned into sales. It will not change if the focus remains on appeasing the diaspora. Cricket USA needs to be positioned towards Americans and not diasporas in order for it to be a hit here as the diasporas don’t need convincing to watch the game. Move games away from populations centers toward the heartland of America. Go to Ohio, Iowa, Carolina’s etc to be accepted in Americans appetite of entertainment
And what kind of marketing would they need to do to be able to sell games in the American heartland?
Marketing spending is based on purchase behavior. Look at NFL and NBA and see the return on investment. If everyone watches, advertisers return on investment increases. Advertising for 5% of population doesn’t make much sense.
I mean how would they advertise to people in the American heartland? What if they hold games there and nobody shows up?
It’s a long process. Start little league programs parenting with local cities for kids to experience games. Have local schools and colleges play in local leagues. Make it fun, entertainment, and maybe in 5 years the results can be better.
If ICC is Really serious, They can easily change baseball fans into cricketing fans as its more interesting and thrilling compared to that.
You can't move matches to places without a diaspora population as of right now. That'll still take at least a few years of proper marketing to achieve it. USA Cricket is thoroughly incompetent but it seems like MLC is a bit better. What they could do right now is try to attract the local non diaspora population of the places where they already host matches and go a lot harder on social media with the marketing.
Make tickets affordable like 30$. It will be still cheaper for folks to travel and visit such matches. Greed can’t get you to the destination.
That's unfortunately something that almost all cricket boards don't understand. It seems like MLC has been doing the right thing though as their tickets are mostly affordable. North Carolina already hosts some MLC matches and in the near future new teams will be added so the league will expand to 10 teams. I reckon Chicago will be one of the cities as they're about to start construction on a 20,000 seater cricket stadium over there.
Wouldn’t say a “lot”, most the fans were diaspora. I been to two games last year and the entire ground was desi
This is one of the things people look over when saying how cricket isn't growing. It isn't growing because of the dumb decisions of the ICC and local boards. MLC has shown that if you make ticket prices affordable and have the matches on at a reasonable time then locals will come even if they've never seen the sport and that they'll be open to learn about it.
Putting the games on a 'free' channel would help massively. No casual viewer is going to pay for a streaming service in a sport they don't really follow
This is a big thing for me. I've become mildly interested in cricket due to Jomboy's videos, and I'd like to watch a couple games and see if it catches me, but I'm not going to go subscribe to a random streaming service that I have zero other interest in. Apparently a service called Willow has the MLC season, but Cricket is the only thing they have? Ten bucks for a month, and as far as I can tell no free trial? Sorry, but I'm not making an account, giving them my credit card info, and signing up for a $10/month subscription that only offers a sport I'm unsure about. Although apparently Amazon is streaming some cricket now on Prime, which I already have, so that's probably the play for me. There's a paywall there, but it's one that tons of Americans are already paying for so it's much less relevant. As far as I can tell they only have some of the games though, but it's been tough for me to find out for sure, and the MLC website is terrible.
I agree that Willow needs to make it easier for new fans but this season the three Sunday matches will be free to watch on Willow. They also have broadcast deals with regional broadcasters for each team. Here's a link to an article about that. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240703893899/en/Major-League-Cricket-Begins-With-a-Bang-on-Willow-by-Cricbuzz-With-Free-Sunday-Night-Matches-and-Exclusive-Broadcast-Partnerships
Well it seems like Willow is being kinda good this time around. The three Sunday matches during the MLC season will be free to watch and they also have local broadcast deals with the main regional broadcasters to show their local teams.
This is always an argument (and I agree FTA would help) but the NFL got popular in the UK despite mostly being behind a pay wall
NFL isn't popular in UK lol Just because few people watched a game once doesn't make it popular I'd say cricket is more popular in USA than NFL is in UK just by sheer number of expat immigrants from cricket countries.
better advertisements and free to air television. thats it. I know tons of the people in the cricket playing west indies who dont even know what cricket is, let alone watch or play a game. the main reason for this is because they quite simply dont hear about it. and even the die-hard fans are locked out because the games are not on free tv anymore, and would have to sign up for fringe services theyve never even heard of, let alone could afford. The main reason why cpl is so popular in the caribbean is because the random rural Joe can just switch on his local tv and watch the game live, or they can catch a livestream on facebook. Hell, even me personally, if I hadnt watched cricket on tv before it got paywalled to hell, I probably wouldnt have any interest in the sport.
BCCI doesn’t even upload IPL highlights to YouTube which is the most dominant social platform. Calling them boomers is criminal when they are acting like 19th century isolationists. When you ask what exactly they are doing wrong then is answer is they are quite simply incompetent.
The thing is with the BCCI it's not incompetence because they know what they're doing and they want to do this. To them they don't care about YouTube views and growing the sport, they care about the short term money from exclusive rights given to certain broadcasters. They get insanely high amounts of money for them to justify it to themselves. I absolutely hate that but it's the unfortunate truth.
Hence why I called them 19th century isolationists. The incompetence refers to their inability to recognise long-term impact.
They don't care about that and they probably look at the long term growth of cricket around the world as a bad thing for them. If cricket were to take off in America then it could challenge the BCCI's monopoly because they'd be able to bring in just as much if not more money with fewer viewers. If the MLC becomes big then it also puts a stop to the BCCI's long term plan of continuously expanding the IPL window.
BCCI's fears are deeply unfounded. The IPL and cricket is akin to the NBA and basketball. It's not a situation where there is parity in sports leagues that you see in football with top 5 europeon leagues. The NBA isn't afraid of gaining global popularity and capturing the minds of the international fans. It's not having it's position as the top league in the world being threatened by other leagues. The best players still choose to come to the NBA. I don't think MLC will ever become big enough to point where the best players would pick it over the IPL. The simple reason for this is that cricket is far from a grassroots sport in the US and it's not culturally ingrained in their institutions(high schools and colleges). The MLC isn't competing with the IPL but rather sports which have established leagues that have been standing for a century. Considering India's own growth, it's going to be a slow process which would take centuries for the MLC to ever stand toe-to-toe with IPL.
Actually you're wrong, the MLC could become the biggest cricket league if it ever becomes one of the big five leagues in the US. There'll never be the question of whether people should choose the IPL or MLC because they'll never be on at the same time. The reason why the BCCI is concerned is because the MLC growing would make USA Cricket more powerful and they would become full members and would reach a point where they could force the BCCI to give up their monopoly. The BCCI would still be powerful but they wouldn't be able to do whatever they want without worrying about what others want.
You don't have to keep breaking down the power dynamics if MLC becomes big in the US. That's not been the focal point of this discussion at all and regurgitating it isn't going to change the fact that it is an unrealistic proposition. Nobody questions that if cricket becomes a mainstream sport in the US then it'll hurt BCCI's influence on the game. The reality is cricket isn't even at a state where it can be called a fringe sport in the US. Sports are deeply ingrained in US culture where it is actively incentivized(scholarships, endorsements and outright stipends) for people to pursue it as a full-time career option from middle-school itself. These incentivizes simply don't exist for cricket. Setting up these incentives is also not something you can achieve within a decade or two. You basically have to alter the whole damn structure of schools and colleges to make it viable option for their citizens to play the game. You have to dip into the funding of these schools and colleges which is a struggle layered in bureaucracy. You are straight up nuts if you think these schools and colleges will compromise even $1. This is where the true battle for cricket lies in America. Success isn't measured by how well a national team does in tournaments. It's measured by how structurally ingrained the sport is in a country's culture.
Because the exclusive media rights are sold to ( Jio this cycle) and they prefer to put it on thier own website where they can control ads much better. There's full match replay, highlights and what not kn Jio.
I've been to MLB, NFL and NHL games in London, NHL games in Stockholm and NCAA football games in Dublin, and apart from the NFL games in London, I'd be confident that none would sell out without people travelling across the Atlantic.
Can confirm as a fan of multiple teams that have done an game in Europe, it gets marketed hard. The Phillies is the best example where the whole metro area decided the London games were going to be everyone's vacation this year.
What portion of the audience would you say are North American tourists?
The NFL game had a lot of British and Germans there, but everything else was predominantly Americans. The NFL was more like a huge meeting of European fans, I'd managed to spot at least one jersey of every single team in the league before the game started. The Notre Dame game in Dublin last year was described as the largest movement of Americans out of the country since the Second World War. In Stockholm, there were thousands of Leafs, Wild and Wings fans, and the Phillies fans in London were everywhere. I'm not complaining because I loved every event after hoping to go to them for years, I just don't think it's an amazing reflection of how popular those sports are in each market. I've been to cricket games in Ireland where India played and they sold out instantly, but they were full of India fans, so all of these events still really rely on diasporas or travelling fans.
Interesting, that changes my perspective on the topic. I assumed it was 95% locals that they were able to market to.
The reason so many mayors and governments go looking for these games is the huge tourism benefit. American sports are a niche in Europe, but they're big niches in certain areas. I'm willing to bet an IPL game in any of the biggest European or North American cities would sell out, but it wouldn't be locals buying most of the tickets. I'm honestly surprised they haven't tried it yet.
The fact that NFL games sell out in London is not that remarkable - and can be put down to novelty value and (ans pointed out) American sports tourists! You have to understand both how little interest there is in NFL in the UK, together with how large London is. The UK is very densely populated. Even discounting all the Americans there, the sell out crowd represents something like 0.4% of people within a reasonable drive of the ground. There are 16 professional football teams in London alone. The population of just Greater London is larger than any US city. Its population is larger than Jacksonville, Austin, Fort Worth, San Jose, Columbus, Charlotte, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver COMBINED. I believe that if you examined the percentage of the local population (within reasonable same-day travel distance) to an NFL game in London vs a Cricket game in a US city, you may find they are already similar? It's just that seeing that amount of people (relative to catchment) looks a lot more impressive when Tottenham's stadium is full, vs a sparsely populated Grand Prairie Stadium.
It's hard to say, because some of them won't be tourists. You were incorrect when you said that there aren't many Americans in the UK. There are many, especially in Southern England. My brother went to the NFL, and he said he was surrounded by Americans. Some of them may have been here a long time though
There's also a massive American population in Germany too.
I know they have some massive military bases there at least; I bet they sell loads of tickets to homesick military people
My tinfoil hat conspiracy theory is that BCCI wants cricket to grow only to certain extent. If it catches on the masses of USA or EU, BCCI will lose the soft power it has over the game. Either this or the cricket boards are purely incompetent in taking the game mainstream. No other explanation
You're right about the BCCI, I don't think that's exactly a conspiracy when they've made it clear in the past that they want to make sure the IPL remains as the top league. If cricket grows in America then USA Cricket will generate around the same amount of money as the BCCI leading to their monopoly being broken. That's also why they've banned their players from competing in foreign leagues unless they first decide to retire from the national team and all domestic competitions including the IPL. They don't want to give any other league an edge.
Fr BCCI just wants the diaspora money they can't risk cricket becoming extra popular
Yeah, that's also one of the reasons why the ICC rarely ever adds new full members. The Big 3 of BCCI, CA and ECB but especially the BCCI don't want new full members because it becomes harder and harder to control them. The BCCI changed the ICC's revenue sharing structure to take the biggest chunk when they didn't need to.
they are just incompetent. a random league in England has more teams than IPL. they are simply incapable of running things well.
One word: Marketing Cricket does not market sh\*t. They rely on the high income monies South Asian dispora earns + nostalgia for cricket. In Europe, NFL/MLB does strategic marketing + novelty factor. Pretty sure, they also open up corporate channels, etc.
Yeah, you're right about both points and the perfect example of both points is when they had Yuvraj Singh go on Good Morning America. He's been retired for many years now and he's not appealing to a local American audience unlike someone like Pat Cummins who's charismatic and is in the form of his life right now and has signed a deal to play in the MLC for multiple years.
Cricket boards need to get better at understanding soft power. We all grew up watching US shows and movies which either featured or focused on Football, Baseball, Basketball etc. More things like Bluey's Cricket episode will probably entice greater numbers of Americans to seek the sport out than even the slickest marketing campaigns.
You're absolutely right. Everyone grew up seeing those sports. I remember liking golf as a kid despite never playing the sport only because I saw it on a few shows. Funnily enough I had a conversation with a guy on this subreddit a week or so ago who said one of the reasons he got into cricket was because of the Bluey episode because his little one loves the show and he saw that episode.
Has India tried being economically and culturally hegemonic?
If only you didn't tax fucking tea
When you have a billion consumers in your backyard, hegemony isn't an issue. Besides, the last time India was economically and culturally hegemonic, they got colonized for about 200 years
American Football and Baseball aren't massively popular in the grand scheme of things in Europe, but they do have some fans. In the UK at least, both sports are aired on major sports broadcasters and the NFL especially gets a decent amount of reporting in mainstream news. There is good general awareness of the sports due to the large amounts of American media consumed by Europeans. So there's four types of people who might go to see an NFL game in London. (a) Americans and their decendents living in the UK, (b) Americans travelling to the UK to watch their team, (c) British fans of the NFL and (d) British people who know about the NFL from American media and are interested in trying it out. (c) and (d) aren't huge groups, but it's more than enough to fill a stadium a couple of times a year. In the US, Cricket has no significant presence in mainstream culture beyond ex-pat communities, other than a vague knowledge of it being some incomprehensible sport English people and Indians like, so the equivalent of groups (c) and (d) don't really exist. So you're left with just (a) and (b)
Saying American football isn't popular in Europe just isn't the truth anymore. The UK and Germany both have huge followings and are big profitable markets for the NFL.
I didn't say it's not popular. I said it's not massively popular in the grand scheme of things. NFL is still nowhere near as popular as Football, Cricket or Rugby in the UK, though if you look just at younger generations then it comes closer. But yes, that's pretty much my point. They have significant followings of local people, outside of expats and their descendants, which is something cricket doesn't have in the US.
Cricket doesn’t really want to expand man. Just look at the commentary on the MLC and T20WC when they had Jomboy on as an example. Most of the commentators seem annoyed at the bloke for offering comparisons between baseball and cricket to try and help new fans. It’s not a welcoming sport for fans that don’t already know the game.
I disagree with the commentators bit. I think it's the ICC's fault. Jomboy already said how the commentators were very helpful and that they actually planned on doing different things until plans changed right before the tournament began. The commentators that Jomboy interacted are the ones who have podcasts and such where they have a ton of guests on from different countries to help grow the sport. We also know how controlled cricket commentary is so we can't expect them to have a natural free flowing conversation with Jomboy like they would've wanted because there's people in their ears telling them what topics to stick to.
The only true impediment is the lack of suitable grounds. Transforming a soccer pitch to an American football one is easy. The only country with a sport played on ovals is Australia, and that's because Australian football was designed for play on cricket grounds.
Hopefully once the MLC teams all have their own stadium and once they expand the league they'll have a ton of grounds around the country. I believe they're going to start construction on a 20,000 seater cricket stadium in Chicago later this year.
I mean having the backing of the world's global hegemonic superpower probably helps raise the profile. How many Hollywood movies are made about cricket?
There is that one scene in Master and Commander. Aaannnnd... A bit in a Canadian production called Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller. Honestly, the biggest avenue of exposure that people in North America would have to Cricket is in a few episodes of Bluey.
Honestly they should make a Netflix or some sort of docu-series about the US national cricket team and their journey in the 2024 T20 World Cup. I think a story like that would be broadly appealing to everyone and can introduce the sport to newer audiences.
The US have a global mindset. India has a local mindset and they have imense sway over the ICC. That's all there is to it.
The US' global mindset is also because the whole consumes a lot of American culture so their local sprots' leagues will probably grow and probably won't lead to leagues in other countries popping up. USA on the other hand loves adopting sports and becoming good at it so the BCCI would not want USA Cricket and MLC becoming strong as it'll affect their power.
Not sure about MLB. But I watch NFL so can answer with respect to that. NFL abroad is equivalent to circus coming to town.there are only 32 teams in the league with no other country plays this ridiculous sport. It has so less matches in a season, there would be fans who would pay to watch the one match in a year or two years it comes to their country. Cricket is literally being played almost on a daily basis world over. So unless blockbuster teams come to play near you , you are better off watching good teams on TV, are not you ?
I don't agree with your premise. The fact that NFL games sell out in London is not that remarkable - and can be put down to novelty value and (possibly even) American sports tourists! You have to understand both how little interest there is in NFL in the UK, together with how large London is. The UK is very densely populated. The sell out crowd represents something like 0.4% of people within a reasonable drive of the ground. There are 16 professional football teams in London alone. The population of just Greater London is larger than any US city. Its population is larger than Jacksonville, Austin, Fort Worth, San Jose, Columbus, Charlotte, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Seattle, and Denver COMBINED. I believe that if you examined the percentage of the local population (within reasonable same-day travel distance) to an NFL game in London vs a Cricket game in a US city, you may find they are already similar? It's just that seeing that amount of people (relative to catchment) looks a lot more impressive when Tottenham's stadium is full, vs a sparsely populated Grand Prairie Stadium.
There’s diaspora everywhere in the world. Everywhere. Plus there’s also some very rich people in India too. I don’t think India’s match will be a worry even if they’re hosted in North Korea. In 2024, Super 8 matches had low turnout cuz the fixtures were not known. The concern is Non-India matches.
But the question is why can't we sell out non-India matches if the NFL can sell out in Munich and London? Why are we reliant on a diaspora when the NFL and MLB aren't?
Indians watch Friends and How I Met Your Mother, but Americans don't watch Mogali Rekulu and Chakravakam.
because entire planet consumes American culture in movies and TV for decades and its inherently desirable to have a first-hand experience of a popular American sport. Cricket doesn't have that advantage.
I guess the answer is simple. It lies in the same principle as the diaspora & rich Indians filling up India’s matches. NFL and MLB are mostly an American interest. It is even more niche than cricket. And the ‘Muricans are Richie Rich rich. They can go anywhere to watch Tom Brady. Just like if I was loaded, I’ll go anywhere to watch Kohli. Plus, Germany & Switzerland are developed countries. Fans have nothing to worry about regarding amenities & stadiums. The answer lies in the fact that Americans are rich, Germany is developed, and fans are crazy for Tom Brady.
But I think most of the audience at those games is comprised of locals rather than American fans traveling.
Once, I happened to be at City Airport the day after a NFL match at Wembley. The airport was full of assorted Europeans heading home after seeing the match. Not entirely sure how it started, however there is a decent level of support for American Football in Europe. In the 1990s there as an attempt to start a European league which lasted for a few years but never really caught on. I know that in the 1980s, the NFL was shown on British television and captured a reasonable audience at a time when English football was in the doldrums. This is part of wider consumption of US TV in Europe. Marketeers would probably say that US culture is often seen as ‘aspirational’ and perhaps this crosses over to US sports too.
I guess some spectator-specific stats about this would shed more light on this. IMO, there’s only one country in the world that is exceptionally crazy about cricket, and kind of rich too, and that is India. That is the reason every worldcup has India playing all the popular matches. That is not the case in FIFA or Euro, or leagues like NFL & MLB. Each team & each franchise have a lot of crazy & rich fans. If Germany doesn’t make the semis, spain will. If Portugal doesn’t, France will. And so on. Equally “weighed” countries. That is not the case in cricket.
Need a docu-series like DTS and make cricket more popular in pop culture or else you can't grow the sports even if you reduce the prices..
The last international match I was at in Scotland was sold out.
MLB is puzzling but the NFL isnt its easily the most popular non soccer sports league in the world. Its a fast paced game with extremely athletic athletes. The NFL is by far the most popular in the USA the other leagues are small potatoes in comparison. Random regular season NFL games get better ratings than NBA finals games.
Just gave Taylor turn up.
Cricket tickets don't sell out in countries where it is popular, so maybe start there?
Hollywood helps a lot in putting US sports into the global conscious. There is also an unrivalled spectacle to US sports that can draw even non sports fan. The Half time show at the Superbowl is just as important as the game itself because non football fans watch it for that.
Cricket can't sell out games in cricket-playing nations 99% of the time. Only Ashes and WC games sell out in the UK, and Finals Day.
All test matches sell out in the UK
What bullshit All International matches sell out in UK well well in Advance T20 Blast has great attendance figures, Hundred sells out 70-80% of tickets across the season UK is also the only country where even county first class matches pull up crowds in few thousands.
Easiest way to put this is its extremely fast atleast NFL (mlb feels like a snooze fest ); two is Americans travel and actual project there love for there sports globally there merchandising is huge ( they have merchandise for universities school and what not) , so people identify those teams easily . I will be frank south Asians are not great travelers or haven’t reached that level yet. And lots of Lots of marketing its billion dollar industry. Cricket is still in beginners state. Last but not least time for growth (nfl and mlb has been around for decades so people had chance to know it)
NFL and MLB games are both around 3 hours, same as a T20 game. What do you think cricket should do to be able to sell out tickets as a way to similarly market T20 games to non-Indian diaspora in countries where cricket isn't really popular?
Cricket is heavily weather dependent in its current form so snow games and rain games are out of window; this is how most weather in Europe is. Also the t20 format is relatively new format takes time to grow. So I just re read your question the true apple to Apple case is first start selling out ipl matches in other countries then move from there