So Texas has its own cricket team, the Super Kings, who had a game on the 14th, according to this story. I’m curious if Dopers think the game will be successful here?
Test Cricket - you play five days and it could still end in a draw - absolutely not. Too at odds with US sports culture to get any significant traction.
But that’s not all of cricket. T20, the format of the game played by TSK, takes about 3 hours to play, always gets a result and rewards big hitting and thus is much more amenable to prevailing tastes and to TV schedules.
The question is, is there a niche for it? There’s a certain number of ex-pats and first or second generation immigrants who come from a cricket culture but I’m guessing not a critical mass. As a sport, cricket is obviously in the same bat-and-ball category as baseball. So I suppose that’s where you’d first look for your audience. Which means:
People who watch baseball adding cricket to their sporting repertoire (at the expense of what?)
People who watch baseball switching at least some of their interest to cricket instead
People who like bat and ball games but find baseball dull deciding that cricket works for them
And then, people who just weren’t into bat and ball games until they discovered cricket.
I’m talking here about spectator sport, but if you mean participation much the same logic applies. Obviously there are overlaps - people who have watched cricket might be prompted to try it, people who have played it might want to watch it.
From the link, there’s some really big international talent playing in that league. This is great from a quality point of view, and will definitely attract the existing cricket afficionados but I think "taking off "will mean a home-grown star or two - which implies a decent grassroots level to develop talent.
You could certainly see T20 perhaps appealing to baseball fans. Both the bowling and batting offer a little more variety and complexity even though the base running aspect is lost.
Baseball is the most American of sports, so presenting an alternative bat and ball game seems like it might be harder for cricket, not easier. Like you’d be fighting against a very entrenched preference for the right way of hitting a ball with a bat.
Cricket is a very engaging sport - if you like getting deep into sports it’s almost impossible not to find it interesting / entertaining at least a little bit imho - but getting traction with the casuls through the whole entertainment package is a different story.
Wonder what a Texas cricket pitch looks like. I’m picturing something brown and arid?
There will pretty much never be a great American cricket player, because why wouldn’t they play baseball instead to earn tens of millions of dollars?
The skills are similar but not entirely interchangeable. A no-better-than-decent pitcher might be a phenomenal leg-spinner, for example. I agree that for a young player with apparent talent at both the financial incentive will be to baseball - but if they don’t make the cut at, say, 16, they might find their niche in cricket.
Ummm…I don’t think many Americans will watch a game which has a field position called Silly Mid Off.
Prairie View (just outside of Houston) also has a cricket stadium and a T20 team. Texas – and Houston and the DFW Metroplex in particular – has a fairly substantial South Asian population that is one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the state.
I was in Saudia Arabia for a few years. The road to the dirt golf course had 3 cricket pitches on it. After Desert Storm, the Saudis kicked the Palestinians out for supporting Saddam. Sri Lankan, Pakistanis, and Phillipinos were brought in along with cricket. The pitches were full on Fridays and a few evenings as well.
Saw the same in Afghanistan. A Pakistani convoy would come in, the drivers would whip up an impromptu game. Cricket travels well.
Are there any countries in the world where both baseball and cricket are popular? I get the impression it’s one or the other.
Cricket will not catch on in the US unless there’s a massive wave of South Asian or West Indian immigrants. Soccer is barely popular here, and it’s far more popular globally than cricket.
Maybe Australia? Cricket is apparently that country’s “national summer sport,” but it looks like baseball has also become more popular there in recent decades (though it sounds like it may still lag behind the popularity of other sports), and a number of Australians have made it into MLB.
When is this going to be played? If it overlaps with baseball season it may be a struggle to gain traction outside of the S Asian community. But, if it presents well on TV, it could to okay, as in a XFL or PBR niche way. If it involves scoring it could be more interesting than soccer.
One never knows. If pickleball and corn hole can get televised and draw crowds, why not cricket? Maybe someday cricket could catch on.
As a professional (spectator) sport, yeah. But a large proportion of Americans have played soccer at some level, even if only as a pickup game on the playground at recess when they were kids. By contrast, I suspect there are very few Americans who have ever played cricket at any level, or would even know how to.
I doubt cricket will become the next rec and travel sport in most parts of the US. Soccer is such a simple game, and it can be played anywhere.
That’s it in a nutshell. It’s a direct competitor to baseball, on baseball’s home turf. The only American cricket players are likely to be from immigrant families, and that’s where the big fan base is likely to be.
But again… why is some Indian guy in Plano going to go watch the local cricket team outside in June, if he can watch Mumbai on the internet in the air conditioning?
Yep, we’ll see soccer become widely popular before cricket. And soccer’s definitely in last place among pro sports- it’s probably the fifth most popular around here, behind football, baseball, basketball and hockey.
I’d even be curious to see whether FC Dallas has higher attendance than the Frisco Rough Riders AA baseball team. Their facilities are very close to each other, so it’s not a question of unequal convenience.
Cricket will never catch on anywhere that it hasn’t already. And so far I don’t think it’s actually caught on anyplace, just tolerated occasionally.
I see we have found you in a jocular mood.
Gully Silly Point is worse.
Or Backward Square Leg.
