Major Cricket League: The new T20 league in the US is big news for cricket

It has been over a decade since the Indian Premier League’s first edition took off. The success has been resounding with the tournament now becoming the largest in the sport in terms of viewership, media rights and as an advertising proposition. Of course, all this has to led to valuation zooming, with it becoming the second most valuable sporting league in the world after the NFL (National Football League) which is over a century old.

Not entirely unexpectedly, cricket has found a home in other countries but building a new sport in unfamiliar territory is not easy. “While there have been T20 tournaments in Pakistan and Bangladesh for a while, they have had negligible impact and being largely domestic tourneys. We have also seen the creation of new T20 leagues in South Africa and the U.A.E., which are truly international properties, though they will not come close to the IPL,” says Balu Nayar, former MD of IMG and a key architect of the IPL. According to him, the primary variable for the success of any sporting league is the quality and quantity of its audience, which in turn defines its media rights value. “These two new leagues will not reach the IPL’s heights without garnering a substantial share of the Indian cricket audience. With the BCCI stopping Indian players from taking part in these leagues, which is a perfectly legitimate step to take, the media rights for these tournaments will be significantly lower. But they should help in growing the global cricket economy.”

That could change with the Major Cricket League (MLC) a T20 league in the US, which took off on 13 July this year. With six teams – Los Angeles Knight Riders, MI New York, San Francisco Unicorns, Seattle Orcas, Texas Super Kings and Washington Freedom – the Indian diaspora has something to look forward to. Besides, investors committed to the MLC include Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, technology entrepreneur, Anand Rajaraman, Adobe’s former CEO, Shantanu Narayen, the interest levels could easily build. Nadella himself is the co-owner of Seattle Orcas with the GMR Group, while Rajaraman and Junglee Corp’s co-founder, Venky Harinarayan own San Francisco Unicorns. The media rights for MLC were won by Reliance-owned Viacom18 and will be streamed on JioCinema as also on its television channel, Sports18.    

Nayar is optimistic about the prospects of the MLC, driven by it based in the US, home to some of the world’s largest sporting leagues such as the NFL, MLB (Major League Baseball) and NBA (National Basketball Association), all of which is driven by the local audience.  

“With IPL teams already buying teams in the CSA (Cricket South Africa) and UAE leagues, we have seen a similar move with the MLC too, with MI, CSK and Delhi Capitals (in partnership with Satya Nadella) buying teams in New York, Texas and Seattle respectively. While the audience for the MLC will not be anywhere as large as for the IPL, the quality of the audience is extremely high, given that the Indian diaspora having the highest income ranking amongst all ethnic communities in the USA, with the rest of the South Asian diaspora added in too,” he explains. In terms of numbers, Nayar points out that the MLC will be targeted at the South Asian demographic, which is around 5.4 million in the US. “For reference, the MLB has an average TV audience of 2.3 million, and the MLS (Major League Soccer) and NHL (National Hockey League) attract audiences of around 3,00,000 each. The MLC could thus grow to be at least the fourth largest sporting league in the USA, which would make it a fairly valuable and significant contributor to the global cricket economy.”