View from Asia: “Outtakes from the T20 Cricket World Cup”

In his latest column, View From Asia, Unmish Parthasarathi, founder of Picture Board Partners, Monetisation & Communications, a Singapore-based practice, shares his insights from the recently concluded ICC T20 World Cup.

This past weekend marked the halfway point of the first World Cup, which was played in the United States thirty years ago in 1994. Saturday also saw the final of the Cricket World Cup, which was played in the Caribbean, but which will go down in history as the highlight of the first ICC tournament to be played in the United States.

For the record, the first official cricket match between two countries was also played in the US – in 1844! Back then, the home team defeated Canada at the St. Georges Cricket Club, a venue located on 30th and Broadway for those more familiar with modern-day Manhattan!

Last Saturday's final was between India and South Africa – the only two undefeated teams in the tournament – ​​with India and South Africa winning a thrilling match that didn't end until after 2am for me and my family here in Singapore!

The 2024 ICC Mens Twenty20 (T20) World Cup was a three-week tournament involving 20 teams and consisting of 55 matches played in six Caribbean countries and three American cities: Dallas (Texas), Lauderhill (Florida) and Long Island (New York).

Matches at Nassau County Stadium on Long Island were over-indexed for attention for two reasons. The first was the reported $30 million spent by the ICC to create a 30,000 seat pop-up stadium. This may seem small but it is bigger than any ground in the UK and the six matches at the venue generated an attendance of over 180,000!!!

The second reason was that one of the six matches at Nassau County Stadium was the India-Pakistan match, which has routinely attracted more than a billion viewers around the world for more than a decade.

The more prominent and therefore much larger and longer-lasting gains, however, came from the frequent mentions of the ICC tournament in the mainstream American media. Stories on CNBC and a front-page article in The New York Times were the most noticeable to those with an international lens. There was also regional press coverage, which is just as powerful as national media, given what is a large and diverse country. It also better reflects the demand for cricket; more on that later.

In my research for this column, I asked a handful of industry peers for their assessment of the ICC’s first-ever event in the United States. They were all complimentary. Some noted that the fact that everything went according to plan and was normal was in itself the greatest achievement. One made a telling comment about the $30 million expenditure. She said that we should view this as a million-dollar-a-year investment that will pay for itself over the next three decades. She illustrated her point by noting how much soccer (or football!) has grown in the United States over the same period since it hosted the FIFA World Cup in the early 1990s.

1. At that time, the largest and most loyal group of football fans were the first generation of immigrants from Latin America, who were mostly men.

2. In the decade that followed, women began to focus on soccer. A much larger demographic segment of the population took up the sport, as evidenced by the now well-known phenomenon of Soccer Moms.

3. The third decade saw David Beckham's move to LA Galaxy, Major League Soccer's global deal with Apple and the export of players to Europe, such as Brad Friedel, who made 450 appearances for four English Premier League clubs.

Looking ahead, there are a few other reasons why the future of cricket in America looks bright.

Firstly, their team, who were automatically added to the tournament as co-hosts, performed exceptionally well in their first senior event, beating the 1992 winners Pakistan in an epic encounter that will go down as a major milestone in the annals of their history.

Secondly, the team is young, averaging 30, so the same group of players will be in the next edition in two years’ time, when India hosts the Twenty20 World Cup. The squad is a melting pot typical of the US; coached by a former Australian international, with players who have emigrated from the Caribbean, India, Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.

Third, the installed base of over 200,000 active players. This represents a 4x to 30x multiple of the next three emerging cricketing nations in the First World: Ireland (52,000), Scotland (24,000) and the Netherlands (6,500). Uncle Sam hosts the largest cricket clusters in Texas, California, Florida and New York with smaller pockets in North Carolina and Colorado.

Fourthly, the existence of a national league called MLC (Major League Cricket). This is the culmination of the path for young players to tread from the grassroots with franchises in the south, east and west of the country. Not surprisingly, the owners of MLC clubs are Indian immigrants who have compensated with their financial and technical knowledge and have the resources to scale the MLC, and possibly faster than the MLS.

Fifth, the US and the Women's Game are agenda items for the ICC, as they are two of the six pillars of its publicly announced strategy for this decade. This will ensure that the US can benefit from programs for the next generation of emerging countries (the Associate Members in ICC nomenclature) that have had great success in smaller third world countries such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and, most recently, Uganda and Thailand.

In conclusion, we know that one swallow does not a summer make. However, given the many achievements this summer – both on and off the field – the future of Cricket in Uncle Sam’s backyard looks brighter than ever. As always, Cricket is best played one ball at a time. Those who are in it for the long haul understand that, but it’s easier said than done for those who aren’t! Why?