The inaugural Major League Cricket season just ended

Last night, in a converted minor league baseball stadium located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, MI New York defeated the Seattle Orcas to take home the Major League Cricket title. This caps off the league’s inaugural season.

The big takeaway? America appears ready for some cricket.

🏏 Background: Major League Cricket, a pro sports league backed by $120+ million in capital from prominent investors including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, was co-founded by Sameer Mehta and billionaire Vijay Srinivasan, who had previously co-founded Willow TV, a paid sports network dedicated to bringing overseas cricket matches to the US market.

Major League Cricket aims to tap into an estimated base of between 20 million–30 million cricket fans located within the US, who (similar to die-hard tennis fans) mostly rely on foreign broadcasts of matches at unusual hours.

And so far, so good.

• MLC’s six teams played matches in stadiums located in Texas (max capacity ~7,200) and North Carolina (~3,500). As of July 26, a few days before the end of the about-two-and-a-half-week-long season, the league had sold out every one of its matches.
• At least 80% of those in attendance were 35-years-old or younger, SBNation reports.

📈👀 Looking ahead… The league aims to have more than six international-grade stadiums in critical American markets over the next few years. And that’s not the only US-located cricket on the horizon. America is set to co-host the 2024 T20 World Cup, a major cricket event that recently drew over 6 billion video views.