It was brought to my attention over the weekend that some kind of cricket tournament similar to the IPL is being organized in the US. Which was news to me. It certainly hasn't made the US sports headlines yet. Which is somewhat discouraging if they expect cricket to gain a foothold in the US (which I doubt it ever will). So I've looked up more details, and apparently the "Seattle Orcas" are one of the 6 teams that are going to compete. Despite the fact that we don't have a cricket venue (but apparently there is a 6,000 seat cricket stadium being planned near the Microsoft campus, which is not a surprise given the number of Indians that work there and that one of the owners of the team is the Microsoft CEO). What most surprised me was that this is apparently going to be a professional league. Professional US cricketers? That seems unlikely when nobody in the US even knows anything about the game - but a bit like MLS, I imagine they can bring in and overpay a load of foreign players who are either nowhere near good enough for their home country or are well past their best. They have started drafting players for the 6 teams, but since I don't know any of the people being drafted I can't say how good they are. But quite a lot of them seem to have international caps, so maybe it's not a total disaster. But with the inaugural tournament due to start this summer, I hope one of the big networks (like ESPN) have the TV rights and actually promote the tournament. Because I see absolutely no anticipation for it so far.
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