Cricket in America

[Tiger-Don]

Lets Discuss Cricket in the US. So, apparently ESPN3 showing Cricket for a long time now, and have to say that it did a world of good for the game in the US. But the ICC Wt20 final match was shown on espn2, and the kind of views it got, just in one match, is unbelievable! Just look at the tweets....https://twitter.com/i/#!/search/cricket%20espn People are either a) getting angry at ESPN, b) watching it out of curiosity, c) tagging their Indian friends, and my favorite d) cricket fans, they are FREAKING OUT! They are so happy it's on TV. Even though they know the results, they are surely watching it. Life time opportunity... And lastly, check this video ESPN did: Y_uv-tP962U All in All, hope Cricket dominates the US one day and hope Cricket dominates and bring peace to this world :two_thumbs_up::icflove::yay::dance:

[zep1706]

Yeah they had it on espn2 today which is a first I think.

[Jersey #10]

^yeah I didn't know until i read on my facebook wall after the game.

[Tiger-Don]

Most americans liked it. But playing is better thab watching. We gotta make these fatt MCfats play some cricket. ...somehow

[BeautifulGame]

Pitches home runs :cantstop:

[suraj]

I recorded the match (WC final) on ESPN 2 because I had not seen it live and didn't know the result- saw it later Excellent coverageB->B->

[triam]

Very difficult man, Soccer has not gained a proper foothold yet here. Cricket has a longg way to go.

[Tiger-Don]

The more we try, the faster and the better it will be.

[Tiger80]

Very difficult man' date=' Soccer has not gained a proper foothold yet here. Cricket has a longg way to go.[/quote'] Soccer is dominated by clubs while cricket is dominated by national teams so the element of patriotism kicks in. If NRI's along with the residents of other cricket playing nations make a decent team which start winning then lot of Americans may start watching cricket

[ab12]

Soccer is dominated by clubs while cricket is dominated by national teams so the element of patriotism kicks in. If NRI's along with the residents of other cricket playing nations make a decent team which start winning then lot of Americans may start watching cricket

Yeah!!!

[PaceAttack]

Just like we don't play Baseball, they don't play cricket as well. They tried to popularize Baseball in India, Did not work.

[Jersey #10]

Cricket was a significant social sport in the united states back in the days. It was as popular as baseball up until early 1900s (before WW1). Cricket basically had to fight for interest against baseball. Cricket decreased in popularity slowly because of it's lengthy proceedings and resultlessness. In my city, cricket was very significant even till 1980s. Americans played it back then. I read a book called "history of sports in richmond" and it had a section on cricket. We have a few cricket teams that have been around for as much as 4 decades. There is a cricket team called "Babarian cricket club" and it's said to have been started by south africans approximately 40 years ago. It's still around but obviously only people to play on that team are indian, pakistani and bangladeshi nationals now. Another cricket club - Greater Richmond Cricket Club has been around since late 1970s also, the founder of my city was an avid cricketer himself. T20 is a different animal though. fingers crossed. I truely believe, as fantastic as test cricket is, it has contributed to destruction of cricket popularity around the world. I see a new era for the sport with T20

[suraj]

Cricket was a significant social sport in the united states back in the days. It was as popular as baseball up until early 1900s (before WW1). Cricket basically had to fight for interest against baseball. Cricket decreased in popularity slowly because of it's lengthy proceedings and resultlessness. In my city, cricket was very significant even till 1980s. Americans played it back then. I read a book called "history of sports in richmond" and it had a section on cricket. We have a few cricket teams that have been around for as much as 4 decades. There is a cricket team called "Babarian cricket club" and it's said to have been started by south africans approximately 40 years ago. It's still around but obviously only people to play on that team are indian, pakistani and bangladeshi nationals now. Another cricket club - Greater Richmond Cricket Club has been around since late 1970s also, the founder of my city was an avid cricketer himself. T20 is a different animal though. fingers crossed. I truely believe, as fantastic as test cricket is, it has contributed to destruction of cricket popularity around the world. I see a new era for the sport with T20

Well i think lot of that interest was because of the British influence earlier- as America drifted further & further away from British likings cricket waned

[Jersey #10]

Well i think lot of that interest was because of the British influence earlier- as America drifted further & further away from British likings cricket waned

Fair enough. I have read that cricket was greatly followed over baseball for some decades until people did not want to spend so much time behind sports (timeless games, if you remember). and let's be honest, test cricket is extremely boring to watch. To add to that, a good chunk of test matches go resultless (draws) after 5 days. That's not much to offer to sports watchers. Britishers were gone by the 1900s. Having said that I think w/e that cricket had to offer in that century was through immigrants of different cricketing countries.

[G_B_]

well look at american sports baseball -originated from rounders /cricket american football is a bastard child of rugby The message is clear American major sports are not going to play British origin games.

[Executioner]

I think it will be great to get amerikaans to like sport. but im more concerned about big masses of people into the game. US are crazy about basketball, baseball and Afootball. So its not going tobe easy. ICC should target spreading the game to masses who do not favour a particular sport: Indonesia and to an exten china. The reason why baseball overtook test cricket because the sport was just dull and sometimes there where no result. T20s however are definitely way more exciting than baseball ever can be. No wonder baseball has such low following in the world

[G_B_]

I think Cricket needs to rely on these ethnic groups -South Asians - West Indians - expat English (first generation) Aussies and South Africans. The best way to get cricket into america is to make it a sport of ivy league universities. Make Oxford v Harvard for eg the highlight of the sporting calender for these two universities. You cant simply say American masses. The fact is America has a 310 million pop. Of which cricket will survive well if 10 million or them (more than population of many sporting countries). As of now I think there are some 3-4 million south Asians in the USA and some 1 million odd WI and 1 million Anglo nation expats. So there is a base to build from

[triam]

The other problem is sports here are completely set in stone. fall -football, winter -basketball and nhl, spring/summer -baseball. Of these 4 baseball is dying (the demographic which watches baseball is older white males), so maybe if cricket could possibly replace basebal, but then baseball is to america the same as apple pie. And USA only likes winners, so if somehow USA gets a 11 going which wins something big in the global scale then cricket will catch on or else very difficult.

[Laaloo]

I think it will be great to get amerikaans to like sport. but im more concerned about big masses of people into the game. US are crazy about basketball, baseball and Afootball. So its not going tobe easy. ICC should target spreading the game to masses who do not favour a particular sport: Indonesia and to an exten china. The reason why baseball overtook test cricket because the sport was just dull and sometimes there where no result. T20s however are definitely way more exciting than baseball ever can be. No wonder baseball has such low following in the world

Baseball has a low following in the world but not in the US. They play 162 games a season and for at least 10 teams in big markets, the stadiums are always sold out. Compare that too Cricket just not the same. Cricket in America will just not work. ICC would do better to improve the quality of the associate nations than getting America involved.

[Jersey #10]

^ICC is stupid...the 12 team T20 wc was the stupidest thing one could have done. From 16 teams in the previous tournament to 12 in the recent one. I would have liked to see 20 teams just for the sake of popularity. Also, Olympics in England was the best time to push cricket in the mix. ICC didn't even try. They basically want these 8 teams to continue playing as long as the money is flowing.