There is a new sport climbing up the popularity ranks in the United States, and it’s one that much of the world is already obsessed with: cricket. The bat-and-ball game, which is deeply rooted in the culture of many South Asian and Australasian countries, is generally considered the world’s second-most popular sport. It is now seeing an unparalleled spike in American fans, which some are taking as a sign that cricket is here to stay.
America’s obsession with cricket may have been cemented by Team USA’s June 6 win over Pakistan at the Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup. Pakistan’s national team is considered one of the most dominant clubs in cricket, and America’s win “was the biggest in U.S. cricket history and is already being regarded as one of the biggest upsets in the sport,” said CNN. But even before this stunning victory, cricket was already gaining fans in the U.S. Why is the sport finally making its way to the states?
How popular is cricket in the United States?
The exact number of players is hard to track. However, nationwide there are at least 400 individual cricket leagues, according to statistics from USA Cricket cited by CBS News. This equates to approximately 200,000 cricket players in the United States, and this figure is expected to continue rising in the coming years.
Also notable are the sheer numbers of fans that are attending cricket matches live. The June 9 Pakistan-India match and the June 12 U.S.-India match, which both took place in Nassau County, New York, each drew more than 34,000 spectators in the stands, according to the International Cricket Council. It also doesn’t hurt that worldwide viewership is among the highest of any sport; more than 400 million people globally watched the Pakistan-India game, The Athletic reported, compared to the 125 million that watched this year’s Super Bowl.
Why is there a sudden surge in popularity?
The names of American cricket stars are “[obscure] in the eyes of most Americans,” and yet the “potential for cricket’s growth in America has never looked stronger,” said The Atlantic. This is partially because of a demographic shift over the past century. While baseball was cemented as America’s national pastime by the early 20th century, in the 1960s, “increased immigration from the West Indies reinvigorated cricket, in the New York region especially; and in the decades that followed, immigration from South Asia also dramatically increased,” The Atlantic said.
Today, there are “more than five million Americans of South Asian descent, the majority being Indian American,” said The Atlantic, though many of them “have almost nowhere local to play or watch the game.” This has created pent-up demand and a new market for American cricket players.
Due to this continued rise in immigration, “perhaps it’s inevitable that international sports eventually find their way into our collective consciousness,” said Vanity Fair. The outlet used the example of Formula 1 racing, which just a few short years ago “was barely a blip on our sporting radar.” But “today, thanks in large part to Netflix’s ‘Drive to Survive,’ tour stops in cities like Austin, Miami and Las Vegas have become the hottest ticket in town.” It is conceivable, then, that a similar trajectory could occur with cricket.
Beyond the average fan of the game, there are also a “coterie of big-money backers including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, and Access Healthcare chairman Anurag Jain” that are looking to increase cricket’s profile, said Vanity Fair. All three “have invested in Major League Cricket, the U.S. men’s pro league that launched with six teams last summer,” which proponents are hoping could boost cricket’s appeal even more. The game will also be featured at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which could further push its ubiquity. “It’s truly a watershed moment for cricket in this country,” cricket reporter Smit Patel said to CBS.
“There’s this kind of growing embracing of what has been a global sport except for the United States’ participation,” Jay Coakley, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs who studies global migration and sports, said to the Christian Science Monitor. But “I don’t see cricket just entering the U.S. like a waterfall here. I see it more like a stream.”