Jan 31, 2022
Fresh off his appearance on last
month's
Year-End Holiday Roundtable Spectacular, fellow defunct sports
enthusiast Steve Holroyd returns to the show for a dive into the
deep end of the "forgotten sports" pool, with a look back at the
little-remembered, but ahead-of-its-time Pro Cricket from
2004.
An attempt to quickly capitalize
on the venerable sport's faster-paced Twenty20 format launched in
England a year earlier, Pro Cricket was essentially a rogue
creation formed outside of cricket's US and international
sanctioning bodies - featuring eight teams in a three-month summer
season played largely in minor league baseball stadiums across the
country.
Crowds were sparse, mainstream
sports media attention was minimal, television coverage (Dish
Network PPV) was limited, and sustaining funds (supposedly three
seasons' worth) were quickly exhausted.
Yet, the play was surprisingly
competitive (a smattering of international stars played; the San
Francisco Freedom defeated the New Jersey Fire for the only title),
and cricket enthusiasts were inspired at the potential the game
could ultimately have in the States, once "done right."
That chance could come again
next summer, when the new Major League Cricket launches.
Replete with at least one
purpose-built stadium (the soon-to-be-converted minor league
baseball AirHogs Stadium in Grand Prairie, TX), and backed by a
blue-chip roster of investors including media giant Times of India
Group and tech backers like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe
Chairman/CEO Shantanu Narayen - MLC promises to bring "world-class
T20" to the States, nearly twenty years after Pro Cricket sowed the
first seeds.