Six teams owned by top global sporting bodies are participating in the inaugural Major League Cricket (MLC) tournament in the U.S., which kicked off on Thursday.
The Los Angeles Knight Riders team is owned by Shah Rukh Khan’s Knight Riders Group, which also operates teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the Caribbean Premier League and the U.A.E.’s International League T20 (ILT). The MI New York team is owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Mumbai Indians, which also operates a team in the ILT. The Seattle Orcas is owned by the GMR Group, which also has IPL and ILT teams.
India’s Chennai Super Kings IPL franchise owns the Texas Super Kings, while the San Francisco Unicorns and Washington Freedom are owned by Australia’s Cricket Victoria and Cricket New South Wales respectively.
The games will be played at the Grand Prairie stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas and Church Street Park, Morrisville, North Carolina.
MLC is co-founded by entrepreneurs of Indian origin Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan.
Cricket is big business as evidenced by the $6.2 billion payout by Ambani’s Viacom18 and Disney for digital and broadcast rights respectively to five seasons of the IPL. The inaugural MLC season is being broadcast live across major cricketing nations, including Australia (Fox), the Caribbean (SportsMax), New Zealand (Sky NZ), Pakistan (A Sports), South Africa (SuperSport), U.K. (BT Sport), Willow TV (U.S.) and Viacom18 (India).
The startup tournament has attracted top cricketers. They include Afghanistan T20 captain Rashid Khan, Pakistan’s Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf, South African internationals Faf du Plessis and David Miller, West Indians Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell, Australians Marcus Stoinis and Aaron Finch, England’s Jason Roy and New Zealand’s Trent Boult.
The first game of the season was won by Texas Super Kings. They beat the Los Angeles Knight Riders.
