NEW YORK: USA Cricket has reaffirmed their intentions to launch a "Minor League" T20 franchise tournament for later this summer that includes teams based in major metropolitan areas from New York to Los Angeles, a precursor to a full-scale "Major League" T20 franchise tournament in 2021.
San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. are among the other locations touted in a USA Cricket press release on Thursday announcing the plans being propelled by USA Cricket's commercial league partner, American Cricket Enterprises.
"One of the reasons that ACE was selected to partner with USA Cricket to develop a professional T20 League was that it demonstrated an understanding of the importance of addressing various fundamental issues within the domestic game in the United States," said USA Cricket chief executive Iain Higgins. "We welcome the significant investment and endeavor that has been put into the development of this exciting new national competition as a building block towards the creation of a fully professional T20 league in the future.
"Whilst there are operational details still to be worked out, we are thrilled to see the amount of progress already made. We look forward to Minor League Cricket delivering a regular diet of competitive domestic cricket and new playing opportunities for domestic cricketers up and down the country in 2020, as the ambitious plans for Major League Cricket continue to be developed in parallel."
Other cities listed as part of the league that have not traditionally hosted national-level cricket events in the USA which are touted to be host sites for franchises are Sacramento, Austin and St. Louis. Meanwhile, the Raleigh, North Carolina suburb of Morrisville will host a team thanks to its multi-million dollar venue at Church Street Park, which will be the site of the national championship on Labor Day weekend in September. However, the Florida facility listed on the franchise league web site is multi-sports facility Brian Piccolo Park in the suburb of Cooper City, not the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, the only ODI certified turf wicket venue in the USA.
Also a surprising omission from the list of franchise cities is Indianapolis. The city's $6 million USD World Sports Park turf wicket venue championed by former Indianapolis Mayor Gregory A. Ballard was used frequently by USA Cricket Association and ICC Americas officials as a host venue for multiple tournaments from its opening in 2015 through 2017.