When Soma Somasegar was watching matches unfold in the Dallas area for the inaugural season of Major League Cricket (MLC), he met an 85-year-old Indian woman who flew in from San Francisco.
The woman told Somasegar she watched cricket growing up but after she left India and came to the U.S., she thought her days of watching live cricket were over. When she learned a pro cricket league was launching its first season, nothing was going to stop her from flying to Dallas to watch the San Francisco Unicorns play Seattle.
Somasegar, the managing director at Madrona Venture Group and co-owner of the MLC's Seattle Orcas, recalls the woman putting aside her San Francisco loyalty to root for the Orcas.
"I think she was being nice to me, so that's OK," Somasegar said.
The first season of MLC has been a commercial success, according to the Seattle Orcas' ownership group. Over two-thirds of the matches have been sold out, and the demand for playoffs tickets exceeded stadium capacity. CBS has even started broadcasting some games.
For the game to see long-term success in the U.S., however, the ownership group says building a pipeline from youth to adulthood is crucial. Somasegar envisions a future where 10-year-old kids have cricket as an option for sports much like basketball, baseball and football.
For former Microsoft and Avalara executive Sanjay Parthasarathy, another Seattle Orcas co-owner, developing domestic cricket talent leads to having a U.S. team that can compete on the national stage and draw attention from fans around the country. Getting kids interested in the Seattle area, he added, will require indoor facilities and academies due to the rain.
Cricket seems to already be gaining momentum with the younger generation in the U.S. Parthasarathy said a kid about 8 years old had driven 45 minutes with his uncle to watch famous Afghan cricket player Rashid Khan, who plays for MLC's New York City team.
According to the league, there are an estimated 2.5 billion cricket fans around the world. With a large number of immigrants in the Seattle area from cricket-loving countries like India, Pakistan and New Zealand, Somasegar said there is an appetite for the sport regionally. He added that there are about 250 to 300 amateur teams in the Seattle area, including roughly 40 to 50 women-only teams.
Parthasarathy, who played cricket in college and was considering playing for the Indian national team before coming to the U.S. for grad school, said he is more involved on the cricket side, while Somasegar is more involved on the business side.
The league started July 13 and culminated this weekend in a four-team playoff with Seattle as the top seed. The Orcas lost in the finals to New York.
League play is usually shorter than traditional American sports leagues because players compete on a variety of national teams and different leagues, and leagues try not to overlap so they can share the best players. Parthasarathy said signing players is complicated because the players need permission from their countries and visas.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is another co-owner of the Orcas, along with Icertis co-founder and CEO Samir Bodas and GreatPoint Ventures Managing Partner Ashok Krishnamurthi. The Orcas partnered with the Delhi Capitals, a franchise in the Indian Premier League, and the team's co-owner GMR Group to help build the team. Other teams in MLC are located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, New York City and Washington, D.C.
This season, teams played all their games in the Dallas area and Morrisville, North Carolina. The Dallas-area stadium was a proof of concept, Somasegar said, but the team is working to build a 20-acre cricket venue in Marymoor Park in Redmond that would hold up to 6,000 people. He added that the hope is to have the stadium ready for the 2025 season.
