"There are three forms of cricket. Five day tests, fifty overs and twenty overs," Steve Waugh once said to me, "Twenty20 is about to be big in America soon." I really don't want to disagree with him here but I don't see that happening. However I think there is definitely room for cricket to slowly muscle its way into the American sports conciousness. Though it may seem like America has determined what to follow there is always room for more.
Certainly our country will always find fascination in new forms of sport every few decades. NASCAR and MMA have experienced huge booms in the last ten years. It was thanks to some very clever marketing and strategic connections to popular brands that pushed these sports into the national spotlight. MMA has eclipsed boxing in terms of coverage and popularity, partially as a result of branding itself as modern. NASCAR has been around for a long time but was, I believe, considered a fringe sport for many years. In the early 00s there was a jump in popularity which led to a lot more national coverage. These are just two recent examples, but it is a positive sign for cricket fans. There is room.
The problem with cricket is that we view it as too foreign yet vaguely familiar. Since too many similarities exist between baseball and cricket it would be hard for most of us to accept both on a significant level. While some sports are seemingly fading fast, like hockey, it isn't likely that baseball will face a drop in popularity. I've been told it's like "weird baseball" but honestly I don't like that description. Cricket is cricket. Trying to learn cricket by comparing it to baseball confused me to no end. When I stopped trying to learn the rules in relation to baseball I finally started getting a handle of what I was seeing. While some of the terminology may be the same, the differences are great.
I will agree with Steve Waugh in one respect, if there is a form of cricket that could ever be popular in America it would be T20. The idea of Test cricket is too much for our American minds. At least at first. T20 is the perfect length and format for audiences over here to get their heads around. It's a bite-size chunk of cricket. Considering the growth of this form of cricket in recent years it would also let America in on the thing of the moment. T20 is something this nation could understand given time. Perhaps after America gets a handle on the limited overs stuff the idea of Test cricket would make sense.
The best way to accomplish this would be the same way that soccer has found success, and that is a slow youth oriented process. Soccer had always been present in America with a small amount of awareness and care. In the 70s the North American Soccer League tried to bring the sport to the national stage by bringing in the biggest names in the world. Ultimately that league was a failure thanks to trying to do too much from the start. So the focus shifted to the youth. At all levels of school soccer was available right alongside traditional sports, and so children grew up playing the game. This generation of children had no place to continue following soccer when they got older, especially since foreign sports were impossible to find at the time. This, coupled with the 1994 World Cup, led to the formation of Major League Soccer in the early 90s. MLS started off slow with each team focusing on its own market in an effort to build awareness. Once the MLS had been operating for a few years they started to receive coverage on ESPN, with the championship game being broadcast on NBC. Games in certain markets routinely pull very large crowds, particularly areas with no other major teams. It was a slow process that took dozens of years, but the success of MLS shows that "foreign" sports can succeed.
So how could cricket follow this model? The first step is for enthusiasts to form youth leagues, which will teach children the rules and create an attachment for the sport. This would be best done in areas that don't have many major league teams in other sports. With the awareness created through youth teams a generation of children would grow up following cricket. If the demand became great enough a proper league could form over here. Those that had grown up with the game would have a lifetime of practice, and a league would allow further development of their skills. With success would come acceptance. There is always resistance to that which is new or that which is foreign, but if enough people cared then it wouldn't matter what the bullheaded folk say.
Not everyone is as open-minded as myself when it comes to sports. I'm willing to give it a shot. If there's a passionate following somewhere in the world for it, there must be a pretty damn good reason why. I found that out about cricket at The Ashes. If only the rest of America could have a similar experience.
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