MLC: The objective is to obtain cricket in the NCAA, explains the CEO of Seattle Orcas Hemant Dua | Cricket news

New Delhi: Seattle Orcas CEO, Hemant Dua, believes that the United States’s victory over Pakistan at the T20 2024 World Cup played a central role in helping the cricket to obtain its first foot in the door. The victory helped USA Cricket to take an important initial stage towards achieving an objective, which, in the situation as a whole, is to make popular sport in a country where it is in an unusual territory.“Cricket has grown up overall. It has always been on the straps for a very long time here, but it was more amateur in the United States. The cricket board has gone through many challenges. I think the CIC began to invest in it and see Cricket in the United States as the border they want to conquer,” Dua told Timesofindia.com.

“The 2024 World Cup came, it behaved very well and had an enormous impact from an economic point of view. It helped cricket to some extent, certainly because the United States beating Pakistan were like a dream come true for the United States; this helped the growth of cricket,” he said.Dua claims that with the cricket of the major league (MLC) successfully entering its third season, the next objective is to bring cricket into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) so that the sport is in the dominant current.“In large part, cricket is played by the South Asians and a little of the Commonwealth population such as the English, the South Africans and all those. He has not yet really entered the dominant current, and the challenge remains: how to do it a general public sport, particularly focused on young people and colleges,” he said.“In the United States, unlike other parts of the world, if you are not part of the university system, sport does not really grow. You know, because university sport is the basis of growth here for everything, right? So, this is how all sports grow in this direction. Once you are part of NCAA, you grow automatically; this is how sport grows.“Ideally, this should be the next step, but it is a combination where everyone will have to come on the same platform. When I say everyone, I mean USA Cricket, MLC, Minor League Cricket, all must come on the same platform, and one of the biggest challenges to be part of university sports is title IX. The title IX means that you must have an equivalent or a form of cricket game for women, right? Without female sport, you do not get recognition.“In my region, which is the northwest of the Pacific, there are girls who play regularly, so we try to grow. I mean, there are various leagues that appeared at U-19 and U-16 levels for boys and girls. Boys’ sport increases, but that’s a small number, “he said.With the cricket finding a place at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, Dua hopes that most MLC franchises will have their own cricket stadium, and this will pass the cricket to the next level.“What will have a huge impact is now that the six teams will have their own ready stadium. This is part of the contract with MLC that each team will build their stadium by 2028. With the Olympic Games in 2028, there will be noise where people will learn more about sport, “he said.For the expansion of cricket in the United States, the franchises also benches on targeting the Indian population.“If you look at the population, around 20 million South Asian Asia live in the United States. This is a fairly large number. Indians have the most born individuals. The Indian income group is much higher compared to the average income group in the United States, so there is a spending capacity there. So can we exploit this, can we exploit this dream? “He said.Dua, which has been part of the Delhi daredessman (now Delhi Capitals) for ten years since the creation of the Indian Premier (IPL) in 2008, admitted that the six franchises are currently making losses, but he firmly believes that the MLC as a product was durable in the largest scheme of things.“Everyone makes losses in the MLC now. Even in IPL, for 10 years, everyone has made losses until the 11th year dissemination contract arrives on the ground,” he said.