Tag Archives: cricket

The 2nd Most Popular Sport in the World is Coming to America (Kick Started By a Billion Dollar Investment)

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday we highlighted a list detailing the top 10 most popular sports in the world and many expressed surprise that cricket appeared in second place (after soccer). The post coincided with England winning the cricket World Cup in the most exciting of finishes, arguably in the history of the sport.

Ad the sport is coming to America courtesy of a $1 billion investment from the founders of Willow TV and Satyan Gajwani and Vineet Jain, the principals of The Times of India Group.

As reported by Forbes, “USA Cricket [] revealed it had selected American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) as its strategic partner for the development of a professional T20 tournament in the U.S.”

The post added “ACE said it would work to develop additional turf cricket pitches and auxiliary facilities in more than a dozen locations in a bid for cricket to stage major domestic and international cricket. Boasting the world’s biggest sports market, cricket power brokers have long viewed the U.S. as an untapped gold mine.”

In other news, USA Cricket announced the national team coaching is being restructured.

As they say in cricket, howzat!

Kings XI Punjab are Biggest IPL Spender

Posted on by
Reply

Source: Statista

The Indian Premier League just kicked off this weekend and cricket fans all over the country are excited for their favorite team’s big matches. There are many aspects that can influence a team’s performance throughout a season. Luck is certainly one of them, but money is the next obvious consideration.

As far as spending on new players goes, Kings XI Punjab were on top of the league last season with 674.0 million rupees (US$9.8 million) in 2018 auction spending, according to consultancy firm Duff and Phelps. The Rajasthan Royals spent 658.5 million rupees (US$9.5 million) and were followed by the Kolkata Knight Riders with 590 million rupees (US$8.6 million) in spending. In the 2019 auction, Kings XI also paid the top sum of 85.9 million rupees for Varun Chakravarthy. The Rajasthan Royals paid the same sum for Jaydev Unadkat.

Kings XI Punjab spent even more money on their marquee player Axar Patel in 2018, who cost 125 million rupees but is changing to the Delhi Daredevils this season, as well as KL Rahul, who cost 110 million rupees and is staying with the team.