Mumbai Indians, owned by Reliance Industries Limited, has announced that it has acquired the fifth cricket franchise – ‘MI New York’ for the New York team of Major League Cricket (MLC).
Major League Cricket would be the first professional Twenty20 cricket championship in the United States. The inaugural season of Major League Cricket will begin in the summer of 2023. The first season will take place over three weeks at Grand Prairie Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas, near Dallas.
The tournament is a professional Twenty20 cricket tournament operated by American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) and sanctioned by USA Cricket. The league is likely to start in July and will have six teams named after American cities. The tournament will be a single entity.
Neeta, director of Reliance Industries. M. Ambani said, “I am thrilled to welcome our New York franchise to the growing MI family. With our entry into the first T20 franchise cricket league in the US, I am hopeful that we will be able to establish Mumbai Indians as a global brand of fearless and entertaining cricket. This is another new beginning for us and I look forward to the exciting journey ahead.”
The team will be the fifth franchise after Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League, MI Cape Town in the SA20 League, MI Emirates in the ILT20 League and Mumbai Indians in the Women’s Premier League.
But some of these cricket leagues which have been launched recently have received a lukewarm response from the Indian audience. According to a recent story by Mint, Indian audiences are keen to watch only Indian Premier League and Legends League cricket. According to viewership data received from Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) subscribers, the opening match of the last Legends League Cricket (LLC) – a T20 cricket tournament featuring recently retired cricketers – recorded a TV rating or TVR of 0.51- per cent The spectators watched the entire match. This took into account the current TV universe size of 800 million in 210 million addressable TV homes.
In comparison, the opening matches of Big Bash League, Pakistan Super League and SAT20 recorded a TVR of 0.05 each. Caribbean Premier League was at 0.01 while Lanka Premier League could get 0.04 TVR for the opening match.
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