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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3462-874X

Abstract

This article examines Major League Cricket (MLC), an American professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket franchise league which began in July 2023 with a sold-out match at Grand Prairie Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas. The fans in attendance were predominantly immigrants from South Asia, a region where cricket is the dominant sport. MLC’s connection to South Asia, however, extends beyond domestic U.S. fandom, as four of the league’s six franchises are operated by Indian Premier League (IPL) teams. Here, the IPL is expanding operations into the U.S. market, leveraging the recognizable branding of the league’s teams to offer the nascent MLC a sense of authenticity. I read MLC as a dynamic example of glocalization, a concept that explains how global entities adapt their products to local cultures and markets. Drawing on fieldnotes taken at Grand Prairie Stadium during MLC’s inaugural season, I articulate how professional cricket is “glocalized” in America through the league’s innovative hybridization of U.S. and South Asian culture. MLC uses cricket’s shortened T20 format, a postmodern reimagining of the sport specifically designed for corporatization, commercialization, spectacularization, and celebritization. These are the core components of what David L. Andrews theorizes as America’s uber-sport assemblage, which positions elite sport as both a mass entertainment product and a vehicle for capital accumulation. Often derided as an “Americanization” of the sport by traditionalists, franchise T20 cricket comes full circle with the establishment of MLC: an IPL outpost in the heartland of contemporary capitalism.

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