Cricket's imminent return to the Olympic programme for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles continues to raise intrigue. The format has been settled and the pathway is expected to be finalised sooner than later. But there is one big unanswered question. No one is sure where the matches will be played. (More Sports News)
Last October, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members voted to add five new sports -- cricket (men's and women's T20s), baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse and squash -- during the 140th IOC Session in Mumbai.
The T20 format "is making the game fast, full of action and appealing to the younger crowd," said Niccolo Campriani, director of LA Local Organising Committee (LALOG), ahead of the IOC vote.
The legendary Italian shooter who won multiple Olympic gold medals also said that cricket was "easy" to pitch to the IOC because of the sport's popularity and the recent launch of Major League Cricket (MLC) in the USA. Of course, the country also co-hosted the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 with the West Indies.
But 12 months later, cricket remains the only LA28 sport without a venue.
"We don't have a cricket venue in Los Angeles," Casey Wasserman, the chairman of LA28, said following a three-day visit by the IOC's Coordination Commission to check selected venues and track the progress of the preparations.
Wasserman led Los Angeles' bid for the XXXIV Olympiad hosting rights and subsequently became the chair of the Local Organising Committee.
"It's a big footprint, and so we want to find the right place for cricket that has the greatest chance for success," the 50-year-old added. "If we can find a place for cricket in Los Angeles, in the region, we will. If not, it's incumbent upon us to find the best place to produce the best cricket."
The LA28 are still four years away with multiple World Cups scheduled before the start of the Games with the opening ceremony on July 14, 2028. A lot can still happen in the next 1,300+ days. Cricket stadiums can be erected and pitches can also be planted.
Having said that, many emerging reports claimed that Los Angeles will not be the best place to produce the best cricket during the Games for one simple fact: viewership. Remove the Indian sub-continent and cricket ceases to exist, effectively, as a global sport.
It's an open secret that the inclusion of cricket in the Games programme after more than 120 years was done, primarily, to broker lucrative broadcast deals. All that the IOC needs to do is exploit the sport's massive fan following in South Asia. That, however, will happen only when broadcast timing is aligned.
Reports of cricket matches happening in venues other than Los Angeles have started doing the rounds as early as June 2024, months before the Coordination Commission's venue inspection on the Pacific coast.
Representatives of LA28 and the IOC were in New York on a fact-finding mission during the T20 World Cup. That seemingly innocuous move had set tongues wagging, that New York is the preferred venue for the Olympic cricket.
Big Apple's Nassau County Stadium was one of the three American venues, alongside Central Broward Park in Florida and Grand Prairie Stadium in Texas, to get World Cup games. And New York hosted eight matches with all but two fixtures featuring at least one South Asian team. The venue also witnessed the big-ticket, Group A India vs Pakistan clash.
Morning matches in New York (10:00 to 11:00 starts) became primetime shows for viewers in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and even Afghanistan. Teams from these countries will be the ones to look out for when cricket finally makes a return to the Olympic fold after more than a century.
For the record, India is 9.5 hours ahead of New York, and 12.5 hours behind Los Angeles. And Wasserman is aware of this fact. At a recent conference in Texas, he said that LA28's cricket plan is "being drawn up with Indian television viewership in mind." So, cricket could be played some 2,000 miles away from the Games venue.
The larger Californian metropolis does have MLC cricket teams in Los Angeles Knight Riders and San Francisco Unicorns but both are still without a proper playing facility.
