A new sport is climbing the popularity ranks in the U.S., and it's one that much of the world is already obsessed with: cricket. The bat-and-ball game, rooted in the culture of many South Asian and Australasian countries, is now seeing a spike in American fans.
America's interest may have been cemented by Team USA's June 6 win over Pakistan at the Men's T20 Cricket World Cup. The win is the "biggest in U.S. cricket history and is already being regarded as one of the biggest upsets in the sport," said CNN.Â
How popular is cricket in the US? Nationwide, there are at least 400 individual cricket leagues, according to statistics from USA Cricket. This equates to approximately 200,000 cricket players in the U.S., a figure that's expected to rise.Â
Scores of fans are attending cricket matches live. The June 9 Pakistan-India match and the June 12 U.S.-India match, both of which took place in New York, each drew more than 34,000 spectators. And worldwide viewership was among the highest of any sport. More than 400 million people globally watched the Pakistan-India game, The Athletic reported, compared to the 125 million that watched this year's Super Bowl.Â
Why the surge in popularity? Cricket's growth is due partially to a demographic shift over the past century. While baseball was cemented as America's national pastime by the early 20th century, in the 1960s, "increased immigration from the West Indies reinvigorated cricket … and in the decades that followed, immigration from South Asia also dramatically increased," said The Atlantic.
Today, there are "more than 5 million Americans of South Asian descent," said The Atlantic, and many of them have "almost nowhere local to play or watch the game." This has created pent-up demand.
Due to this continued rise in immigration, "perhaps it's inevitable that international sports eventually find their way into our collective consciousness," said Vanity Fair. For example, Formula 1 racing was "barely a blip on our sporting radar" just a few years ago. Also putting cricket on everyone's radar in a few years: The sport will be featured at the 2028 Summer Olympics. |