In a major push to popularise cricket within the US, $120 million funding has been secured from outstanding Indian-American enterprise leaders, together with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, to launch the primary skilled T20 league within the US.
Main League Cricket (MLC), the primary skilled Twenty20 Cricket League within the US, introduced on Thursday that it has accomplished an preliminary shut of a $44 million Collection A and A1 fundraising spherical led by a bunch of America’s main enterprise leaders.
It mentioned that with an extra dedication of $76 million in additional fundraising over the following 12 months in place, MLC plans to deploy greater than $120 million to launch the nation’s first-ever skilled T20 league.
The investor teams for the Collection A and A1 fundraising spherical, which incorporates MLC’s seed funding spherical, had been led by Nadella amongst others.
“The numerous funding dedicated by an impressive group of traders will enable Main League Cricket to construct first-class services and speed up the game’s improvement throughout the nation, bringing world-class skilled cricket to the world’s largest sports activities market,” Main League Cricket co-founders Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan mentioned.
This investor group contains main enterprise executives and profitable tech entrepreneurs who’ve led among the world’s most outstanding corporations. “They create super expertise and experience in assist of MLC’s plans to launch a transformative Twenty20 league and set up the US as one of many world’s main properties for worldwide cricket occasions,” they mentioned.
Nadella has mentioned that rising up in India, cricket was one in every of his “passions” and “taking part in cricket taught me extra about working in groups and management that has stayed with me all through my profession”.
He performed cricket competitively as a member of his faculty’s staff and has mentioned that he enjoys watching Take a look at cricket, which is the longest type of any sport on this planet.
MLC mentioned that the $120 million funding will primarily be devoted to constructing premier cricket-specific stadia and coaching centres to develop a brand new era of American star cricketers.
The opposite traders embrace Madrona Enterprise Group MD Soma Somasegar, founding companions at Milliways Ventures and Rocketship VC Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, chairman of Infinite Laptop Options Zyter Sanjay Govi and managing companion of Perot Jain.
Extra Collection A spherical traders embrace Akamai co-founder Preetish Nijhawan, Accenture MD Sankar Kaliaperumal and director at Meta and former Microsoft govt Dhigha Sekaran.
MLC, which is completely sanctioned by USA Cricket, represents essentially the most bold and transformational enterprise ever undertaken within the US cricket panorama.
Centered on staging world-class Twenty20 cricket for American cricket followers, MLC will characteristic prime gamers from across the globe and supply a stage for home cricketers to showcase their skills to a world viewers.
Because the ICC’s member physique for the US, USA Cricket has chosen MLC as its unique companion for the event of the deliberate T20 league.
MLC may even present assist for each the USA’s Males’s and Girls’s groups, with the objective of elevating them to the very best degree of worldwide competitors. In 2024, the US will co-host the ICC Males’s T20 World Cup alongside the West Indies.