MINY Delivered on the Field. Now It Must Deliver in New York.
With two championships in hand after a dramatic playoff run in 2025, the franchise faces a new challenge: putting down real roots in a cornerstone sports market
It was over. Then it wasn’t. Then it was SO OVER. Then ehh, I don’t know, still feels like a game. It’s Joever. Well, hang on, maybe not. Oh s—t!
At the end of a rollercoaster grand final between New York and Washington that lived up to its title, a team that won three games in the regular season and qualified for the playoffs with a negative net run rate became MLC’s first two-time champion as well as the only team to win a playoff game in 2025.
I picked MI New York to win the league this season before it began, but I will not take a victory lap. The entire postseason felt like a fever dream.
There were moments in every game where it seemed like New York could be beaten, should be beaten, and they found an answer for every single one of them while their opponents spiraled. San Francisco’s general collapse that coincided with batting heroics from Trent Boult to stave off a similar disaster for MINY. Pollard and Pooran obliterating Zia-ul-Haq after he missed a half-chance to get Pollard out when Texas had the pair on the ropes. A 16-7 collapse that was staunched by a handy 22* from Kunwarjeet Singh. Boult getting two wickets in the first over. Ugarkar knocking over a teetering partnership by getting Rachin Ravindra out, then snagging Glenn Maxwell in the final few balls of the grand final. (THIS IS WHY YOU PLAY THE KIDS SEATTLE okay I’m done that’s the last time I promise)
Oh, Glenn Maxwell. Bruh. That’s a whole other article. I might even write it, given Washington’s mismanaged bowling attack and their languid chase that was almost DOA before hope was restored by Ravindra and Edwards… then Maxwell failed to hit a boundary with the team needing 24 off 12 (and later 12 off six) to deliver the Freedom a second straight title.
But New York still had to capitalize on all those openings, and they did that better than any of their opponents. They got an MVP-caliber performance from Trent Boult, a starring role for Monank Patel, and a breakout for 22 year old Rushil Ugarkar - all things that probably needed to happen for Nicholas Pooran to get a ring after his captaincy started with two of the most important players in the setup declaring they weren’t coming. (Not that the current government would have let them in, anyway.)
For Major League Cricket, the grand final was a win. It was a perfect distillation of the T20 game, with an endless wellspring of drama and plot twists that came down to the final moments. It was exhilarating sports television in front of a large crowd (by US cricket standards) that gave the whole thing a sense of culmination and gravitas. It felt like the game had stakes and meant something in a way that is often elusive in franchise cricket. If Johnny Grave was looking for something to brand the league with, this was it. If people were trying to introduce new fans to the sport with this game, MLC got some new fans.
It would be nice if some of those were in New York.
The Razors don’t move the needle at all in America’s biggest sports market; granted, that takes a lot of time, effort, and money, but that’s what you get for buying a franchise in America’s biggest sports market. MINY has been pretty low-key on any actual ties to New York outside of a couple of clever T-shirt designs. (I’m not being snarky, I do actually like them!) Social media graphics produced by the team for the grand final displayed two start times: Central Daylight Time (the time in Dallas) and Indian Standard Time.
New York is, very notably, in neither of those time zones.
The image MINY projects is very clearly aimed at the fans of their parent team in India rather than a domestic audience here in the United States, and if the Indian diaspora in DFW or Oakland wants to come out and support them, hey, great, here’s a bucket hat and a shirt and a flag, but that’s not who this team is for. Not only is this a misread of the American sports market in general, it could become a serious problem for the league if it’s not addressed.
New York City has a reach and influence far beyond its own market, as evidenced by the scores of Yankees and occasional Giants fans scattered across the country. It’s one of the taste-makers of American sports along with Boston and Chicago, but since neither of the other two have representation in MLC (yet), a lot is riding on New York’s success and establishment as something authentic. A team in our largest city cannot be a prestige/content farm for an audience on the other side of the world if the sport is going to take off here. New York must be at the sharp end of innovation and leading by example. Failure means New York is just a label, interchangeable with any city in America and representative of none. It could be MI Omaha. MI Tallahassee. MI Steubenville. Nothing would change.
Even with multiple championships in hand, there is so much the brand is leaving on the table that failure looks closer than success.
Part of the issue is the lack of a US-based member of the ownership group: MINY is wholly owned by Indiawin Sports, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries where the Ambani family holds absolute power. (They’re impossible to miss at Mumbai Indians games with their large plush seats on the boundary.) There is no “on the ground” partner the way that GMR Group (Dehli Capitals) has with the ultra-visible Satya Nadella in the ownership of the Seattle Orcas. Chennai partnered with Anurag Jain, someone who loves both Dallas and cricket and wants to see the two tied together. It helps his cause that the Super Kings have a true home stadium in Grand Prairie, but stadium building and brand building are not the same thing.
Seattle and Washington hosted watch parties at bars in their local markets this season; Seattle had players make a promotional appearance at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health as part of a new sponsorship deal they signed in April. These don’t seem like big things, but they make teams feel real. Seattle players are out and about in team gear; Washington logos hang in a DC Liverpool pub. BART staff dressed up in Unicorns gear for the Oakland leg. Those things build relationships with fans, business partners, and communities that make teams feel like part of the fabric of a city. That’s essential for any market, but especially New York, and if someone like, say, an extravagantly wealthy family with a global business empire isn’t living here, it’s not something they would pick up on.
One investor who can be a visible year-round face and advocate for MI New York could be transformational not just for the franchise, but for MLC. Getting New York bought into a hometown cricket team is a fast and effective way to get eyeballs on the sport nationwide. The MI brand doesn’t have broad-spectrum appeal by default, but it doesn’t have to stay that way, and this team does not have to go the way of Chivas USA; if anything, two championships show they are more than capable of the opposite. To fulfill the potential of both the brand and the market, though, Johnny Grave (or someone) has to convince the MI empire to let in one or two new partners and give them a measure of control to flesh out the franchise’s stateside presence. It’s unlikely the iron will get much hotter in the eyes of potential investors.
In a year where everything that could go wrong did, MI New York’s players stepped up and delivered a championship anyway. Now it’s up to the people who ponied up the money to operate in America’s largest market to make their achievement matter to the folks they claim to represent. If they can’t or won’t, why even have New York in the name? Does MI Status Symbol not have the same ring to it?
Thanks for reading Stumps & Stripes! I am shaping plenty of content for the MLC off-season, Minor League Cricket coverage, and the state of US Cricket as decision day looms in Singapore later this week. If you enjoyed this piece, I hope you’ll consider a free email subscription. Subs are free and will stay free; I’m doing this for the love of the game. If I didn’t love the game, I would have given up after a week. Stay tuned for more!