Should MLC Be In Charge of American Cricket? USA Cricket Seems to Think So

USAC has outsourced the heavy lifting of making cricket a spectator sport to pro leagues. Those pro leagues should have a greater say in whatever structure comes next.

On Friday, USA Cricket revealed that it doesn’t have a full-time media relations person. It didn’t have to say it had no media relations person to admit it had no media relations person, because it produced one of the most embarrassing press releases I think I have ever seen from a sports organization, and that told me all I needed to know.

The bizarrely titled “USA Cricket update to membership: Relationship with American Cricket Enterprises” says that on June 24, the board asked American Cricket Enterprises (ACE), which operates both Major League Cricket and Minor League Cricket, for updates on its commitments to financially support domestic cricket and US national team players. It ends with this doozy:

On June 24, 2025, USA Cricket has formally communicated certain concerns to ACE and requested timely and transparent responses. This includes, but is not limited to, ACE’s contractual obligations to financially support the USA National Teams and to develop critical cricket infrastructure as envisioned by the contract. We are hoping for a favorable outcome to these discussions.

This is a textbook shakedown, except for the part where the shakedown needs to be kept quiet so the public doesn’t know you’re shaking someone down. It’s also not the first time USA Cricket has shaken MLC down for more money, holding up sanctioning in 2023 in an attempt to get more than the 5% cut of revenue the board agreed to in 2019. They are not slick, as my wife would say to our cat as she snoops around our dinner.

The release is so awkward and so transparent in what it aims to achieve that it’s hard to interpret it as anything other than a desperate attempt to cast the blame for the state of American cricket infrastructure on someone else. It never should have been written. USA Cricket has nothing to lose, though, because a week after they did this, word got out that the ICC was considering suspending USA Cricket and demanding the resignation of the entire current board with the USOPC backing them up. So why not air your dirty laundry and see if it nets you anything? Have a hoick in the final overs, as it were.

According to the release, ACE is obligated to build stadiums, financially support the national teams, and help develop infrastructure to support the game’s growth in the United States.

I don’t know about you, but that list of responsibilities strikes me as very… governing body-ish.

MLC isn’t exactly pouring cold water on that either. CEO Johnny Grave had a very insightful interview with Nikhil Uttamchandani and Danny Morrison before the final game of the regular season between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Sunday night in which he mentioned a desire to secure a longer-term arrangement in Oakland - though he would not be drawn on Morrison asking about a potential five-year deal - launching a companion T20 league for women, and the clincher for me: booking more matches for the national teams against high-level cricket countries, including Full Members, including getting them on US soil, to get a better sense of the standard of the domestic talent pool. The way Grave spoke made it sound like MLC and ACE are ready to spearhead those efforts, so if the middle man is already on the way out in a few weeks, why not invest the real power where the de facto power already rests?

Someone floated this idea on Reddit when all the suspension talk started to percolate, and I wasn’t sold. I am still not sold. The idea of handing governance over to MLC’s ownership and investment consortium is loaded with potential conflicts of interest and would put them in a position of responsibility for a bunch of granular stuff they didn’t sign up for. The desire for change is easy to understand, though, given that MLC seems to be much better-run overall than USAC and, while it has had plenty of growing pains and still will for another few years, it has shown a path to sustained growth that the current USAC board has failed to capitalize on and is now making a feeble final attempt to tear down.

Turning ACE or MLC into a governing body isn’t the solution, but it’s clear that governing cricket in the United States needs a rethink that takes the growth of the sport more seriously and involves the professional ranks more extensively. The US Soccer Federation gives its pro leagues a representative on the board of directors (one each for MLS, the NWSL, and the USL), while USA Hockey stays out of the professional side of things all together, leaving that to the NHL and doing the groundwork of growing player numbers, training officials and coaches, and high-performance youth development that helps bolster the World Championship and Olympic teams (and, as luck would have it, the NHL). Both models allow professional leagues to take on greater leadership roles for their sports, either by giving them a direct voice in the process of governance or ensuring that the two parties have completely separate domains that collaborate only occasionally. Either would be better than what we have now.

Most of these pro T20 leagues didn’t exist 10 years ago, and MLC has only been an idea for about six and played for three, but pro cricket is here to stay regardless of what it looks like going forward. It’s time for the professionals - both players and ownership - to have a serious voice in how and to what end the game is managed in the United States, and that will no doubt come up over the ensuing weeks and months, especially once some kind of verdict is handed down in Singapore.

I am hoping for a favorable outcome to these discussions.

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Thanks for reading Stumps & Stripes! I’ll have more MLC coverage throughout the week as the playoffs bring us to the end of an action-packed year. If you’d like to read more about the state of USA Cricket and its impending turmoils, I wrote this piece last week:

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