Star-spangled visions

NZC wants a slice of American Pie, PLUS: If you read one sports story this weekend, make it the one linked to below

With a large South Asian diaspora, the World T20 was greeted enthusiastically in the USA last year. Getty Images

Here’s a sentence or three issued by New Zealand Cricket for you to ponder:

“Over the past months, we have advanced discussions with USA Cricket regarding the structure of our relationship, and both parties are very happy with how this is taking shape.

“We are looking to help introduce cricket to a wider audience, and to attract new investment into the sport. It is widely accepted there is significant commercial opportunity for cricket within the USA market, and the introduction [of] such investment would greatly assist the overall development and growth of cricket in the USA, which would be great for the game.”

The words were attributed to NZC’s CEO and they were from February… but they’re not from Scott Weenink and the year was not 2025. Nope, the author of those vague and optimistic words was Justin Vaughan and America was about to be cracked in 2010, which — quickly checks fingers and toes — was a decade-and-a-half ago.

USA’s cricket administration was an unholy mess then and apart from a few largely ignored bilateral matches at Lauderhill in Florida, it was hard to ascertain whether any symbiotic benefits arose from that courtship.

Perhaps because of this, The Bounce was naturally inclined towards scepticism when it noted that NZC had again bought into the American Dream™, this time through direct investment into the nascent Major League Cricket. It was especially cynical when parsing the following.

“As franchise cricket grows globally, NZC needs to adapt to seize strategic opportunities that ensure the sustainability of our cricket network. This helps diversify our revenue streams, expands our global brand and fan base and creates new talent development and retention pathways for both our players and coaches.”

That’s a classic PowerPoint slide fit for board directors and institutional investors with a spectacular lack of curiosity only. For the average fan it’s just another excuse to eye-roll at blather and if that’s where it ended I’d be tempted to print it out only for the satisfaction of screwing it up and tossing it in the bin. In fairness to the very corporate Weenink, however, he has fleshed out NZC’s thinking in subsequent interviews.