Times of India/Willow TV Joint Venture to produce USA T20 League

USA Cricket have announced that American Cricket Enterprises (ACE), a joint venture between Willow TV and Times of India Principals, will be funding the proposed T20 franchise based league in USA, besides promoting domestic cricket structure in the country as well.

After the formation of new Board of Directors and reinstatement of the Cricket Board, USA Cricket Chairman Paraag Marathe (President of 49ers Enterprise and also Executive Vice-President of NFL franchise, 49ers) will be delighted at the development, that will aid in the creation of the professional domestic T20 competition. USA, having secured ODI status until 2022 ICC World Cup Qualifiers will also provide the much needed boost to create a professional domestic structure in the country, where so far, the national and U19 squad selections have been done by organising combines trials for players from all states.

Currently, the only ICC approved T20 tournament running in the country is the US Open T20 tournament (set to stage it’s 10th edition in Dec 2018) run by Cricket Council USA (www.ccusa.info) at the ICC certified stadium for ODI/T20I at Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida. However, it is not governed by the National Cricket Board.

The T20 league can help USA Cricket generate revenue to fund their own operations rather than depending completely on funding from International Cricket Council (ICC). With a leading Indian Media conglomerate on board, it is a positive step towards that direction.

Given the heavy sub-continent based population already in the country, the interest in watching International cricketers on show in a professional T20 league will be big and will help the ICC Americas region become a hub for T20 leagues, with Windies Cricket’s CPL T20 and Cricket Canada’s GT20 Canada T20 already operational in the region.

The entire project will see the Consortium invest over $1 billion into the development of cricket domestically.

More details on the partnership can be found here.

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