Florida Cricket Conference (FCC) is the premier cricket organization in Central Florida.
Orlando has made the shortlist of potential host cities for a new U.S. cricket league that an Indian-American investor is planning to launch in the next few years.
Must Read: Top 5 Most Popular Sports in California
Orlando is one of eight cities identified by Global Sports Ventures for a potential home team for their new league. Other cities include East Brunswick, New Jersey; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and North Texas near Dallas.
The Orlando location has yet to be identified, with the potential sites including Lake Nona, downtown or the tourist district. Lake Nona, with its sports district and large swaths of undeveloped land, must be extremely appealing to Global Sports Ventures chairman Jay Pandya.
Another possible location for the development is within the tourist district. The Orange County Convention Center has expressed interest in the past for a large arena to be constructed along the south edge of the property.
Also Read: Top 10 Most Popular Sports in America Till Now
Six years ago, a baseball complex was proposed that would house a Yankee B-League team. That proposal was eventually denied by the county, with Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs noting that one of the reasons for the denial was the size of the baseball stadium.
In comparison, the cricket stadium proposed for the Orlando area would seat 26,000, roughly the same size as the Orlando City Stadium in downtown.
Moreover, GSV is looking to develop areas around the cricket stadiums to include mixed-use developments with retail, hotel, office, and multi-family residential uses. Each of these stadium-anchored developments will cost between $70 million and $125 million.
The cricket stadium complex could possibly go on another non-development land in the tourist district or possibly even downtown, where the City of Orlando is trying to create a sports-heavy Church Street district stretching from the Camping World Stadium to the Amway Center.
Using the shortened Twenty-20 Cricket style – in which matches average three hours in length, compared to traditional ones that can last well over eight hours and sometimes stretch into multiple days – the games in the new league are designed to appeal to current cricket fans while drawing in new ones.
It’s likely the team will use the Orlando location to market to visitors in a similar way as the Magic and Orlando City Lions have done, both with much success.
With the goal of launching the new league in 2020, the site selection for each city should be known within the next year.
Let’s just hope this league lasts a bit longer than the XFL. Go Orlando Rage, Orlando Rays, Predators, Fire, Miracle, and the Florida Seals.
Leave a Reply