Matches in one of the newest sports at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, cricket, likely will be played on the East Coast.
Cricket, along with baseball, softball, flag football, squash and lacrosse, were all added to the L.A. Games in October 2023 by the International Olympic Committee. The sport, which hasn’t been part of Olympics since 1900, is widely followed in India and other South Asian countries.
Moving the matches to the East Coast would put cricket in a better time zone for viewers in India, the world’s most populous country. That could also increase the revenues from the IOC’s sale of broadcast rights to India from the reported $12 million paid for a four-year deal that included the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, according to Sportico.
The sports business newsletter reported in May 2023 that cricket’s global governing body, the International Cricket Council, told the IOC that including the sport in the L.A. Games could boost the value of broadcast rights in India to as much as $268 million over the next four years.
Casey Wasserman, the head of Los Angeles’ Olympic organizing committee, declined to comment to Sportico in an interview last year about whether organizers had an agreement in place with the IOC to share in the increased revenues anticipated from adding cricket.
Wasserman announced at the Texas Business of Sports Summit in Austin, Texas, on Friday that organizers are “tailoring the cricket program to maximize viewership in India,” Sportico reported. He did not provide details about possible East Coast venues, and a venue plan released by L.A. organizers in June did not include cricket.
There are no permanent cricket stadiums on the East Coast, but earlier this year, the first-ever Cricket World Cup matches in the U.S. were held in a 34,000-seat temporary stadium in Long Island, New York, about 30 miles east of Manhattan. The stadium’s stands, first used for the Formula 1 Grand Prix race in Las Vegas, have been removed, but the pitch remains.
Cricket wouldn’t be the only Olympic sports competitions outside of California in 2028. Both softball and canoe slalom are set to be held at existing facilities in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Oklahoma City is the home of a USA Softball complex that includes an 11,000-seat softball field, and a whitewater and rafting center where Team USA trains, NBC 4 Los Angeles reported.
