A proposed $500 million cricket stadium in ... Texas?

The city of Allen, a northern suburb of Dallas, occupies a special place in the history of sports stadiums: it was the instigator of what once was dubbed a high school football stadium arms race. In 2012 it unveiled Eagle Stadium, the 18,000-seat, $60m home of the Allen High School Eagles. Not too many years later nearby McKinney opened a stadium for its own high schools worth $70m.

Lately, Allen once again has taken center stage in a curious stadium proposal, one that until recently formed part of an ambitious multibillion-dollar plan to spread cricket across the US.

The Allen proposal calls for a $500m, 15,000-capacity stadium, the anchor of a mixed-use complex that would also include training facilities, residential and retail units, and office space. For a game not exactly part of the sporting firmament in Texas’s sprawling Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, that’s an incredible potential investment.

The aim is to establish a footprint for the world’s second most popular sport in a country that, outside of a few communities, pays cricket little heed. In the grand vision, the stadium would eventually play host to a professional team competing in a US-wide Twenty20 league. It would also stage visiting international teams and exhibition matches as well as other sports and events, according to reports.

>THE Ben Reilly< wrote:

The city of Allen, a northern suburb of Dallas, occupies a special place in the history of sports stadiums: it was the instigator of what once was dubbed a high school football stadium arms race. In 2012 it unveiled Eagle Stadium, the 18,000-seat, $60m home of the Allen High School Eagles. Not too many years later nearby McKinney opened a stadium for its own high schools worth $70m.

Lately, Allen once again has taken center stage in a curious stadium proposal, one that until recently formed part of an ambitious multibillion-dollar plan to spread cricket across the US.

The Allen proposal calls for a $500m, 15,000-capacity stadium, the anchor of a mixed-use complex that would also include training facilities, residential and retail units, and office space. For a game not exactly part of the sporting firmament in Texas’s sprawling Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, that’s an incredible potential investment.

The aim is to establish a footprint for the world’s second most popular sport in a country that, outside of a few communities, pays cricket little heed. In the grand vision, the stadium would eventually play host to a professional team competing in a US-wide Twenty20 league. It would also stage visiting international teams and exhibition matches as well as other sports and events, according to reports.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/apr/23/cricket-stadium-texas-allen

Damn Southerners!

Cass wrote:Cricket??? $500 million?? Texas??

Maddog wrote:

Cass wrote:Cricket??? $500 million?? Texas??

We have a pretty big Pakistani and Indian population now. They come here to be victims of racism. They are a funny lot I guess.  

nicko wrote:I don't like Cricket , no, I love it !