USA cricket has a new name and logo. Will it be a new dawn for cricket in the United States?
Replaces USACA
That’s what administrators and players are hoping for following last week’s developments. The new governing body is USA Cricket, replacing USACA which was expelled from the ICC annual conference in June.
The decision was taken on September 24, the 173rd anniversary of the first cricket match between the United States and Canada in New York City. That match also took place on September 24, 1844.
Building a brand
“One of the things we really tried to do is build a brand that not only connected with our past and 300 years of cricket in the United States, but also helped paint a picture for what the future of this sport could be,” Eric Parthen, USA project manager for the ICC, told ESPNcricinfo. “We started the process working with Adrenalin, a company out of Denver that has done some work with the NHL, Phoenix Coyotes, Los Angeles Kings.”
New logo
Parthen said the new logo is significant, as it shows USA Cricket is serious about moving the sport into the American mainstream.
“The logo process engaged a wider population of people through surveys. Once we got through the survey process, we drove it more internally with Adrenalin, taking the feedback we got both from the [ICC’s USA] advisory groups, and from the surveys in the wider population within the cricket community. We ultimately used that as the guiding principles for creating this logo.”
The USACA logo had an eagle in a cricket ball. The new one has a cricket bat which Parthen believes can attract fans outside its largely Asian and West Indian base in the US.
Taking sport mainstream
“As we want to take this sport mainstream and not just be a sport for the people that are currently playing it or the expats, that bat was the single most identifying factor for cricket within the United States,” Parthen told ESPNcricinfo. “Maybe that’s not true for Australia or England or India, but in the United States, the one thing that mainstream America associates cricket with, is the bat.”
The ICC expelled USACA as a member after 52 years, saying that the organization failed to prepare a structured league to improve the game in the country.
