Of the 22 games the Los Angeles Knight Riders have played in Major League Cricket, they’ve won just five, but they have scored big in another important competition: the race for a home field.
Knight Riders Group announced overnight a plan for LA to play their 2026 home games at the Fairplex in Pomona, home to the Los Angeles County Fair. While the Fairgrounds might not be the first place the Knight Riders themselves would have picked, the venue was announced last spring as the expected site for the men’s and women’s cricket tournaments at the 2028 Olympics with the possibility of a permanent pitch square put in for use by the Knight Riders later. If anything, pulling the trigger on that now makes sense; if a pitch needs 18-24 months to come into its own before hosting games, the timeline to have it ready for July 2028 starts shortly after the 2026 MLC season ends. Might as well take it for a shakedown run with a drop-in wicket.
The organization’s release didn’t make it clear where on the fairgrounds the stadium will take shape. The venue that would make the most sense for the Olympics - and thus for the Knight Riders - is the former horse track, which will have no issues with space but might need some concrete torn up and will need a ton of grass planted between now and mid-June. There’s also a pair soccer fields adjacent to the horse track which could accommodate cricket, but the space would require considerable investment in a very short amount of time to be a suitable host for the Knight Riders. As it stands now, it would make Church Street Park look like the SCG.
This is a potential breakthrough moment for a moribund franchise, but it’s also a major undertaking. The Knight Riders are no longer a travel team and now face pressure to put a product on the field that can sell tickets. It cannot be overstated that the Knight Riders suck. They have sucked for their entire existence, and if the state of Kolkata’s IPL roster is any indication, they will not get better this year. They have an established reputation of being the team that cares the least of the six MLC outfits, and they are regularly their own worst enemy. Their reputation is reinforced by centering post-prime stars who are clearly phoning it in and social media feeds choked in AI slop. MI New York’s branding is atrocious, but at least they win. Now the Knight Riders are jumping head-first into the fight with more than a dozen other pro sports teams for one of the hardest entertainment dollars on the planet to earn. They don’t need a massive presence in the market to find lasting success, but they can’t trot out the same team they have sent out for the last three years and expect adulation. LA is very clear that it will not back a loser.
Having a permanent home field, even if it’s going to take time to shape the ground into something more readily resembling a space for cricket, even if it’s in a sub-optimal location, is a great opportunity to turn over a new leaf as a franchise. These are the sorts of foundation-shaking events that normally would convince an organization to take a look at its entire operation and make changes to things that don’t contribute to winning on the field or moneymaking efforts off it.
Ah, but the more things change, the more they stay the same. The franchise dropped the press release announcing its new home in LA County at 1:15am Pacific time, where it has little hope of getting traction. In Kolkata, it was 1:45pm, at the height of the news cycle. It’s pretty telling about who this statement - and this team - is for. With that mindset, they’ll be lucky to outdraw the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.
The pressure is on. A major market beckons. It’s unclear if the Knight Riders will live up to a moment where the league and the sport need them to deliver.