Major League Cricket's grand Oakland experiment is now concluded, and the league has packed up for the year and shuffled eastbound and down to Grand Prairie for the second leg of the season. With nine games in six days, it felt like MLC made a mark in the Bay area to a warm reception and a lot of new fans. While certain benchmarks were always a bit aggressive (like selling out the 12,000 seats they planned for), it seems like an overall success with positive reviews from those in attendance. They even got ICC Chairman Jay Shah to show up for the Sunday doubleheader, which underscores the extent to which this experiment was observed in global cricket. It felt like we witnessed the genesis of something, a launching point for the next phase of MLC's growth strategy that looks clearer than it did a week ago and focuses on getting teams in front of their home markets.
It’s a well-struck four for MLC, one bounce over the rope. For the San Francisco Unicorns, it was much more.
The hometown team’s momentum was undeniable over the course of the week. They drew the biggest crowds (just under 6,500 on average) and played by far the two most entertaining games of the week with Finn Allen’s world record-setting opening night against Washington and Xavier Bartlett’s batting heroics to save a faltering chase against New York. The Unicorns have taken full advantage of having three true home games with billboards, collaborations with mass transit, and a fun, LA Chargers-on-a-budget social media presence that gets how to build a fandom with cult figures like Matt Short and Juanoy Drysdale and with memes and inside jokes on top of the usual sizzle content sports teams pump out these days. The biggest complaint seems to have been that they didn't have enough merchandise for sale, which is not such a bad problem to have: it means people want in on your product, and with a team as fun as San Francisco is this year, why wouldn't you?
The actual playing conditions were also much better than any worst-case scenario predictions. Concerns over the prospect of gimmicky boundaries and erratic drop-in pitches gave way to a ground with personality and dynamic playing conditions coupled with some classic I Didn't Know It Got Cold In California Syndrome (Veni, Vidi, Vixi, as the Giants used to say). All of that coalesced into some fun games: 11 of 18 scores exceeded 180, five scores were north of 200, and 128 of 180 possible wickets fell (71%) with five teams bowled all-out and the chasing team winning three times out of nine games. The pitches were competitive, and the boundaries played just fine and offered the space a unique character. I’m all for more diverse boundaries anyway; if Lord’s can be a square, this is fine. Cricket grounds don’t have to be exactly the same perfect ovals everywhere to produce good vibes.
And the vibes were immaculate. The blending of baseball nostalgia with the new frontier of cricket made for great pictures on TV. Baseball’s distant cousin from the other side of the world settled nicely into the clubhouses and concrete dugouts, leaning on the railings, heads against the wall with thousand yard stares after they got out, close-ups of coaches deep in thought on the top step… it felt like an April Fool’s Day broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball in a good way. Cricket in a big stadium, even one that was 15% full at best, just felt right.
The Coliseum experiment didn’t shatter expectations, but it clearly worked, and that’s the most important thing. San Francisco drawing well in particular validates the idea of putting teams in true home markets and getting them where they can be seen by the people they mean the most to, and will hopefully drive more conversations and pushes for permanent home grounds for all six teams. But how many other places are there that have ready-made hosts like Oakland to take this show on the road? As it turns out… not that many.
Oakland Coliseum is the last of its kind. It came about in an era of mulitpurpose “cookie cutter” stadiums that popped up in Philadelphia, DC, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Houston, Seattle, and Oakland. Minneapolis, Houston, and Seattle were domes, to boot. Nearly all of those have been demolished, the exceptions being Houston’s dilapidated Astrodome… and the Coliseum. Olympic Stadium in Montreal once hosted the Montreal Expos and is still configurable for baseball, so it might be a viable option for a Canadian leg once the new roof is done, but that won’t be for several years. Short of striking a deal with an MLB team to use their stadium for a week in-season (next to impossible) or moving the season to the fall (a very bad idea), the Coliseum is the only “big league” venue available to MLC in the short-term. NFL and MLS stadiums just don’t have the shape to accommodate ICC-regulation boundaries like the baseball stadiums do, and the ones that do are artificial surfaces, which are anathema to this level of cricket.
That makes it all the more important that Oakland sticks, and while it’s not a lock, there is cause for optimism there. Ownership of the site is about to finally change hands to the African American Sports & Entertainment Group (AASEG) in early 2026 when Alameda County sells its 50% stake. AASEG has plans to redevelop the Coliseum site into a mixed-use area with some kind of sports facility that might require the Coliseum’s demise. The Oakland Roots and Oakland Soul have set aside plans for a temporary modular stadium that would have been their home from 2026 onward to use the Coliseum and are cooperating with AASEG to secure a long-term stadium solution. That buoys the chances of the Coliseum sticking around at least long enough for the Unicorns to establish themselves as a permanent fixture of the Bay’s sports scene. After this weekend, it’s hard to imagine anyone turning them away, but don't expect any announcements on MLC in Oakland in 2026 until the sale is done.
There were no magic bullets to be found in the Bay, but the future of Major League Cricket feels a little brighter than it was a week ago - and a lot more sparkly.
Thank you so much for reading Stumps & Stripes! I’m excited to share my thoughts on a groundbreaking moment for cricket in the Unite States. If you like what you read above, please consider a free email subscription. If you’re not convinced, check out my most recent piece, where I discuss the state of the Los Angeles Knight Riders and the challenges of a conventional rebuild in MLC as it is today.
I’ll be in Grand Prairie this weekend to watch all six teams in person and will have content on my experience as well as fresh power rankings on Monday and thoughts on the women’s national team, the sketchy neighborhood of associate cricket, and how one player in MLC could be a future star off the field if he wants to be. Join me again!