27. Cricket Growth in the U.S. and a New Franchise Model with Liam Plunkett, Cricket World Cup Champion
About the Farrell Sports Business Podcast
Interviews with news makers from sports business to talk leadership, entrepreneurship, industry news and their unique career paths. Hosted by Matt Farrell, President of Farrell Sports and former Golf Channel, USOPC, USA Swimming and Warner Bros.
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Episode 27 of the Farrell Sports Business podcast - Host Matt Farrell talks with Liam Plunkett, who was part of the England squad that won the 2019 Cricket World Cup. Plunkett discusses the growing interest in cricket in the United States, his role in promoting the sport through coaching and the establishment of the Liam Plunkett Cricket Academy. He highlights the potential for cricket to thrive in the U.S., especially with cricket being on the program for the upcoming Olympics in 2028. He emphasizes the importance of proper coaching and infrastructure to support grassroots development and how the Liam Plunkett Cricket Academy fills that gap. The discussion also touches on the business opportunities within cricket facilities and the transferable skills from other sports that can aid in learning cricket.
Farrell Sports Business (00:00)
Welcome to the Farrell Sports Business Podcast where I talk to leaders of the sports industry and find out some of their fascinating career journeys and new business ventures. I'm the host, Matt
On this week's Farrell Sports Business Podcast, we are going to talk cricket. It is the number two sport in terms of participation in the world. The U.S. successfully hosted the recent International Cricket Council's T20 World Cup. Cricket will be on the program for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028. It is a massive global sport that is finding its legs here in the United States.
Now, full disclosure, my guest is a new client and partner of Farrell Sports that we're going to be working on cricket in the United States. But this gentleman stands on his own without a doubt. 2019 World Cup champion from England.
and has started the Liam Plunkett Cricket Academy, plays professional cricket, plays major league cricket here in the United States and some minor league cricket in Philadelphia area. this is a gentleman who's starting a franchise to grow cricket in the United States under his own name, the Liam Plunkett Cricket Academy. My guest this week, Liam Plunkett.
Farrell Sports Business (01:37)
Liam, welcome to the podcast. I appreciate you joining.
Liam (01:40)
No, excited, excited to talk all things cricket and sport, I'm hoping.
Farrell Sports Business (01:46)
just what can we do together to make a movement here in the United States to introduce the number two sport in the world more in the United States, I think is pretty exciting.
Liam (01:59)
Yeah, it is. It seems to be going very quickly. This year, especially with the Cricket World Cup that was played in New York and some games in Florida, I think we've seen an appetite for cricket. We've seen people come out in the masses and it wasn't just for the India-Pakistan game. It was a Bangladesh-South Africa game in New York. Yeah, it's very exciting and a lot of people are interested. think cricket is coming and I'm excited to be a part of that.
Farrell Sports Business (02:28)
Well, in the intro of the pod, I gave a little bit about your background and being a World Cup champion. What's more of a picture into what your life is these days? know you just got back from a big trip to India as an ambassador from the sport. What's Liam Plunkett Enterprises today?
Liam (02:50)
Yes, I'm still affiliated with Major League Cricket. That role sees me playing for San Francisco Unicorns in the Major League. Alongside that is I'm helping grow sport as a whole across America. I work in an academy, Major League Cricket Academy, not far away from Philadelphia. I help structure and coach there. I play minor league cricket for the Philadelphians. And I've just set up Liam Plunkett Cricket.
I'm very passionate about coaching coaches. I want to get a good infrastructure here. A lot of good coaches in America, but I feel like the sport is growing very quickly and I want to help build these coaches and do it properly, get them certified. Because I feel like these are amazing coaches, but there's also a lot of coaches out here who just trying to make a quick book and are the kids learning? Are they actually coming away from something and learning a skill? Or are they just going through the motions? So I'm very passionate now.
about building Liam Plunkett Cricket LPC, being a part of different facilities, help structure, help coach the coaches, and also building an education part to roll out in elementary school. And it's just going to be the basics of cricket. I want all kids and families to get what is cricket. I want to be able to have access to that and enjoy the sport as much as I do.
Farrell Sports Business (04:13)
What are the things that maybe excite you the most about cricket in the U.S.? And are there any things on the other side that are maybe just a little bit daunting to you?
Liam (04:26)
I'm very excited, I think a lot of people, the Olympics in 2028, that's huge for cricket, huge for cricket in America. Major League cricket, which has been great the last two years. We've had some of the best players in the world playing for franchises across America. It excites me how quickly it's growing in the men's game, but also the women's game, the girls. That's very exciting to me. Not too much daunting but I just...
I think as I touched on the last kind of question, is a lot of people are starting up businesses and cricket and I just want them to do it properly. I don't want people to brought into a cricket environment and it's not run properly and then they get a bad taste in the mouth and they don't want to be involved again. But I feel if all the right people who are and get involved who are trying to grow cricket, obviously go out to the masses and show what cricket is as a whole in terms of the fun and exciting and...
inclusive and people from all over the world play it. It's such an amazing sport. It obviously helped me as a youngster. Very lucky and fortunate to play professional cricket. But there's so many things that are happening in cricket in America. Major League USA cricket have been amazing. They've got two big wins in the World Cup, as I said, and the Olympics. I think everything, if it doesn't work in this four year period, I think it would struggle to work because everything's here for it now.
Farrell Sports Business (05:51)
Yeah, you've just really, as you said, coming off that T20 World Cup and the Olympics on the horizon. So when you see, I'll call it local or maybe even grassroots cricket growing in the United States, how are you seeing it happen? Is it adult programs, youth programs, big cities, small cities? What success are you seeing for cricket in the US?
Liam (06:20)
think I was very surprised. So I've been coming back and forth to America for 18 years now. My wife who I met in London, she's from Westchester, Pennsylvania. So I would come in between my seasons. So I've come here for a month at end of the season, potentially October, then back in Christmas for two weeks. So I think for the first 10 years, I didn't really know that cricket existed here. It's only towards probably 12, 13 years in.
I found out there's a cricket centre maybe 20 miles away from me. Then I found out there's probably 50 games of cricket within 20 miles of me every weekend. There's Major League cricket for the kids. They play championships. They travel across the country. There's so much cricket and it's, think if you look for it, you can find it. But if you've got blinkers on, you don't see it. There's these little pockets, these little grounds that hid away. And it is, the talent is definitely getting better and better.
I think over the last three, four years, as major leagues come in, as more coaches have come in, people are growing and it's grown quickly. We've seen people who have been brought up in America now who are actually performing on the major league stage, 18 year old guys who are playing against the best in the world in major league and get an MVP of the game. And that's something where some guys just practice at home or a small indoor school and he's worked that hard for cricket that he can perform against the best. And that's such a surreal story to be able to do that. But.
It is growing, it's growing very quickly. Hopefully we can, the USA cricket and we can figure out, hopefully that gets better and better, more professional, gives a pipeline for players. I feel that's a little bit stunted at the minute where if you're really excellent at Major League Juniors, it's how can you access minor league and then minor league, major league, major league to USA. I feel like there's some fractured relationships on the way there. So it kind of gets stopped, stopped, stopped.
So I'm hoping as we keep developing and keep building these relationships can get mended and then we have a clear pathway for people to play for the local team all the way to play for USA cricket.
Farrell Sports Business (08:30)
my company, Farrell Sports is really just in the very beginning stages of, of working with you and Liam Plunkett Cricket. I would call it for, for lack of a better term, a bit of a franchise type package or model. Can you talk about what Liam Plunkett Cricket is
Liam (08:53)
so we've got I think three or four facilities now. It's guys who have passion, who want to have a cricket facility, they want to have academy, but don't know how to run it. They're not an expert in coaching. They don't know how the cricket kind of environment works. So they'll contract us. We would coach their coaches. We can coach five coaches for them. We can give them a cricket structure, a cricket blueprint of how to run the sessions. We can make them run like a proper cricket business.
with what I've learned and what other coaches have learned from professional environments from overseas in England. I've got a head coach here from South Africa who played at the highest level. So we want to come in as a professional organization and put these coaches through the ringer and make sure they get certified, they get qualified to be able to coach the kids from such a young age. And I think that's been a struggle so far is to be able to get in USA is good coaching. So that's obviously a massive passion for me is.
coaching the coaches, making the facility a well-oiled machine, kind of a cheesy thing to say, but that's what I want. I want to turn up, and I want cricket to be similar to when you go to the baseball academies that are really well done here. You're gonna turn up, all the kids look immaculate, they're doing the best skills, the best drills, and there's a real big community, and hopefully the LPC can do that. We can go into these facilities and make it community where kids wanna turn up, they're proud to wear the logo, they're learning every week.
and they're going away and they're telling their friends.
Farrell Sports Business (10:19)
So it would seem to me that, especially with such a global sport, that the interest is probably there. The passion is probably there. You need to connect the dots of who's the local champion from a coach perspective and the facility pieces. Because I think a lot of us might have a perception of
traditional cricket of what the sport is and how it's played and trying to think I've just got this basketball gym. How's this going to work? So how are you trying to connect those dots of like the coaches and the facilities?
Liam (10:59)
Yeah, I think, I feel like any good coach can work in any space to be honest with you. That's obviously working with yourself is going around America and find people who have a peak interest in cricket and say we can work in a small space. We can work with a coach who wants to get interested in cricket. We can give them the facilities. We can obviously recommend the equipment. We can give them a structure, a blueprint,
It doesn't have to be a three hour session, but if you're a little facility and you want to do one hours, two hours a week, that's all you need to get started and see what the appetite's like in that area. And I think people will be surprised because with the amount of people that love cricket in America coming from overseas, South Asian population from the UK, South Africa, I think it would be high in demand. They're just advertising it right. I think a lot of people don't know there's cricket in that area.
So it's obviously part of my role is to get that out there, you know. There's an appetite for people to coach. There's a lot of people who wanted to coach. I think they've struggled because I think it's sometimes quite hard to get onto the USA Cricket Association credentials. It's quite hard to get that pathway. So with LPC, it's going to be backed by First Form Sport, which is an accreditation that gives you that badge of honor to say I've actually achieved something in cricket here as a coach.
Farrell Sports Business (11:54)
Yeah.
Liam (12:18)
I've got my credentials and I'm proud of it.
Farrell Sports Business (12:23)
I have, I'm to ask you an extremely selfish question. That's going to lead to a real question here, Liam. So I'm going to be in Texas. I'm going to a venue called social sixes, about a week from now, I'm gonna, I'm going to step in and try my hand at cricket. in any advice for me as a first timer.
Liam (12:28)
Okay.
Hopefully you'll start the machine nice and slow. I think it's just getting used to that bounce, but I'm sure you've got good hand-eye coordination. I'm just trying to the ball straight, keep a flat bat. That's the full face of the cricket bat. Might sound a yeah, a bit Latin to some people me saying that, but it's keeping a straight face and maybe take like a golf swing thinking you're a low drive down the fairway.
Farrell Sports Business (13:10)
Okay. Okay. I'll have to get the, get my slice mindset out of this one. Okay. But that, that, that's helpful. And I should be fun. I'll, I'll, I'll send you some photos and we'll see what the video is looking to look like. People who want to try cricket, what are some of the transferable skills? What sports do you see people,
Liam (13:22)
Yeah, please do.
Farrell Sports Business (13:34)
just has some commonalities or where do you see success for people who want to try the game?
Liam (13:41)
think in hand-eye coordination, you're good at golf and softball, baseball, I think it's very transferable. The bowling is the most difficult thing because you're to ball with a straight arm rather than a bent arm as when you're pitching in baseball. But I think the transition from, especially for girls coming from softball to cricket, they would pick it up so quickly. I know when you watch some of this softball in high school and in college, the standard is amazing. And I think they would transfer across very quickly.
But it's, cricket's such a fun game to learn. You have the drills same as baseball, the batting tees, the little bowling skills that you pick up. Any sport for me is, I always got told, my dad was a great believer, to play all sports and that they transfer across in some way. And I definitely believe that. People ask me all the time, is it okay for my kid to do other sports? I'm like, 100%, please do that. Because it's gonna make them a better athlete, a good athlete I think makes a better sportsman, a better cricketer. So I think baseball is the-
probably the most obvious one because of the swing, the ball's the same size, the ball's the same weight, you've got outfielders. So I think in terms of a batting, the power, the way you sort of generate power in baseball is very similar to cricket. Over the last how many years, professional cricketers and coaches have took some of the power hitting and obviously the positions of a batter, they've transferred that across from baseball to cricket. So it's definitely the most, an aligned sport is baseball.
Farrell Sports Business (15:08)
You know, this is also a business and some of this is, you know, changed by geography, but I would say in the United States, there's a lot of facilities out there, whether they're multi-sport complexes or baseball facilities or whatever that are really driven from three in the clock in the afternoon to, you know, eight or nine o'clock at night with a lot of empty periods in between.
This to me seems like a really interesting business opportunity as well for a facility this is great to grow a sport, but there's also a pretty efficient business behind this.
Liam (15:47)
Yeah, I totally agree. As I said, the amount of people who love cricket, who want to find a space to practice, play. You can have LPC Academy, but if you have extra lanes, I think you're always going to get traffic coming through the door. People always want to be playing cricket. Cricket in a lot of these places in the world, like Pakistan and India, it's like a religion. It's such a huge part of their community and they love to play it. It's just seeking out a place where you can play.
I think if you're with LPC and if we're coaching the coaches, if you've got a great little system in place there, I'm guaranteed you're going to get a lot of kids through that door. And I think it is, lot of it is a part of a community. People want to be attached to a cricket community over here, which they probably haven't had if they've been here for 10 years. They didn't know there was a cricket community around. I think they'll seek that out. And that's how, obviously the kids come together, families are coming together. But I definitely think it's a great business model. I think if we're doing it right, which I think we are.
there's going to be definitely some good revenue there for the facility.
Farrell Sports Business (16:48)
I think you philosophically embrace this creativity of, you know, give me half a basketball gym, give me a field, give me a one or two baseball batting cage lanes of the sport doesn't always have to be in an expansive, stadium. You're, you're pretty bullish on
Liam (17:10)
Mm-hmm.
Farrell Sports Business (17:13)
know, being creative with what you have to get a program going.
Liam (17:18)
Yeah, mean, growing up in the UK in the winter, the weather is not amazing. It's dark early and it rains lot. And I think people think because I come from a cricket country that the facilities are massive. They're amazing. But it's the same. grew up playing in sports halls and indoor tennis, indoor basketball school. So I did a lot of my trade in these facilities. The facilities, even in a lot of professional stadiums in the UK, as a baller, as a pitcher in cricket, you actually need a long run up.
Farrell Sports Business (17:25)
you
Liam (17:48)
in a full game in the stadium you would run up similar to a javelin length you would have a good run up and you release the ball but a lot of the indoor centers for professionals they only have half that in terms of that square footage so the professionals often don't train off that full run up which is crazy to think it's also changing now if you have more space but so for me you can learn anywhere you want especially these young kids coming through the little rookies you can have a small space and make it exciting
and do a lot of good work in these tiny little five-a-side soccer fields, indoor fields, or half a basketball court. Since I've been here the last three years, we've done a lot of our coaching on that size. And I feel like we've gained, the kids have improved a lot. The Major League Academy that I've been involved with won the first U13s trophy this year, which is massive. So we must be doing something right. That's exciting. And that's all from a small space. So as the facilities get bigger and better,
you feel like you would improve more. But I feel like, as you said, with a small little space, that's plenty to get an academy up and running, plenty of space to be able to improve the kids and get them excited about cricket.
Farrell Sports Business (18:59)
So maybe this might be two parts, the three to four facilities that you're in and the type of places that you want to be. Where are you seeing early success? it, you know, multi-sport facilities? Is it schools? Where do you see early success and where do see it going?
Liam (19:19)
So, the people I've spoke to and been involved with, probably came across here, love cricket, found a warehouse and started playing cricket because they love it and they want somewhere to play. But I think they shouldn't realize cricket at that point is not going to be, that's not going to bring all the money in. So they obviously expanded out to softball, to baseball. So I think right now you're getting approached by multi-use facilities, which...
the ability to be able to play cricket with hopefully as we keep moving forward, the facilities allow professionals to be able to play in there and have a full run up. So the new facility we just am associated with here, the first LPC, these guys did an amazing job where they have the ability for professionals and young kids to have a full run up when they're pitching, when they're bowling. So hopefully as we move forward, I think if we want to...
improve and make the best cricketers, hopefully we can have facilities with a longer run-up, like a javelin throw so you have the ability to have a full run-up. But I think right now it's going to be multi-sport that's going to bring the revenue in. Cricket's definitely going to help that. And hopefully as cricket builds and builds in the franchises like San Francisco, New York and DC, as they come in there, I should imagine they'll be building high-performance academies.
which would be bigger and better and probably a lot of space for indoor cricket.
Farrell Sports Business (20:50)
So once you have that really that coach or somebody to champion the development of the sport and of cricket in any community, what does Liam Plunkett cricket mean? Online tools, physical tools, equipment, what does a package look like?
Liam (21:11)
So as a coach, if you've got someone who, if it's a small facility and they want to start cricket and you've got maybe a couple of parents or someone who's from a different sport who wants to start cricket, we can put them through the rookie course, which is like a 45 minute online where you're just going to work through yourself, the basis of cricket, through coaching. You will go through that stage. Then you'll go into an interactive course where you'll do two 90 minute online classes where you'll be put through
Q &A's, we'll go through video demonstrations, we'll give you an assignment and that's going to be the nuts and bolts of cricket. So that's the first two, the rookie course and interactive. The third one is going to be like a three day or a four day in person with four or five professional coaches. So either we would get all these facilities if they've got one or two coaches, we're trying to find a spot where everyone can meet, then we put them through a three day camp.
and then you'd finish off with that certification. So you get the rookie certification interactive, then also you get the in-person live professional accreditation. In terms of equipment, exactly the same. We're working with companies now. Hopefully by the end of next month, we've got an exciting new company coming on board with a sort of new look into cricket, which is kind of exciting. But all the tools are gonna be there. There's gonna be, obviously the online coaching is also gonna be.
If kids love cricket and they want to learn a certain shot, you can buy little packages which teach you through how to play a certain shot. You can do a little package which teaches you the best way to field in cricket and the best way to bowl. Also a fitness package, we've got strength and conditioners, nutritionist on there. excuse me. So it's a full package, but as a coach, we want to arm you with as many tools as possible to be successful.
And if you're just starting off, we're not going to throw everything at you. We want to keep it simple. We want you to learn as you're teaching the kids. You're going to learn yourself.
Farrell Sports Business (23:12)
I want to go back to cricket in the, in the Olympics in LA 28 and maybe just, just ask you, cause that was, you know, for any sport to get on the Olympic program is a long journey. where were you when you heard it was accepted for LA 28 and what was your reaction and what did it mean to you when it, when that came out?
Liam (23:37)
It's exciting because me coming across here, I was very lucky that I was coming towards the back end of my career and then I got a phone call. Someone said, do you want to work for Major League? Do you want to live in Philadelphia with your wife? I'm like, absolutely. I couldn't have wrote a book with a better end than that. So first off, that was very exciting. So came across here, then I realized the World Cup cricket is going to be here, which is just taking place this year. So there's kind of like step by step by step.
The first year or so came across, sorry, two years back, there was talks about the Olympics and stuff and it got accepted. For me, it was exciting because it gives you another three or four years to keep working on that game, to keep building the franchises. You've got something in three or four years, you know? That's what was very exciting about it. It wasn't like the World Cup was finished and there was just Major League. Major League is going to be successful, but it's even bigger than that because there's Olympics on the horizon. think when I think about schools and education,
A lot of parents, a lot of people get excited when they think the chance their kid could represent USA in the Olympics down the line. And I think that's massive potentially to help us get into schools to say that there is a pipeline here. Your kid can represent USA for the cricket team, playing around the world, or they can play in the Olympics for a USA national team. I mean, it doesn't get better than that as a cricketer.
Farrell Sports Business (24:57)
All right. So LP cricket.com. how else can people find more? Is there anything, maybe I didn't ask you about cricket in the U S or Liam Plunkett cricket in general that you would want to add.
Liam (25:10)
Not really, think it's, you're working with yourself to make this game grow, to make LPC grow. I think it's gonna come fast and furious. I think after Christmas a lot of people are gonna get excited and wanna have spaces and wanna build a program. I think more and more is gonna keep coming through. I'm gonna be in the UK for a little bit of Christmas in January and I'm gonna meet with some colleges there who actually want kids from America to potentially go to a cricket school in England for a semester for a 12.
week semester or to go there full time. And that's something I think would be amazing here to do like a cricket idol, to pick the best kids and offer them to go to the UK to play against these schools. And then you get the best guys get picked or the best girls get picked to be able to go to school in the UK. That's exciting to me.
Farrell Sports Business (25:55)
Well, I might have aged out of that opportunity a little bit, but it sounds pretty awesome.
Liam (25:59)
Well, let me see your swing next week and we'll decide about that, mate.
Farrell Sports Business (26:03)
I think that will age me out as well. Liam, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time on this and love what you're doing. So thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.
Liam (26:16)
No, no, really enjoyed the chat. Thank you.
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