The town of Allen, a northern suburb of Dallas, occupies a unique region within the records of sports activities stadiums: it became the instigator of what as soon as was dubbed a high college football stadium hands race. In 2012 it unveiled Eagle Stadium, the 18,000-seat, $60m domestic of the Allen High School Eagles. Not too many years later close by McKinney opened a stadium for its very own high faculties worth $70m.
Lately, Allen once more has taken a center degree in a curious stadium suggestion, one which till these days fashioned part of a bold multibillion-dollar plan to spread cricket throughout the US.
The Allen inspiration requires a $500m, 15,000-capacity stadium, the anchor of a combined-use complex that would additionally encompass schooling facilities, residential and retail gadgets, and office area. For a recreation now not exactly part of the carrying firmament in Texas’s sprawling Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, that’s an incredible capability investment.
Cricket’s American dream remains as USA welcomed again into ICC fold
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The goal is to set up a footprint for the arena’s 2nd most popular game in a country that, out of doors of some communities, will pay cricket little heed. In the grand imaginative and prescient, the stadium would finally play host to an expert crew competing in a US-extensive Twenty20 league. It might additionally degree visiting global groups and exhibition matches in addition to other sports activities and occasions, in step with reviews.
At first blush, Dallas isn’t always exactly fertile country for cricket. Texas is Friday night time lights united states of America, Dallas placed close to its beating heart. The city and its suburbs are domestic to franchises playing five most important league sports activities: the massive 3 of soccer, baseball, and basketball, followed by means of hockey and soccer. It could take a large attempt to avert the gaze of Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers-loving north Texans.
The Allen Sports Village, the call for the brand new cricket complicated, has generated quite a few buzzes for the reason that plan became unveiled on the quit of ultimate yr. Not all of it has been nice. The stadium has incurred the wrath of nearby residents concerned approximately its effect on traffic degrees and noise pollutants. The destiny is unsure after one of the builders pulled out, leaving the neighborhood companion and proprietor of the website, Thakkar Developers, to insist plans for the stadium challenge have been nevertheless going beforehand, perhaps with other buyers.
Meanwhile, the Allen Sports Village’s countrywide partner has talked massive. The Philadelphia-based totally businessman Jignesh Pandya ambitions to assist professionalize cricket within the US and has touted a national plan, really worth $2.4bn, to carry cricket to America. Crucially, Pandya’s plan consists of an eye-popping eight arenas unfold across the united states of America specifically designed for cricket. But his plan has been floating around for as a minimum more than one years now with few signs of actual consequences. Pandya couldn’t be reached to discuss the status of his nationwide plan, whilst Thakkar Developers did no longer reply to questions about the popularity of the stadium in Allen.
Does Texas actually need a $500m cricket stadium?
