The Knight Riders group, owners of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), have agreed to long-term investment into cricket in the USA.
American Cricket Enterprises has announced that the Knight Riders group, co-owned by Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta, have become stakeholders in Major League Cricket. The partnership will see them playing the role of "consultant" to help USA Cricket run the six-team T20 league.
Major League Cricket will feature top international players from the U.S. and around the world, underpinned by a focus on pathways to develop a homegrown player pool for USA Cricket and the league.
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The KKR team has won the IPL twice in 2012 and 2014 and has been one of the top franchises in the most watched and popular T20 leagues in the world. The Knight Riders group became owners of the Trinidad & Tobago T20 franchise in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) in 2015.
And since then, the team has won the tournament four times in the last six seasons, including a record-setting unbeaten championship season in 2020.
It is also understood that the Knight Riders franchise is considering buying the Los Angeles franchise of the MLC, continuing the coincidences of the purple and gold also worn by the Los Angeles Lakers in NBA. This will also increase the celebrity quotient around the Hollywood area to go with Bollywood's own Shah Rukh Khan.
"For several years now, we have been expanding the Knight Riders brand globally and closely watching the potential for T20 cricket in the USA. We are convinced that Major League Cricket has all the pieces in place to execute on its plans and we look forward to making our partnership an enormous success in the coming years,” Shah Rukh Khan said in a statement.
Venky Mysore, the CEO of KKR and Red Chillies Entertainment said, "We feel fortunate to have been consistently recognized as one of the best franchises in T20 cricket and have become one of the fastest-growing sports brands in the world. As T20 cricket expands internationally, we are flattered by the regular inbound requests to play a major role in growing the sport abroad.
We have had a keen interest in the developments in the United States and our expansion into the U.S. is consistent with our long-term strategy. We look forward to the new challenge of building cricket in the world's most sophisticated sports and media market and we believe that we can bring a huge amount of expertise to help make Major League Cricket realize the potential that it undoubtedly has."
Sameer Mehta and Vijay Srinivasan of American Cricket Enterprises and Major League Cricket commented, "We are delighted to partner with the Knight Riders Group in this historic partnership. By adding the Knight Riders Group to our family of world-class and diverse investors, this investment into the future of Major League Cricket is a huge validation of our vision for the new league, and we are particularly excited to have such an iconic cricketing brand onboard with us.
(ANI/Cricbuzz inputs)
