Grave Vision: MLC's lofty ambitions drive America's push towards cricket's great leap

After spending seven years gazing out at the turquoise waters of Antigua as the CEO of Cricket West Indies, Johnny Grave now finds himself surrounded by the sprawling freeways and flat, urbanised expanse of Dallas, Texas, an unlikely epicentre for his next cricketing mission. The change in topography mirrors the contrast in the gigs themselves. From guiding a legacy-rich, culturally ingrained cricketing setup in the Caribbean, Grave now helms a start-up league in a nation where cricket still fights for relevance.

In many ways, the move to MLC presents a steeper climb. The rhythms of American sport are unfamiliar, the market fragmented, and the cricketing ecosystem embryonic. But Grave has embraced the challenge head-on. He's had his task cut out in just the first four months of his tenure.

Under his stewardship, MLC has expanded from two to three active venues for the 2025 season. A major coup came in the form of securing the iconic Oakland Coliseum as a host ground - no small feat given its complex legacy and logistical hurdles. Making it cricket-ready was another matter entirely. Grave and his team orchestrated the shipment of drop-in pitches from New York to the Bay Area and assembled an elite team of pitch curators from across the globe to ensure the surfaces meet T20 standards, especially crucial after last year's criticism of subpar wickets during the T20 World Cup.

So far, Grave has ticked the right boxes in his brief stint at the helm of Major League Cricket. But steeper, multi-tiered challenges loom. He inherits a cricketing landscape in the USA that is vibrant yet fragmented, fueled by passionate diasporas but riddled with a disjointed domestic structure and conflicting agendas, exacerbated by the perennial dysfunction within the game's national governing body, USA Cricket. To leave a lasting imprint, he must reimagine and reorganize this patchwork into a streamlined, well-oiled machine, capable not only of nurturing domestic talent but of compounding cricket's reach across American households for generations to come. Doing so will require not just structural vision, but also the strategic finesse to manage long-standing fault lines with their partner USA Cricket.

That task takes on even greater significance with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics on the horizon. Cricket's return to the Olympic fold is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to explode into mainstream American consciousness. But the exposure will mean little if there are no systems in place to capture and retain the wave of new fans that the Games could generate. For cricket to truly take root, there must be clear pathways - from casual interest to community play, from impression to involvement.

"The LA28 Olympics will have an amazing boost to cricket at all levels around the world. And we've got to be ready with cricket in America to capitalize on that, both in terms of the greater enthusiasm it will generate at the grassroots level, in the schools and the colleges, and also in terms of the fan base, and not making it just a one-off. How do we take those fans from the Olympics and move them through into becoming really sticky and engaged cricket fans, and actually getting them to actively support our MLC teams and the US national teams, because we need those teams to build their own fan bases," said Grave to Cricbuzz.

"We've really got to develop a network of cricket stadiums, with each MLC team playing in their home jurisdictions to really grow a local audience and develop a local fan base, that's the big MLC challenge. And I think our other major objective is that we've got a role and responsibility with our relationship with USA cricket to make sure we're commercialising a program of exciting US national team events between 2026 and 2028. We have to try and bring some of the biggest and best teams here to play cricket in the US to help grow and engage the cricket audience. This will obviously also help to prepare the US teams and hopefully get them higher in the ICC Team Rankings, more suited to our home conditions and ensure they can be as well prepared as possible for the Olympic Games."

USA's domestic cricket scene is anchored by Minor League Cricket (MiLC), which serves as the official feeder to Major League Cricket, and flanked by a growing number of cash-rich, pop-up T20 leagues that flourish over long weekends. Beyond these, America is also home to innumerable summer leagues, some of which have been running for over a century, serving as unofficial nurseries of American cricket. Recognising both the promise and the chaos of this fragmented structure, Grave has emphasised the need to unify, nourish, and ultimately grow these disparate elements under a single, coordinated umbrella shared by both MLC and USA Cricket.

"The player pathway should be very clear so that by joining and training in an academy and playing in a local league you can get selected for Minor League cricket and from Minor League cricket and playing in our open tournaments as long as you continue to perform you will get drafted for Major League Cricket and then hopefully into Team USA colours. That's probably where we need a bit more alignment with all the team owners and other cricket stakeholders to bring a bit more structure and clarity into that player pathway."

In the absence of a structured cricketing ecosystem and defined pathways led by the national governing body, it is the private benefactors who have kept the engine running for the sport in the United States. These individuals have poured their own money into sustaining the game, fully aware that it's a one-way street with little to no financial return. Their continued participation, particularly in the two-month-long Minor League Cricket, has often come at a significant personal cost. It is understood that fielding a team in the Minor League can run as high as USD 160,000 per season. Recognising both the financial burden and the unsustainable nature of the current setup, Johnny Grave has expressed intent to redefine their business models with the goal of creating a more viable and rewarding environment for these grassroots stakeholders.

"We have had really positive talks with the owners about redefining the business model for Minor League to help ensure it becomes more sustainable, both from a league perspective and the individual teams. And I think one of the things that's become clear is that there is a sustainable vision for Minor League. This isn't a pure labor of love and a black hole that's just going to be filled with huge amounts of private money. There is definitely value within Minor League and we've seen that in the last few months, with ownership changing, different investors coming into the individual teams. That means that if you were a minor league owner back in season one, you should be getting a return on that investment if the recent values and changes in equity across a few of the teams are anything to go by."

"And I think as we redefine the business model for Minor league and also start a team revenue share from the central league pool, I certainly see a vision of Minor League becoming a sustainable part of the private investment ecosystem here. And potentially there's a shorter path for the Minor League to maybe even get to break even ahead of the MLC teams as their infrastructure investment will be less."

Reforming the domestic structure must go hand in hand with injecting capital into the system to significantly increase the number of fully professional cricketers in the country. At the top end, a player with both a Major League Cricket (MLC) and USA Cricket contract can earn approximately USD 120,000 annually - a figure that provides financial sustainability. When supplemented with earnings from Minor League Cricket and various pop-up T20 tournaments, that number can rise to around USD 135,000. However, the picture is far less encouraging for those outside the national setup or those picked in the mid-to-lower tiers of the player draft. Their total annual income from all domestic cricket engagements often ranges between USD 10,000 and USD 40,000, with only the higher end of that spectrum aligning with the U.S. per capita income.

If the goal is to raise the overall standard of cricket in the country, then even fringe players must be able to commit to the game full time, something only achievable if their cricketing earnings are self-sustaining. Grave is empathetic about the realities of professional cricket and stresses that their vision includes improving player earnings throughout the system.

"We've had really good discussions with the US players' union. We're probably going to be the first league in the US to sign an agreement with the players' union, which mainly focuses on the domestic players and supporting them. Being seen as a player-friendly league is really important to us. I think those sums that you mentioned, if you take a global view of cricket, would be unprecedented earnings for associate member players.

"I know the US is an expensive place to live and work, but at the same time, what USA-based cricketers are earning now compared to their Associate Member counterparts would be significantly ahead of any other team. But you're right in terms of making the sport more sustainable, making the realities of playing cricket a viable career option for players, then we need to improve the earnings, not just at the top, but also on that player pathway and journey to becoming a top international and Major League star"

If his blueprint take shape and the US establishes a thriving domestic cricket structure, Grave believes the country could well be on the path to attaining full member status with the ICC. While the prospect of launching a red-ball domestic league in the U.S. presents its own set of unique challenges (a requirement for attaining full member status), Grave is uniquely positioned to influence policy at ICC. His deep familiarity with the workings of the ICC, shaped by his seven-year tenure as CEO of Cricket West Indies, could allow him to advocate for special considerations or tailored pathways to full membership for the U.S., including the relaxation of traditional full-member requirements that may not be feasible in the American context.

"I think USA Cricket already has a very compelling case to become an ICC full member, especially with all the investment MLC has been putting in and the amount of cricket that is being played at all levels. The one concern I think the game of cricket might have would be the ongoing governance challenges that the board has faced over pretty much all of its recent history. But you hope that as USA Cricket resolves these with the support of the ICC and the US Olympic Committee, then I personally can't see a reason why they wouldn't have a really strong case. And certainly everything that we're planning to do with Minor League Cricket and expanding the academy network, and with MLC already a premier domestic T20 tournament on the global stage and our planned investments to build more cricket stadiums it is only going to assist the case.

"One of the most compelling cases for becoming a full member is consistent performances in all the formats for the men's and women's team. The women's team is very young at the moment, but if we can keep those players together and improve the facilities and the coaching and the support that they get, they're only going to improve as a team. The more that the US teams climb up the rankings, then again, it's really going to assist the case even further "

MLC has long viewed itself as a cricketing startup, having secured nearly USD 100 million across its Series A and B funding rounds. And as with any bold startup, risk-taking is part of its DNA. And Grave has shown that he is a risk-taker. Within months of taking charge, he nudged the league out of its comfort zone by securing a third venue as he opted to sign a deal with the historic Coliseum in a move that signalled a deliberate break from the status quo.

Grave is no stranger to high-stakes decisions. He was part of the team as CWI CEO that revived international cricket during the pandemic by scheduling the landmark England vs. West Indies Test series under strict bio-bubble protocols. During his tenure at CWI, the Caribbean Premier League became the first franchise T20 league in the world to return to action during COVID. It was a watershed moment, one that reassured the global cricketing ecosystem and inspired several other boards to resume operations, without which the world game could well have teetered on the edge of financial catastrophe.

Grave assumes a defining role in American cricket at a critical inflexion point not just for the game in America but its global evolution, given the LA28 Games on the horizon. The work he undertakes in the months and years ahead could help shape the future of the sport, particularly in the world's most influential media market. America represents an untapped reservoir of cricketing potential. If harnessed correctly, it could become the next power centre in world cricket that the game desperately yearns for, perfectly aligning ICC's decade-old vision to diffuse the sport's current concentrated influence.

Grave's mandate stretches far beyond the razzmatazz of a six-week franchise league. His current role as CEO of Major League Cricket may be a touch less glamorous than his previous tenure leading a full-member board, but it carries the potential to be his most fulfilling yet, if he can rouse the sleeping giant of world cricket from its long slumber. And if his fondness for big dogs- he raises a Labrador- is anything to go by, then his ambitions for the game seem to be just as large. Should those ambitions take shape, then the game may well look back on his time in America as nothing short of transformational.