India’s Soft Power Swing: Rewiring the Global Cricket Economy |
As India reshapes the economics and politics of cricket, the sport finds new homes from Texas to Tel Aviv, expanding its reach, redefining its identity, and revealing a shifting balance of global cultural power.
A Rivalry That Stops the World
On a humid morning in Sri Lanka, as India and Pakistan walked out for their T20 World Cup clash today, millions of viewers around the world were not simply settling in for a cricket match. They were tuning into a geopolitical drama, an economic spectacle, and a cultural moment rolled into one. The rivalry between the two nations, shaped as much by politics as by sport, has become one of the most valuable properties in global entertainment. A single match between them can generate commercial value approaching half a billion dollars, a figure that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago.
India at the Center of a Global Game
Cricket’s transformation into a global entertainment engine has been driven overwhelmingly by India. The country’s audience, its diaspora, and its cultural relationship with the sport have reshaped cricket’s economics and global footprint. India now accounts for the vast majority of global cricket consumption, and the sport’s governing body, the International Cricket Council, has expanded to 110-member (12 full members) nations, including 98 Associates spread across every continent.
The 2026 T20 World Cup, the largest ever staged, underscored just how far the sport has traveled. Alongside the traditional cricketing powers were a remarkable group of Associate nations who had to qualify; the United States, Canada, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Namibia, Oman, and Nepal, each bringing its own story of grassroots growth and diaspora‑driven passion. Their presence wasn’t symbolic; it was a reflection of cricket’s expanding geography, a sport now played in pockets as diverse as Texas, Amsterdam, Kampala, and Kathmandu.
Why India Won’t Play Pakistan Bilaterally
The India–Pakistan rivalry remains the sport’s gravitational center; and its most politically charged. To understand why, one must step outside the stadium and into the realm of geopolitics. For India, the issue is not sporting rivalry but national security. A series of terror attacks on Indian soil; from the 2008 Mumbai attacks to the coordinated strikes known as Operation Sindoor in 2025, which Indian authorities attributed to Pakistan‑based groups, fundamentally altered the relationship between the two countries.
Since then, India has maintained that normal sporting ties cannot resume while terrorism remains an unresolved and ongoing threat. Cricket, in this context, is not merely a game; it is a symbol of normalcy, and India has made clear that normalcy cannot be manufactured while violence persists.
When Politics Meets Economics
The result is a rivalry that exists only on the world stage, never in a bilateral setting, and therefore carries a level of intensity unmatched in global sport. These matches are not just contests between two teams; they are, in the minds of millions, symbolic battles between two nations with a fraught and violent history. Every run, every wicket, every moment is amplified by decades of political tension.
This emotional charge feeds directly into the economics. In the weeks leading up to today’s match, Pakistani officials floated claims that the “cost” of staging an India–Pakistan encounter could exceed $480–$500 million; a figure that ricocheted through South Asian media. The number was never meant to reflect the actual operational expense of hosting a cricket match. Instead, it was a political flourish, a way of signaling the magnitude of the event and, implicitly, Pakistan’s belief that it deserves a larger share of the ICC’s revenue pool.
But the figure, while exaggerated in tone, was not entirely disconnected from reality. When economists and broadcasters talk about the “valuation” of an India–Pakistan match, they are referring to the total commercial ecosystem that springs to life around it: advertising, digital streaming, global distribution, and the secondary markets that feed off the spectacle.
By that measure, the rivalry is indeed worth hundreds of millions of dollars. A single match can draw more than three hundred million viewers worldwide; a scale that dwarfs most global sporting events and, for context, far exceeds the roughly one hundred and twenty‑five to one hundred and twenty‑eight million people who watch the Super Bowl, the biggest night in American television. Digital platforms routinely break concurrency records when the two sides meet, and broadcasters schedule their entire programming grids around the fixture.
The Franchise Revolution India Sparked
Cricket’s reinvention, however, is not limited to geopolitics or broadcast economics. It has also been fueled by the rise of franchise leagues; a revolution that began in India and has since spread across the world. The Indian Premier League, launched in 2008, introduced a city‑based model that blended sport, entertainment, and primetime television in a way that resonated globally.
Today, the IPL is valued at more than ten billion dollars and is the second most valuable sports league in the world on a per‑game basis, behind only the NFL. Houlihan Lokey, the investment bank, now places the IPL’s valuation at roughly $16 billion; a figure that underscores how far the league has climbed in less than two decades. Its success has inspired a network of premier leagues across South Africa, the UAE, Australia, Pakistan, the Caribbean, England, and the United States. Many of these leagues are owned or co‑owned by IPL franchise groups, creating a multi‑country cricket ecosystem that operates year‑round. Cricket, once seasonal and localized, now functions like a global entertainment circuit.
The United States: Cricket’s Commercial Breakthrough
The United States co‑hosted the 2024 T20 World Cup, drawing sellout crowds in New York, Dallas, and Florida and signaling that cricket’s American moment has finally arrived. This surge builds on the rapid rise of Major League Cricket (MLC), which by 2026 will be entering its fourth season. Backed by investors from the tech sector, entertainment industry, and Indian diaspora, MLC has quickly established itself as the most ambitious cricket venture ever launched in the U.S. Its inaugural season drew more than 70,000 in‑stadium spectators, generated tens of millions of digital impressions, and secured broadcast distribution in over 50 countries, giving the league a global footprint unusual for a young American sports property. Early assessments from regional tourism boards and independent sports‑economics analysts estimate that the 2024 T20 World Cup generated more than $600 million in economic activity, driven by visitor spending, hospitality demand, stadium operations, and the broadcast infrastructure required to stage a global event of this scale. With cricket set to return to the Olympics at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, the U.S. is poised to become one of the sport’s most important new markets.
Israel: A Quiet Cricket Outpost
Cricket has been played in Israel since the British Mandate era beginning in 1917, though formal structures emerged much later. A national league of ten clubs was established in 1966, followed by the founding of the Israel Cricket Association in 1968. Israel became an ICC Associate Member in 1974 and today competes in European qualifying tournaments. Its footprint is modest, but Israel remains a steady, if understated, part of cricket’s expanding global map. What began as a recreational activity among immigrant communities and expatriates has grown into a small but determined cricket culture, with youth programs in cities like Tel Aviv, Ra’anana, and Jerusalem. While its cricket footprint is modest, it reflects the sport’s expanding cultural reach in regions far removed from its traditional centers. In a country where global diasporas intersect and identity is constantly negotiated, cricket has found a niche; a reminder that cultural influence often spreads in unexpected ways.
India’s Soft‑Power Era Has Arrived
Through all of this, India’s influence remains unmistakable. Its audience determines global advertising rates. Its diaspora fills stadiums from London to Dubai to New York. Its cultural relationship with cricket; a blend of passion, identity, and spectacle, has turned the sport into one of the country’s most potent soft‑power tools. Cricket is no longer merely a game India plays; it is a global ecosystem India powers.
A sport once dismissed as slow and outdated has become a multi‑billion‑dollar entertainment economy, a year‑round franchise network, a streaming powerhouse, and a bridge between nations. Cricket didn’t just survive the modern era; it reinvented itself. And India led the reinvention.