Ahead of the Stanford 20/20, which gets underway this weekend, its billionaire benefactor and organise, Allen Stanford, is piling another $3.5m into promoting the tournament...in one town.
Fort Collins is the lucky recipient of "ads, parties, promotions, billboards, giveaways, clinics" in order to promote the game to an "audience more concerned with the Super Bowl and college basketball".
“I wanted to see if we could get a city in the U.S. that knew nothing about the sport to be cricket crazy,” Stanford said in a telephone interview.
“It’s so dadgum entertaining, it will be different from anything you’ve ever seen.”
20/20 Cricket, Stanford points out, is a faster paced version of the sport that can take two to three days to play in its original form.
Posted by: Fat_Bulborbs (Brisbane) at January 24, 2008 2:12 PM
Kudos to Mr Stanford and his maverick attitude towards expanding/promoting cricket. Goodness I hope he gets rewarded, not only with profit, but an improving West Indies. I just wish cricket was pushed with this intensity in other parts of the world.
Posted by: Ralph at January 24, 2008 11:28 PM
Taking a look at the website, I'm extremely impressed - both with the quality of the marketing and Mr Stanford's zeal. I can only see his as a positive for West Indian cricket.
Posted by: Taimoor Sultan at January 25, 2008 2:32 AM
Well the efforts of Mr. Stanford are very plausible. It would be fun to see a U.S town in Colorado going cricket crazy. this could actually happen. I know a lot of my US friends who are actually interested in the game, maybe not so much in following but in playing it. I will keep my ingers crossed.
Posted by: Laksh at January 27, 2008 10:43 PM
Great Going Mr.Stanford... ICC Should learn from him on the way to promote the game...
Posted by: Mike K at January 28, 2008 5:04 AM
Fort Collins is already pretty knowledgeable about cricket with three established cricket gounds and two teams that participate in the Colorado Cricket league (CCL). The Ft Collins Cricket Club has won the Colorado league championship five times since 1994 with at least nine teams participating at a competitive level. The CCL also introduced a 20/20 format a couple of years ago running concurrently with our regular league season. We all welcome the added exposure with the Stanford 20/20 and our local club has been working with the promoters by attending the various viewing parties, posting articles on our CCL website and demonstrating cricket at a local Indoor arena. This is a very exciting time for all the existing cricket players in the local Ft Collins area. Cricket brings a diverse community together where you can see Indians, English, South Aficans, Austrailians, Pakistanis and Americans of all ages enjoying each others company connected by the greatest sport in the world.
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