Will the CPL return to Florida?

The Caribbean Premier League's maiden foray into playing on US soil was a chance for the sport to be revived at the Central Broward Regional Park (CBRP) in Lauderhill to combat the burgeoning presence of soccer at the facility. In some ways, the CPL accomplished this because, India agreed to play two Twenty20 Internationals against West Indies shortly after the league's conclusion. That would have made it two big-ticket events in successive months at CBRP after going four years without a major revenue-generating cricket event.

CPL officials have repeatedly said they are committed to coming back again. Several sources have even said CPL officials explored hosting the finals in Florida, though the limited number of pitches on the square would have posed a basic logistical problem. Whether coming back means Florida or to elsewhere in the USA remains to be seen though.

The CPL has declined multiple requests to provide official attendance figures for the games in Florida, but the raw visual evidence for bums in seats over the course of the four days in Lauderhill was a mixed bag.

Seating capacity at the venue is malleable based on the desires of each tenant. For the CPL, they opted to cap sales for each day at 10,000 people. The July 28 curtain-raiser between Guyana Amazon Warriors and Barbados Tridents was played in front of a crowd that was comfortably less than half of that total, while a Friday night match on July 29 between Trinbago Knight Riders and St Kitts & Nevis Patriots was marginally better.

By far the best crowd of the weekend showed up for the July 30 doubleheader, led off by the Jamaica Tallawahs and St Lucia Zouks and followed by the Warriors and Tridents. Though the 5000 permanent seats on the south half of the venue were officially sold out and total attendance was estimated to be around 8000, it was a deceptive tally. At no point were the permanent seating sections filled up because many fans who bought a ticket for the day either came for the first or second game, but not both, though the crowd was much fuller and noisier for the latter contest with the Guyana expat community turning out in force.

A similar scene was on display for July 31. The opening game of a 12 pm doubleheader start was played in front of a healthy crowd with the Trinidad expat community providing overwhelming support for the Knight Riders against the Patriots. However, game two between the Tallawahs and Zouks was played in a stadium that was almost half-empty, exacerbated by an early finish to game one and a 50-minute lightning delay to push back the first ball of game two.

Despite the fact that local officials hyped up the Jamaican expat community's presence in the Lauderhill area as a reason for Saturday and Sunday's games having better sales than the first two days, this was not borne out by the evidence. Support for the Tallawahs flagged well behind that given to the Warriors and Knight Riders and local fans were hard to find.

Instead, out-of-towners provided the majority of the gate revenue. Support was strongest from fans traveling to Florida from New York and Toronto for the weekend. One party of 50 Guyanese cousins and friends living in Queens, New York made the trip down to Florida. According to Kyazoonga, the official ticketing website, tickets were sold online to people from at least 35 states, further promoting the image of a tourist-dominated event. Even if the stands were not jam-packed by locals, they were definitely vibrant and loud.

A shining example of this was the Balchand family, who drove down 20 hours from Ozone Park in the Queens borough of New York City to take in the weekend action. Originally from Guyana, Darren Balchand and his wife Shafiqua came to New York in 1991. Their four kids, all rabid cricket fans, were all born in New York. Darren came with his eldest son Ronald, now 20, back in 2012 to see the West Indies play New Zealand, but this time the rest of the family made the trip, including twins Damien and Alicia, 16, and youngest brother Brandon, 14.

"We're West Indians so our cricket is a very festive atmosphere and I like that we don't have to go all the way to the West Indies to experience that," says Ronald. "We can have the same experience here."

It wasn't just the West Indian expats that came from New York though. Joel Katz, 52, and his wife Susan discovered cricket while on vacation in the Caribbean three years ago. They went to six CPL games in St Kitts in 2015 and decided on seeing games in Florida this time around mainly because there were six games slated for Florida, but only four games scheduled at every other home venue. Quite simply they were willing to travel to any venue for the CPL, they just wanted to see as much cricket as possible.

"Last week, I saw the Mets at Wrigley [in Chicago] for the game the Mets won in the ninth and I gotta say Cubbie fans are into their local team but here everybody is having a blast," said Joel, who was decked out in Tallawahs gear all weekend, eager to see his favorite cricketer. "Chris Gayle. Christopher Henry Gayle! He brings such excitement to the game. You never know which Chris Gayle is gonna walk onto the field. It's just a great experience. I've never been to Lord's but I can't imagine this kind of experience there."

However, there was a subtle difference between the Katz and Balchand families that was repeated throughout the stadium on all four days. Most fans of West Indian heritage who had their kids born and raised in the USA brought them out to enjoy the festivities, regarding it as a very family-friendly atmosphere. While there were numerous Americans outside of the West Indian community present, none of them brought their kids.

This cultural disconnect was summed up by a middle-aged couple from Connecticut who came out for the entire weekend. David and Trudie retired on a yacht to Trinidad and discovered the CPL while based there, going to the finals last year at Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain. While saying they loved every minute of it, they also confessed they wouldn't even think of bringing their grandkids, while nodding to a group of carnival girls dancing at the front of their section. "We call this baseball with strippers," said David.

Whether one considered the event family friendly or not, a bigger concern was the stifling heat and humidity, which also contributed to fans leaving early or showing up late on the pair of doubleheader days. Temperatures remained over 90F every day with a real feel climbing over 100F when humidity was factored in. It was one of the few complaints people like the Katz and Balchand families had about the experience and several sources stated that vendors ran out of beer on the first doubleheader day with fans desperate to quench their thirst.

Summer in New York can be hot, but generally is a bit more moderate and without the threat of tropical weather interfering. The Cricket All-Stars crowd at Citi Field in New York last November was officially 27,846. Based on the healthy contingent of fans from New York who traveled south for the CPL this year, such a number could be within reach for the CPL should they decide to stage games in New York in the near future.

However, league organizers appear to be firm in their stance that the games must be played on fields with true boundary dimensions. A drop-in wicket at Citi Field may have been passable for the All-Stars, but 45-meter boundaries will not be for the CPL. Lauderhill may a default candidate to host CPL games in the USA in the near future if the league decides to persist with it's expansion in the USA, but as soon as a suitable turf wicket venue becomes available in New York, don't be surprised to see the league leave Florida behind.