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A few days before the start of the ICC World Cricket League Division Five Tournament in Kathmandu, Nepal, Peter Della Penna of DreamCricket.com had the opportunity to sit down with USA Cricket Association CEO Don Lockerbie to ask him about recent developments that have been making headlines for USACA. In particular, the biggest news announced ahead of the tournament was that New Zealand and Sri Lanka will be coming to the US in May to play a series of Twenty20 matches in Florida.

Over the course of the interview, Lockerbie revealed several other pieces of new information. Among these are that Pakistan might possibly join Sri Lanka and New Zealand to play in May’s Twenty20 series, an MCC team will be coming to Florida to play a USA development squad in March, his potential plan to bid for the 2013 Champions Trophy and a more in-depth look at how he plans to professionalize cricket in America.

Pic (Right): USA Cricket CEO Don Lockerbie with IPL Chairman Lalit Modi. [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Here is part 1 of the interview.

Peter Della Penna: The partnership with New Zealand, these matches that are announced with Sri Lanka, obviously everybody’s known about New Zealand for a while now, the partnership that’s been established with them, but how did Sri Lanka become involved in this in trying to arrange these matches?

Don Lockerbie: Back in November, we met with the Sri Lankan secretary at the ICC meetings and it was made expressly by them that they wanted to follow in the footsteps of other Full Members, particularly like New Zealand, and come sooner than later to the United States. Nishantha Ranatunga is the secretary general for the Sri Lanka Cricket Board and funny enough, his brother was formerly the secretary and now lives in Washington, D.C. So he knows USA well, he’s followed USA cricket. They want to help and there’s a good feeling about Sri Lankan cricket around the world.

Sri Lanka are a fun team to watch, they’re very energetic. They were World Cup finalists in the 2007 World Cup. I’ve seen them play a lot and I just think it’s a great brand of cricket so absolutely wanted to honor their desire to come play and with our partnership, Justin Vaughan has been doing a great job from New Zealand making the case to come to the United States. With the West Indies hosts of the 2010 World T20, all the teams are coming to the neighborhood so a lot of them are knocking on the door and looking to find a chance to play with us.

Peter Della Penna: Obviously these are matches between Sri Lanka and New Zealand, but what kind of money, what are the potential earning opportunities in terms of possible television rights and other sources of revenue that would go to USACA from this kind of event?

Don Lockerbie: It’s hard to say right now what the final tally like that could be estimated at, but I can tell you that in this day and age in cricket, the way that you’re going to make some commercial rights stick are to create some long-term partnerships and relationships. So in the coming weeks, with our partners New Zealand, we’ll be looking to create some long-term match opportunities and series where we can sit down with some of the top broadcasters of the world and look for something that they can count on.

Doing one-off events is never going to be profitable. What we need to do is start creating a consistency of matches that are probably best played in the United States between, let’s just say April to September, something like that, where it’s a good time of year for the

Full Members who are looking for places to play and we think that trying to establish some long-term value to our broadcasters, our sponsors, having good paydays for the teams that come and play in the United States are all very very important in commercial consideration. So right now what we’re doing is we’re developing the strategic plan that we can bring to sponsors and broadcasters and it also has a lot to do with who is playing.

So one of the things that we’re also looking to do is at the same time we announced the Sri Lanka-New Zealand opportunity, which we’re still finalizing all the nuts and bolts on that from dates, to the competition schedule, to again working with any potential broadcasters, there’s an opportunity for a third Full Member to come in as well and it’s no secret that we’ve been in discussions with Pakistan. So obviously I think the value of the television rights or long-term rights for the United States Cricket have to do with the high level of competition that’s coming to the country and if we can bring in two or three Full Members in May this year after the World T20, that will be a great start for us.

It’ll be the first time that we really have two or three Full Members playing and that’s what we want our stakeholders to realize, that this will be annual, this will be several times a year and your question about how commercially viable it is will have to do with the ability that we start off well. If we play to empty stadiums and nobody’s all that interested, then the whole business of the commercial viability of the United States is nothing more than a rumor. So what we really need is for people who’ve been wanting to see cricket, who are hungry for cricket, support what we’re doing. Get out there, watch it, support it and let broadcasters know and let sponsors know that this is exactly what fans of US cricket have been wanting or fans of world cricket have been wanting.

Peter Della Penna: Obviously the dates haven’t been finalized yet, but potentially what would be the kind of price range that fans would be expecting to pay? There’s no real precedent that’s been set for a kind of US cricket event obviously in terms of ticket-selling but has there been any discussion in terms of what the price range would be for fans who might want to come and fly to Florida or fans in Florida who would want to buy tickets to this kind of thing?

Don Lockerbie: No. It’s a little premature to say what our ticket prices are going to be. But I can say that we want them to be reasonable. We’re essentially a new business and like any new business, you want to set up price points that are going to get people to the stadium and to enjoy it and come back. So I think that we are absolutely looking at the opportunity to develop the kind of matches that people will find affordable.

I know that our Full Members will be generous with us and see their own coming to the United States as a way to help USACA and the way to do that is not to be too terribly expensive for them and that’s why we’re looking at generous partners.

The whole thing with the New Zealand partnership, this is a long-term deal we’re putting together with them. We’re looking at New Zealand actually investing in United States Cricket and by doing that, they’re not out to do anything but make the game more popular and we all agree that the way to do that is to fill up the stands as best we can. So we’ll be reasonable with our ticket prices, with our concessions, with our merchandise.

Peter Della Penna: What else are these teams doing besides obviously playing matches? Is there anything that’s going to be set up in terms of running a local youth coaching clinic or running a local community thing, anything like that?

Don Lockerbie: Without a doubt, we’d be looking always to set up coaching clinics and youth camps and opportunities maybe for local VIPs and celebrities to try hitting the ball and trying to make it fun for all. Without a doubt the sport, particularly in the Twenty20 game, is one of family entertainment and fun and it’s a fast paced experience and I’m sure that we’ll be looking to address some of the entertainment around the grandstands.

Perhaps concerts, perhaps going as far as the IPL with cheerleaders, we want to make sure that cricket is the exciting fast paced game that it’s now become in Twenty20 and I know that part of what we want to do is become the place to come play. United States is going to be a place that will have full stadiums and lots of fun and entertainment and great atmosphere. That’s what everyone thinks cricket should be for the United States and that’s what we’ll be planning to do.

Peter Della Penna: You mentioned with Pakistan obviously could be a team that comes in May, along with Sri Lanka and New Zealand. But they played, in the past year, series in Abu Dhabi, one day series, and they obviously don’t have a permanent home right now to host matches. What is the likelihood of them playing 50-over matches in 2010 in the US against other teams?

Don Lockerbie: Right now, I don’t think there’s any plan for them to play one-day internationals. The invitation that has been made has been to come to the United States in April where they could be creating a training camp and perhaps some warm-up matches before they go defend their world championship in the West Indies at the T20 World Cup and then the other option is to see if they’re interested to come play in May.

I need to be clear, the current negotiation between New Zealand and Sri Lanka is moving forward. The invitation is being made to Pakistan, but their interest is very very high and it has a lot to do with their own scheduling, with the players who would be available, and we made it clear to all three teams that we’re looking for their powerhouse teams.  We’re looking for them to come and make history in the United States.

To be clear, the announcement that we made about New Zealand and Sri Lanka is significant. It’s one where we are very very excited that they are now finalizing negotiations with us to make it real. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s going to take place and with Pakistan we’ve just made the invitation for them to study very quickly whether April and or May would be something that they want to do. So that puts them in a Twenty20 mindset. We made it very clear to [Pakistan Cricket Board] Chairman [Ijaz] Butt that we again want a long-term relationship with them.

We want to be helpful and useful to their situation and current condition of having difficulty finding places to play and there’s millions of Pakistan fans in the United States. We’ve got I’m sure for them a very loyal following that would be very eager to support that team. Therefore, the idea that there could be 50-over cricket from a Pakistan side soon is very reasonable to expect.

Pic (Left) - L to R: Nabeel Ahmed (USACA - First VP), IS Bindra (ICC Principal Advisor), Don Lockerbie (USA Cricket CEO) and Ahmed Jeddy (Central West Regional Representative to USACA Board) [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Peter Della Penna: In terms of getting the US team playing in these Twenty20 matches in Florida, would these be actual matches or would it just be warm-up matches? Would they be listed as warm-up matches or would they be classed as full?

Don Lockerbie: The matches in April would be to help benefit the teams who are going on to the World T20 in the Caribbean. We would have liked to been one of those teams, but we finished essentially in a tie for fifth with Kenya. We had to finish in the top two to have that shot.

So now it’s really a matter of being good members of the ICC and fulfilling an opportunity to help the guys that are going to the World T20, those teams.

In May, it’s a different matter. In May, with Sri Lanka and New Zealand coming in, we would be in a position to be one of the competing teams and that’s exciting for us because that truly will be full-on cricket with the United States being the third or fourth team in a series of double-headers.

Peter Della Penna: There’s this letter (press release) that was made at the end of January in regards to professional coaching being one of your intentions for the future. How close is that or how far away is that from happening? Also part of that statement was professional contracts for players. How close are those things to happening?

Don Lockerbie: They should happen in 2010. The expectation is that we’re professionalizing cricket in the United States. It started with my hiring in April of a year ago. We’re fast approaching the end of the first year and we’re fast approaching the ability to feel comfortable with some of the initiatives that we’ve put in place and some of the financial planning that we’re putting in place and can soon announce.

We’re adding staff to my office which would include hiring a national director of coaching, an assistant coaching staff, kind of retooling the way we select players throughout the country.

We’d be looking at a regional coaching staff around the country that we’d want to incentivize with paid positions. So in other words, I think that a lot of people know that my strategy all along has been to start at the national team level and work our way down because I believe that club cricket and regional cricket is healthy. Certainly, they can always use more funding and more facilities and more initiatives and we’ll get that to them in the near future, but the first thing to do in my opinion is to meet the mandate of the ICC and the mandate of the ICC is to make sure that we’re developing professional cricket teams that can make it to World Cups.

So we’re going to start that way, but I think that the stakeholders of US cricket will soon find that there will be funding for all areas of US cricket and that the goal is to make noise and noteworthy headlines at the national and international level so that the funding can come in so that there are broadcasters and sponsors and investors who want to be part of US cricket and so that it then makes its way throughout all specters and spectrums of US cricket.

To be continued.....

In Part 2 of this interview, Don talks about plans for development of a professional T20 domestic league in the United States - “I’m not sleeping at night until what I’ve promised, which is professionalization of cricket in the United States, is alive and well."  Watch this space on Tuesday.