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Professional sport is far richer than it has ever been, and yet all sports seem united by a desire to generate even more cash. The motivation is the same, whether it is in FIFAs wish to expand the World Cup beyond 32 teams, India playing West Indies in a T20I series in Florida, or in the NFL playing three games in October in London.While cricket attempts to take hold in America, so Americas game attempts to grow in England. This year is the tenth consecutive one in which regular season games in American football have been held in London. What began as an idiosyncratic novelty has gradually become an accepted part of the British sporting calendar. The number of games per season in London has risen from one to three and will rise further, to four in 2018. Even as the number of matches has swelled, it has not been able to keep pace with demand.Of the 15 NFL matches that have been played at Wembley Stadium to date, only one has not been a sell-out. Sky Sports now televises more than 100 live games a year, and the average audience has doubled in the past decade. Meanwhile the BBCs highlights show, which launched last year, now receives a total audience of one million. The BBC also shows four live games every year - the three in London and the Super Bowl, the NFLs annual championship game.Games in London are a deliberate loss leader, Alistair Kirkwood, head of NFL Europe, explained earlier this year. The matches make a loss for the NFL because of the costs of paying for the clubs to relocate for a week, and compensating the home club for losing revenue. But the NFL sees this as a short-term investment and envisages matches in Britain ultimately helping to make all 32 clubs richer through more lucrative sponsorship, merchandise sales and commercial rights.Perhaps the most important part of the NFLs approach to growing the game in England is that it is about more than just monetising Americans who have settled across the pond. It is about developing new fans too.For the last two years, the NFL has organised a fans day in Regents Street, central London, using everything from inflatable tackling dummies, cheerleaders and American food and drink to show off the sport to new fans. About half a million people showed up. Most stumbled across the event rather than sought it out, yet in many ways that is the point. It was designed to increase awareness of the NFL among those who knew and cared little for it.Here there are many lessons for cricket. The raft of high-profile cricket events in the USA in the last year - the Warne-Tendulkar Legends series, the staging of Caribbean Premier League games and the West Indies-India internationals - seem to have been designed squarely to make cash out of the expat market. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. But there is a problem when a bunch of 1990s stars slugging it out in a baseball stadium is seen as a substitute for a meaningful development strategy.Getting the NFL shown on free-to-air TV - through the BBC highlights show, which is designed for the non-hardcore fan - is central to the sports approach to Britain. Yet so far there have been no attempts to get cricket on free-to-air TV in the States. Indeed, the India-West Indies T20Is were not shown on any TV channel in the USA at all.Nor has there been a substantive attempt - Courtney Walsh bowling to the mayor of Indianapolis doesnt really count - to make cricket accessible, relevant or even known beyond those who already follow the game. Sadly, this is in keeping with the history of the sport in the USA.A lot of focus does tend to go on to the commercial side of things, an ICC source said of those in charge of US cricket two years ago. And when marquee matches have been held in Malaysia, Singapore and even the United Arab Emirates, organisers there too have rarely used them to win new converts to cricket.The most successful sport yet at entering a new market has been basketball in China. It has done so through an enlightened, long-term approach, focusing both on the grassroots and professional game, and the fortuitous emergence of the superstar Yao Ming. The NFLs approach to Britain and elsewhere is being governed by this template.Yet such sophistication has long been absent in crickets approach to growth, which has been impatient and top-down, seldom recognising the importance of engaging children without a national affinity to the sport or the sheer time such expansionism requires before it yields financial rewards.Cricket in the US hasnt developed the same kind of commercial or managerial sophistication as the NBA in China or the NFL in the UK, says Simon Chadwick, a professor of sports enterprise at the University of Salford in England. Cricket needs pitches, players and points of engagement, not just Warne and Tendulkar. The sport needs to give people in the US reasons to watch and reasons to play.The historic failure of those running US cricket is borne out by the terrible participation rates for junior cricketers. There were only 1230 junior cricketers playing in the US in 2014, according to the ICC census. In contrast, there are now 6000 junior players in American football in Britain, plus another 5000 players at universities. This is not just vindication for a decade of matches in London, but also the work that American football has done in establishing itself at grassroots level.Osi Umenyiora, a former NFL star who was born in England, is paid by the NFL to help identify athletes in their late teens and early 20s who could take their skills to American football. While the ICC has taken some important steps to reform American cricket over the last two years - like suspending USACA, whose leadership stymied US cricket for many years, and creating an ICC Americas team to compete in the Caribbean domestic 50-over tournament - transforming grassroots cricket and ending the exclusivity surrounding the sport will take many years.The most important lesson that cricket can learn from this NFL story is that other sports are coming into crickets traditional territories - from the NFL in Britain, to European club football in India - while making a concerted effort to grow in the most lucrative untapped sports market of them all: China.There comes a point when the growth of sports is a zero-sum game. Someone choosing to watch the NFL in Britain or the Premier League in India is doing so instead of watching cricket at that time. Other sports increased popularity could thereby undermine the commercial value of cricket.This is why crickets approach, in the US and beyond, must be about long-term development more than short-term profits. Expanding the sports global footprint is ultimately an insurance policy, a way of reducing a financial over-dependence on India and guarding against a drop in interest in crickets traditional powerhouses. Cheap Air Jordan 13 Sale . Tests earlier this week revealed a Grade 2 left hamstring strain for Sabathia, who was hurt in last Fridays start against San Francisco. Its an injury that will require about eight weeks to heal. He finished a disappointing campaign just 14-13 with a career-worst 4. Cheap Air Jordan 13 China . Already owning gold from competition in Vancouver in 2010, Loch posted a combined four-run time of 3:27.526. That included a track-record third run of 51. http://www.airjordan13discount.com/ . Schenn scored the game-winning goal and added two assists to lead the Philadelphia Flyers to a 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Tuesday. Wholesale Air Jordan 13 . On Mar. 16, coming off a "fight of the year" performance at UFC 154 the previous November, St-Pierre faced Nick Diaz at UFC 158 in what would be his eighth defence of the welterweight title. Using his superior athleticism, St-Pierre cruised to a five round, unanimous decision victory setting up a much-anticipated title defence against number one contender Johny Hendricks. Air Jordan 13 Discount . Having already announced that the race will start May 9 with three stages in Northern Ireland and Ireland and finish in Trieste on June 1, the rest of the route was unveiled Monday. Sometimes two wrongs do make things right. At least that was the case for Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli in Visakhapatnam. In the first session, soon after drinks, with India already two down, they gave England the chance to break their partnership not once but twice in a single over.First, Kohli nudged to the right of Joe Root at midwicket and called for a single that probably wasnt on. Pujara, who isnt the quickest across 22 yards, had to put in a big dive despite the throw being a bit wayward. A ball later, Kohli refused a second run after Pujaras dab to point had been parried by the fielder Stuart Broad towards the man rushing in from sweeper cover. Having come halfway down the pitch, and losing his bat to add to the drama, Pujara was forced into another big dive to keep his wicket safe.On a first-day pitch that was offering very little help to the bowlers, with the team depending on them to fight back, a run-out might have had the same effect on India as... well, the three catches they dropped in the first session in Rajkot.I think we didnt judge the singles well, especially in the first session, Pujara said at the end of the days play, after he had scored 119 and put on 226 with Kohli, who was not out on 151 at stumps. But once there was a lunch time, we had a chat of how we want to go in the next session and if you look at the time between the lunch and tea sessions, we didnt miss many singles and the way we were running between the wickets in the second session was much much betterKohli and Pujara collected 118 runs off only 170 balls in the middle session. There were spells of play such ass from the 43rd to the 53rd overs when they went at more than six an over.dddddddddddd Even this period began with a mistake from an Indian batsman - Ben Stokes could have had Kohli caught at long leg - which was then followed by swift and effective corrective measures.There was one error, where he [Kohli] didnt control the pull shot well, Pujara said. But after that, I think the way he was batting and the way I was judging the bounce, we felt that if we continued rotating the strike, continue batting the way weve been batting, there wouldnt be any trouble. It was just one shot where he didnt control it well.Kohli was circumspect against the short ball thereafter, and recorded his third 150-plus score in five months. Pujara made his third century in as many Tests and his 119 was vital in taking India to stumps at 317 for 4. A big first-innings total is likely to have considerable bearing on the outcome of the match with the pitch at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium likely to offer increasing assistance to spinners.On day one in India, we mostly see that its always good for batting. Even if we see in the last Test match, Rajkot, day one it was really good to bat on, even day two was good to bat on in Rajkot, Pujara said. I dont know how it will shape up starting from tomorrow but we are expecting it to turn a little more than what it did in Rajkot. So if we bat well, looking to put up a good total on the board and lets see how it turns up on day three. ' ' '