The Oakland Coliseum, home of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League (NFL), has emerged as a possible venue for the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the United States and the West Indies. The ICC’s CEO Geoff Allardice and development director Will Glenwright recently met with USA Cricket executives in California, where the notion, which has been circulating since last year, gained traction.

Though the Oakland Coliseum, which opened in 1966, lacks many of the luxury amenities found in most outdoor American stadiums built since the turn of the millennium, it has two major features which appeal to cricket administrators. The location, in the East Bay of northern California just north of the Silicon Valley, is home to a burgeoning local grassroots cricket scene as well as a deep-pocketed expatriate cricket fan base that administrators are hoping to tap into.

Another attraction is that the stadium could hold up to 53,000 fans, more than twice as many as any currently available purpose-built cricket venues in the USA. Those include venues in consideration for hosting T20 World Cup games, such as Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina, which is slated for an expansion to hold approximately 4,000 fans; as well as USA’s two ODI venues located in Lauderhill, Florida, and the Houston suburb of Pearland, Texas, both of which have 10,000 capacity (but which could expand to approximately 15,000-20,000 with temporary seating). Other venues which do not have ODI status but could be in consideration are Prairie View Cricket Complex – in suburban Houston – and AirHogs Stadium just outside of Dallas, which is yet to break ground on renovations since a lease was acquired in 2020.

However, for the Oakland Coliseum to host matches several logistical hurdles will need to be overcome. It’s location in the Pacific time zone means it would be unlikely to host an India-Pakistan match because an 8pm primetime start on TV in India would mean a 7.30 am start in California. But the venue could be an ideal choice for the late game in a double- or triple-header on a given day, which could possibly feature another heavyweight clash such as England-Australia to suit UK primetime.

The event’s current June date, which coincides with the opening of baseball season, is another stumbling point. The Athletics and MLB would have to agree on a 10- to 14-day road trip for the Athletics around that time to allow cricket officials to prepare the Coliseum for the T20 World Cup, which would entail the installation of a drop-in pitch. The venue would only be able to host two or three matches with such schedule.

This isn’t the first time a baseball stadium has been used to hold a high-profile cricket match in recent years. In 2015, the Cricket All-Stars T20 exhibition tour, which featured Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne, was played on drop-in pitches at Citi Field (home of the New York Mets), Minute Maid Park (home of the Houston Astros), and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Those sites were chosen to attract spectators to places with significantly more seating capacity than cricket-specific facilities like Lauderhill. All three facilities were designed specifically for baseball, with little foul territory and seating close to the field, resulting in some exceptionally short pitch boundaries.

The original construction of Oakland Coliseum as a shared baseball and football venue, however, means that it contains by far the greatest foul space in MLB, with the closest seats set back a significant distance from the field. For cricket purposes, this means that square boundaries would be on the cusp of meeting the ICC’s 55-meter minimum boundary measurements. If a more thorough assessment reveals that the boundaries fall just short of the ICC minimum, administrators could apply for an ICC exemption in the same way that Auckland’s Eden Park did for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to welcome an unparalleled number of people for a match in America.

Local officials are considering organizing exhibition matches at Oakland Coliseum before the end of 2023 to establish the facility’s sustainability. If such an exhibition were to go through, it would most likely take place after the baseball season ended in October or November, though no concrete preparations have been established at this time.