The District’s new Major League Cricket team is here with a new name and game plan.
The Washington Freedom name and logo, revealed Wednesday, comes just a few months before the first professional cricket league in the country begins its inaugural season.
ICYMI 👀 Washington D.C. has a new professional cricket team 🇺🇸 🙌
The Washington Freedom will compete in the historic inaugural season of #MajorLeagueCricket launching on July 13, 2023 🏏#buildamericancricket pic.twitter.com/qvStzTflm8
— Major League Cricket (@MLCricket) March 16, 2023
Sanjay Govil, the team’s lead investor, said that the team will mark a significant move for global competition as well, as the league brings the world’s second most popular sport to the nation’s capital.
“The Washington D.C. area is home to hundreds of thousands of cricket fans, and it’s an honor to be able to bring a professional team to the nation’s capital with the Washington Freedom to compete in the groundbreaking Major League Cricket championship this summer,” Govil said in a release.
Washington Freedom will play its first MLC game in Grand Prairie, Texas, during an 18-day competition beginning on July 14. The first-ever final for the cricket league will be on July 30, with teams from Texas, Los Angeles, New York and more joining the launch.
“While the Freedom will not host any home matches in the 2023 season, MLC and the Freedom have already embarked on planning to build a world class home for the team in the Washington D.C. region,” the team said.
The team hopes to have an operational ballpark at George Mason University by 2025, though a preliminary study and plan have yet to be announced.
“The ballpark would be designed to host MLC matches, Mason baseball games, and other events on the University’s Fairfax Campus in the Washington D.C. region,” the release concluded.
The name may sound familiar to D.C. sports fans as the Freedom was also the name of a women’s professional soccer team that played in the D.C. area between 2001 to 2010. The soccer team relocated to Florida in 2011 before ceasing operation.
