Canadian Premier League T20 Founder & CEO Roy Singh’s “brainchild" is a professional cricket league "with teams that have at least one and perhaps several well-known international stars as their drawing card along with home-grown players," according to Bob Mitchell of the TORONTO STAR. Singh “wants to play at the Rogers Centre” and has “made some overtures to the media giant to see whether it’s feasible to turn the Blue Jays’ playpen into a regulation-size cricket pitch that can be used for the tournament that takes about seven weeks to play.” All matches in the league “will be about 2 1/2 hours long so they can attract a television contract and national audience.” If Singh can “make it happen, he hopes to stage the first event of its kind on Canadian soil next summer.” It could cost between C$2-4M “to re-configure the Rogers Centre field” in order to “make it larger.” Under Singh’s plan, franchises owned by major Canadian corporations “representing about 10 cities from across Canada” will put C$1M in trust. Singh, in order to attract a wide range of fans, “plans to have celebrities and international singers perform at the games.” They will also “have the chance to be involved in team ownership” (TORONTO STAR, 4/10).
