UNC weighs cricket as next big thing in international sports stadium proposal

The vision of making Chapel Hill the next “global sports capital” for international cricket, rugby and soccer in time for the 2028 Olympics piqued members’ interest at a UNC Board of Trustees committee meeting Wednesday.

“You have focused this board’s attention on something that we otherwise would not have been thinking about for Carolina North, and you have done it in a way that I think everyone here would love to see this happen,” Trustee John Preyer told Vijay Nandakumar, a member of the Morrisville Raptors ownership team, and fellow Trustee Vimal Kolappa, who raised the idea.

The NC Colosseum at UNC’s Carolina North campus could hold 25,000 spectators, according to the proposal. Carolina North is less than two miles north of the main campus and is one of four sites suggested for a new, Dean Dome basketball arena.

It would be a premier complex, with a flexible playing field that could be quickly reconfigured to host concerts and academic events, Nandakumar told the board’s External Relations Committee. It could include gyms, courts and pools offering public memberships, according to a report, and a mixed-use district with restaurants, shops, and hotels.

Kolappa advised the board that the colosseum could be built “in the most cost-effective manner,” with a return on investment that “is really very, very high.”

“We need to make sure that Chapel Hill gets a piece of that money, all the taxes, plus ticket sales, TV rights,” Kolappa said. “Three million people are going to watch the game, and we need to get this done, possibly before the 2028 Olympics, because we’ll have a lot of major games come here.“

The report estimated the economic impact for North Carolina at $5 billion to $6 billion in the first decade. That includes a potential benefit of $300 million to $350 million a year from wages and direct spending at local businesses, $250 million from construction activities, and more than $100 million for UNC, it says.

Sports betting would also be an attraction, with a $100 million — and growing — potential betting market, the report says.

The ICC Men’s T20 World Cup — held in New York, Dallas and Florida last year — generated $600 million in revenues in one month, Nandakumar told the board.

Raptors owner-member Jana Chellaperumal suggested before the meeting that the venue could surpass 2024 World Cup revenues.

It’s definitely something to explore, Trustee Marty Kotis said.

“I think given the 2028 Olympics, and the fact that cricket is the second-largest sport in the world bodes well for [this project],” he said. “I do think this presents a very interesting vision for Carolina North’s ability to generate revenues for the state.”

Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson said Tuesday she had not heard about the stadium plan until this week. The town has a collaborative relationship with UNC and Chancellor Lee Roberts, and she expects that to continue, she said.

“I think it’s always a good idea to have recreation, and I think more opportunities for our residents to be healthy, to be social, and more opportunities for tourism are generally a good thing,” Anderson said.

The NC Colosseum will be presented to the full Board of Trustees on Thursday.

Cricket is a growing NC sport

Cricket is the second-most watched sport in the world, the UNC report says. It has also gained a following in the Triangle, including in Morrisville, where Minor League Cricket arrived in 2021.

The sport is important to Morrisville’s diverse community, Mayor TJ Cawley said Tuesday.

The town is home to the Raptors, a Minor League team, and for the last two years, it hosted Major League Cricket tournament games, attracting over 3,000 people from around the country to Church Street Park for seven games. The cricket field was expanded, adding more pitch lanes, LED-lit practice pitches and nets, athlete seating and safety nets.

Morrisville has had the opportunity to host international cricket stars, including the Sri Lankan Lions, a men’s team preparing for the International Cricket Council T20 World Cup.

“Friends told me that if you were in India, you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the facility because there’d be lines of people,” Cawley said. “Here in Morrisville, you can be 10 feet away from one of the best players in the world. It’s really incredible to bring that kind of talent to our residents who really love it.”

Minor league teams are still playing in Morrisville this year, but Major Leage Cricket moved its games to bigger stadiums with more amenities, Cawley said. The town is adding more practice pitches, lighting and athletic courts to its park.

Cawley had not heard about UNC’s plans for a cricket stadium in Chapel Hill, but said he’s “looking forward to what they do.”

“More cricket in our region helps us all,” Cawley said. “It’s kind of like when you have businesses coming to Holly Springs and Apex, it helps Morrisville. It’s helping our life, our whole area, become a life sciences hub, a high-technology place to do business. And sports are the same way.”

The Triangle has about 220 formal and informal cricket teams, and about 3,000 players, including a few hundred boys and girls, Nandakumar and Chellaperumal said. A colosseum would present year-round opportunities to use the field and give North Carolina the “ability to bring in a multicultural crowd,” Nandakumar said.

Revising the Carolina North plan

The 250-acre Carolina North campus, located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, was approved in 2009 for an academic, research and mixed-use center. Over 700 more acres, including some of the most ecologically sensitive, were preserved.

In 2018, UNC closed the Horace Williams Airport, which occupies much of the buildable area northwest of the MLK Jr. Boulevard and Estes Drive intersection, but the new campus has languished without funding.

The delay contributed to less retail and more apartments than planned at the Aura Booth Park development, under construction across MLK Jr. Boulevard, because there was no activity at Carolina North to support more commercial development, town officials have said.

It’s unclear how much land could be developed or preserved in the new Carolina North plan. Populous, a global architectural firm, was hired last year to analyze the feasibility, costs and potential revenues of building a new Dean E. Smith Center at Carolina North and other potential sites on campus and at the Friday Center on N.C. 54, east of campus.

The consultant’s report has not been released yet, but it’s not expected to recommend a specific site.

The proposed Dean Dome could have 16,000 seats and host the Tar Heels men’s and women’s basketball teams, replacing a slightly larger, but nearly 40-year-old basketball arena on UNC’s South Campus. The existing arena needs major repairs and renovations, including a new roof that could cost $80 million to $100 million, Roberts has said.

Carolina North is largely undeveloped, on the other hand, and moving the Dean Dome there would ease some of the traffic and parking constraints caused by its current location near UNC Hospitals. It would also free up land on UNC’s main campus for student housing, medical and academic buildings.

Traffic will have to be studied at Carolina North, Anderson said. The intersection funnels a lot of local traffic, making congestion mitigation a critical issue, but the town is also planning a stop there on the future North-South bus-rapid transit line.

UNC officials have supported the BRT plan and the application for federal funding that could be submitted this fall, she said. Two people with the university recently joined a local delegation to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the project.

Noise and light pollution could also be issues, along with stormwater, which already causes regular downstream flooding.

This story was originally published July 30, 2025 at 8:36 AM.