Kansas City to build new cricket field at Hodge Park

Kansas City cricket is finally getting a real home. Wes Rogers said Hodge Park will become the city’s newest cricket field by this fall, giving the Northland a dedicated ground for more than 30 teams already playing across Kansas and Missouri. For years, Rogers said, those teams have had to travel outside the city for tournaments and league play because there was no dedicated place for them here.

That matters because cricket in this area is no longer a fringe pickup game squeezed into borrowed space. The Cricket Premier League of Kansas City says it has eight teams in its 2026 league, and earlier local coverage put the league at 350 players across 24 teams. The Midwest Cricket League, meanwhile, was established in 2003 with six teams, later grew to 11, and peaked at 18 teams before COVID. Taken together, those numbers point to a scene that has outgrown the patchwork setup it has been using.

Hodge Park gives the city a chance to catch up. Kansas City Parks & Recreation says the park covers more than 1,000 acres, making it the second-largest park in Kansas City. It is named for Dr. Robert Hodge and already includes athletic fields, including ball diamonds, along with other recreation space. The cricket project would add another layer to that mix in the Northland, near the Shoal Creek Living History Museum and Hodge Park Golf Course.

The practical questions now are the ones players have been asking for years: how fast can the field be finished, who is paying for it, and who gets priority once it opens? Those details will decide whether Hodge Park becomes a true hub for league fixtures, youth development, and larger tournaments, or just another field that looks good on paper but stays hard to book.

For Missouri cricket, though, the signal is clear. Kansas City is no longer acting like the sport is something that only happens wherever someone can find a spare patch of grass. Hodge Park is the first serious move toward building cricket infrastructure that actually matches the size of the community already here.