A change in ownership, not a performance problem, is why Dallas cricket fans will be cheering for a different name this year. MILC confirmed on August 29 that All Stars Dallas replaces Kings XI Dallas following new ownership taking over ahead of the campaign, though it hasn’t said who is actually buying in. The outgoing franchise reached the Super Eights in its debut season, so this isn’t a relegation story. It’s a boardroom one, and most of the details are still private.
Ownership Change Behind The Rebrand
The league’s official statement on August 29 was short: All Stars Dallas is replacing Kings XI Dallas following a change in ownership ahead of the campaign. No further elaboration, named party, or reason accompanied the release, and no separate statement from the outgoing owners has surfaced anywhere either.
The franchise being replaced wasn’t a failing one. Kings XI Dallas was the newest side in the competition in 2025, its inaugural season, and still reached the Super Eights playoffs. Andries Gous top scored for them with 296 runs at a strike rate of 168 across six games, alongside Corey Anderson, before they fell to the Chicago Kingsmen on October 2, 2025, in a tight finish at Grand Prairie.
New Owner Identity Still Unknown
Nobody has been named as the buyer behind All Stars Dallas in any source reviewed so far. The league’s release covered the name change alone, with no accompanying announcement of an ownership group or individual fronting the franchise, and no follow up reporting from local or national outlets has filled that gap either in the days since the announcement went out.
MILC 2026 season All Stars Dallas
The rebrand lands in the middle of a broader shake up of the calendar. Drafts for the new campaign began on August 28 in a staggered, snake format schedule, with rosters set at 14 to 18 players per team. The regular season itself now runs from September 17 to September 27, 62 matches in total, a sharp revision from the 161-game season and August 7 start date the league had announced back on February 25.
Organisers say the shorter, later calendar was chosen to align venues, broadcasting and logistics with player availability for ICC events elsewhere in the calendar, including the Cricket World Cup League Two fixtures at Grand Prairie Stadium and the Atlanta Open. Playoffs and the championship final follow from October 21 to 25 at the Prairie View Cricket Complex in Houston, with matches carried on MLC Network and free attendance for fans throughout the regular season. Eight venues host matches this year, including Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina, and the Fairplex ground in Pomona, California, though five of the eight venues remain unpublished by the league at the time of writing, with a fuller schedule expected closer to the September start.
Revised Calendar Points To LA28
No official MILC or USA Cricket statement has directly tied this season to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, but one venue on the calendar makes the connection hard to miss. The Knight Riders Cricket Ground at Fairplex in Pomona, California, one of eight confirmed 2026 venues, is also the confirmed cricket venue for LA28, a fact the ICC has already used in its own promotion of the sport’s Olympic return.
The wider governance picture explains why the league is leaning on its own language rather than a national body’s. USA Cricket was suspended by the ICC in September 2025 over governance breaches and has since filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leaving the ICC to directly oversee the American national team. Against that backdrop, the league’s own release describes itself as an important part of the pathway for American cricket, bringing professional-level domestic cricket to local communities. Its chief executive Johnny Grave has separately called the competition the engine driving American cricket forward, pointing to more than 20 million dollars invested in it to date.
Whatever the reasoning behind the switch, the MILC 2026 season All Stars Dallas rebrand is now locked in alongside a revised 62-game calendar, and the league’s Olympic-adjacent venue in Pomona will carry more long-term significance than a single franchise name change ever could on its own.