MLC 2026 Franchise Tax Dispute — Texas Super Kings Grand Prairie Stadium Row

Texas Super Kings filed their 2025-26 stadium property tax return for the Grand Prairie facility and received an assessment that came in at 3.4 times the previous year's figure. The assessment, which was issued by the Grand Prairie city tax authority in early May, has triggered a dispute that runs through the MLC franchise economics conversation, the league's long-term venue strategy, and the question of whether MLC's second-cycle expansion will hold its cost base. The headline number is the tax bill. The bigger story is what the bill reveals about how cricket venues are now being assessed in US tax jurisdictions.

The Assessment — What Changed

The Grand Prairie facility was assessed at USD 2.1 million for the 2024-25 tax year. The 2025-26 assessment came in at USD 7.1 million. The methodology used by the Grand Prairie tax authority for the higher number is comparable-sales-based — the authority used the recent expansion-fee transactions in the MLC and the franchise valuation increases to revise the underlying real-estate value upward. The franchise valuation increase is real; the question is whether the franchise valuation should drive the real-estate assessment.

Texas Super Kings has filed a formal protest. The protest argues that the property is a single-use stadium with limited resale value, and that the comparable-sales method does not apply because there are no genuine comparable cricket-stadium transactions in the relevant jurisdiction.

The MLC Cost Base Question

MLC's franchise economic model assumes a stadium-related cost base of roughly USD 3.5 million per franchise per year, of which property tax is around USD 600,000. The Grand Prairie reassessment would push the property tax line alone above USD 2 million per year for the Texas franchise. The same methodology could be applied to the Lauderhill stadium, the Morrisville venue, and the under-construction New York facility.

If the methodology holds at the protest level, MLC's aggregate cost base across the venue portfolio could rise by USD 6-8 million per year. The league's expansion plan, which targets two new franchises in 2028, becomes harder to justify at the projected expansion fees.

The Protest Procedure

The Texas property tax protest procedure runs in two stages. The first stage is an informal review by the tax authority itself, which typically produces a 10-15 per cent reduction in the assessed value. The second stage is a formal hearing before the appraisal review board, which is the more substantive review. Texas Super Kings has filed for both.

The informal review timeline is 30-60 days. The formal hearing timeline is 90-120 days. The franchise will need to pay the assessed amount or post a bond pending the outcome.

The Comparable-Sales Argument

The franchise's argument against the comparable-sales methodology rests on two points. First, that the comparable transactions used by the assessor are franchise-fee transactions, not real-estate transactions. The MLC franchise fee covers the value of the league participation right, the player draft slots, the share of league revenue, and the broadcast deal share — none of which are real estate. Second, that the stadium itself has a single-use value because the facility's configuration is cricket-only and the resale market for cricket-only stadiums in Texas does not exist.

The assessor's position is that the real-estate market for any sports facility is informed by the underlying business value. The legal-precedent question — has a Texas real estate tax authority used this methodology before — has been raised by Texas Super Kings' tax counsel and the answer is no.

The League Response

The MLC commissioner has been quiet on the dispute publicly. Privately, the league office has been working on a coordinated response that includes all franchise venues facing similar reassessment risk. The league legal team has retained a Texas property tax specialist to support the Texas Super Kings protest, with an option to extend the engagement to the other franchises if the protest fails.

The league's longer-term answer is the second-cycle venue strategy. The New York facility under construction has been structured as a leased property to avoid the property tax exposure; the Lauderhill and Morrisville facilities are city-owned with the franchises holding multi-year lease agreements. The Texas Super Kings facility is the only one that is franchise-owned, which is why the tax exposure is concentrated there.

The 2027 Cost Base

If the protest produces the conventional 15 per cent reduction at the informal stage and a further 25 per cent reduction at the formal stage, the Texas Super Kings 2026-27 property tax bill comes in at around USD 4.5 million — still 2x the previous year but manageable. If the protest fails entirely, the bill is the full USD 7.1 million and the franchise economic model needs reworking.

Related coverage

• the 2026-27 international calendar
• WTC Final cycle
• Mlc 2026 Week 1 Texas
• Mlc 2026 Week 2 Double

What to Watch Next

The informal review outcome in late June — the first signal of whether the comparable-sales methodology will hold, and whether the other MLC venues need to file pre-emptive protests for their own next-year assessments.