Welcoming the Cricket World Cup
The Cricket World Cup 2007, CWC2007, is about to commence. Here in St Vincent and the Grenadines we are hosts to Australia, Bermuda, England and Zimbabwe, for some warm-up matches which we seem to treat as though they are in any significant way related to the competition that will hold centre stage over the next few days. The Caribbean now plays host to the cricketing nations that have somehow distinguished themselves enough to play at this level. World Competition. It is always admirable when a country or a group of countries can secure the rights to host a major international sporting competition. The Cricket World Cup caters to the cricketing nations of the world and they are not many, in comparison to some of the other major sports. Suffice it to state here nonetheless that those countries that play the game will have more than a passing interest in the upcoming CWC2007.
Australia has been showing the world that it possesses the capacity to take top honours in the sport almost at will. However, the likes of Pakistan, India, South Africa, and the West Indies are almost certain to pose serious challenges this time around.
There is little doubt that the competition will be very keen and patrons and viewers alike should experience considerable enjoyment for the duration of the competition.
Coverage
The sale of television rights to the competition has already provided the ICC with impressive revenues but it has also guaranteed the entire cricketing world that they would be able to follow the fortunes of their respective teams and/or favourites during the competition.
Here in the region Cable and Wireless have already entered into an agreement with Caribbean Media Corporation, CMC, to ensure that everyone in the Caribbean has access to all of the matches being played during the World Cup.
Sports Tourism
The Caribbean Governments are perhaps most hopeful that the major impact of the region’s hosting of the CWC2007 would be the sustainability of the sports tourism thrust in which they have heavily invested.
Barbados has perhaps continued in the vein of being the most advanced in the Caribbean where sports tourism is concerned and the leadership there seems determined to maintain this top billing.
One look at the refurbished Kensington Oval and one understands the importance of doing things in style and of looking beyond the narrow confines of partisan politics when developmental options have to be taken on board. Excellence is never sacrificed.
Barbados has always sought to ensure that its construction of facilities of whatever type is a class act. The Kensington Oval now stands as easily the single most attractive piece of sports real estate in the entire Caribbean. It already boasts the region’s most attractive airport terminal.
Barbados has been the most organised Caribbean country in respect of the organisation of sports tourism activities. The annual Garfield Sobers Schools Cricket Competition, now well established, has long since furnished sports tourists from far and wide. Several other sporting disciplines are involved enough to allow Barbados to be able to produce an annual magazine that encourages the world to come to Sporting Barbados.
There is no surprise therefore that Barbados was the first Caribbean country to organise additional accommodation for the CWC2007. Once England is in the region for cricket, Barbados is overbooked.
Several of the other Caribbean countries are hopeful that the approach of the Bajans will be copied in their own respective best interests.
There is of course the reality that not all of the Caribbean countries fully understand and appreciate what constitutes sports tourism and some simply use the term merely because it may now be in vogue. For some, there is as yet nothing in place to even begin to conceptualise the potential of sports tourism relative to the national economies. Others are probably hoping that following the CWC2007 everything will simply fall into place and sports tourism dollars will fall from the skies like manna.
Where there have been no creative structures established for sports tourism the CWC2007 will yield nothing of substance that is sustainable in this important area of sports tourism.
Revenue
The International Cricket Council, ICC, has already secured global and regional sponsors that have ensured the organisation a rather sound treasury following the conclusion of the event. But this aspect of the CWC2007 like the television rights does not really translate into any windfall financial benefits to the region. Indeed there are those who would readily suggest that even the West Indies Cricket Board, WICB, will probably find out that whatever finds are allocated to it by the ICC following the competition’s conclusion will probably only be enough to clear its indebtedness and leave a pittance for the future. That means being right back to basics.
The Governments of the region, for all of their unbelievable financial outlays, will all be hard-pressed to determine just how long it will take before they begin to see the returns impacting the national treasuries.
In several of the Caribbean countries, there is already grave concern that while there are benefits from the hosting of the CWC2007 enough of these are not likely to filter down to the small man involved in the business. Barbadian, Richard Sealey, has already claimed, “I meet too many people, too many ordinary Barbadians, who are of the view that in spite of popular suggestions that it is going to be an economic bonanza for Barbados, that there is nothing tangible in it for them.” (Barbados Advocate 12 Feb. 2007)
Sealey charged that big companies from outside will be the ones taking the biggest slice of the CWC2007 economic cake.
Sealey asked: “What opportunities are there for modest operations, for small businesses etc.? … it is further compounded when we hear that an Australian company had to design the logo and we have several fine Arts students throughout the Caribbean … where an Australian firm is doing the clean-up work at Kensington. We hear of outside interests benefiting, then we have to reflect on who are the real beneficiaries.”
Sealey continued: “This is important because I would have thought that if you are talking about an event that is going to be a bonanza, then surely the economic benefits should be for all.”
In the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines, there is as yet no plan in place for the use of the facilities beyond the warm-up matches despite comments to the contrary. There is also the matter of the LOC seeming to have accepted just about everything that the ICC placed before it almost without question.
The number of tents of the overlays here seems to be more than there is in neighbouring Grenada. If that is the case then there is a need for some explanation given the cost of the overlays.
Fazeer Mohammed makes the point: If all of this is partially justified by the economic value of television exposure, how different is it going to be from the cumulative effect of 17 years of “live” coverage of international cricket? What new audience, outside of the hundreds of millions who have watched cricket in the West Indies from 1990 to 2006, is the World Cup going to attract? I’m not talking only about the established cricket nations, for West Indian cricket has been viewed “live” for years by fans in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia (in other words, most of the planet) for years. What reliable figures are there to show that such prolonged exposure has significantly improved the tourism influx?
He also notes that “I’m still left to wonder if, after all the cost overruns, hasty quick-fix measures and governmental intervention to expedite stalled projects, we’ll be left with a debt that could not be justified by the expected long-term revenue-earning potential of the nearly two months of constant global exposure.”
Over Regulation
We are hosting warm-up matches, not matches that impact the outcome of the competition in so far as they are really opportunities for the teams involved to engage in some final preparations. There is absolutely no reason therefore for us to have engaged in the heavy acceptance of every possible regulation that the ICC imposed.
One is not at all convinced that the WICB did enough to preserve the cricket culture that we have made for ourselves and which has proven to be decidedly attractive to the rest of the cricketing world.
For the licking of the spoon, we may well have lost spoonful in respect of the extent to which we appear to have bent over backward to accommodate the ICC. We have surrendered to the utmost. This seems to have been the point made by Sir Viv Richards some time ago when he delivered heavy criticism on the WICB.
Legacy
Legacy is the latest buzz word among members of every Local Organising Committee in the region.
Unfortunately, this word has suddenly acquired political currency, more so because it does appear that the leadership can find little else by way of justification for the near madness that has emerged among regional Governments and their LOCs.
Fazeer Mohammed notes, “It is easy to talk about legacy and vision. However, do the realities and limitations of our smaller island economies suggest that the legacy will really be a meaningful one, or that the vision of sustainability is overly optimistic?”
The experienced sports journalist was forced to ask the very pertinent question following his days of television coverage of the KFC Cup semi-finals and finals in St Vincent and the Grenadines, 15–17 February 2007: “Skeptics like yours truly ask how can all this expense make sense when there is no guarantee, even more so now with so many stadiums now in contention, that St Vincent will actually be included on the international cricket calendar every year from now on?”
It is so easy to talk about the national pride that should evolve from any new construction. Unfortunately, Governments around the Caribbean are apt to boast of every new structure, however ugly in comparison to what obtains elsewhere. Few take time to be aesthetically beautiful and here again Barbados stands out for commendation.
We talk glibly about legacy without any genuine appreciation for what we have done as opposed to what we could have or should have done instead. In the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines CWC2007 has been a very closed shop. We can only hope that when it is all over that those responsible will raise their hands high acknowledging that they did it all by themselves, and like the politicians claim that they did it at least ostensibly on behalf of the beloved masses.
Fazeer may well be correct in his own conclusion, “So if most of the hotels were going to be filled every tourist season for years to come anyway, who will really benefit from the experience if all the fancy legacy talk, liberally sprinkled with references to stadium ‘masterpieces’, amounts to a pile of debt that taxpayers from Trelawny to Providence are left to deal with?
“Only time will tell, by which time we would more than likely have forgotten who to praise or who to hold responsible anyway, which is probably the real reason why the Caribbean is such an idyllic World Cup destination.”
