The Caribbean Premier League is contributing to the growth, development and exposure of West Indian cricketers to international competition. It is attracting foreign direct investment, facilitating the earning of foreign exchange by countries, paying the salaries of players and support staff, and attracting hundreds of millions of viewers to the telecasts of the tournament.
The latter equals exposure for the Tourism Caribbean.
Those are a few of the conclusions of President of Cricket West Indies, Ricky Skerritt and the Chief Executive Officer of the CPL, Pete Russell. They spoke in an exclusive interview with Guardian Sports preliminary to the start of the 9th CPL tournament this month.
In the immediate, however, the hard reality is that the owners of the CPL (Digicel being the major shareholder) and the franchise holders of the teams in the tournament are not making profits, but continue to invest annually a total of US$40, US$20 million each.
“The CPL has made losses, but that you can determine to be investment,” Russell told the Guardian, taking the long-term perspective. He is not “moaning” about the losses, understanding that sports leagues project over the long horizon: we want to build this League to be sustainable over 20, 30, 40 years, so you have to invest to get to that point,” says Russell with enthusiasm about the projected future growth of the tournament’s financial returns.
Russell, who has been in charge of the tournament from inception, makes the additional point that no investor can sustain losses indefinitely. He however observes that among CPL franchise holders are those who also own teams in the Indian Premier League, a tournament which has a home base of hundreds of millions of spectators live, and with eyes on television sets. Such an ownership structure gives the CPL franchise holders the capacity to offset temporary losses in the Caribbean tournament.
For Cricket West Indies, which has been staging the CPL over its lifetime and spending approximately E.C.$4 million to do so without making a profit, President Skerritt says the “CWI has been able to cover expenses in recent times. Collecting approximately E.C.$3 million from licence fees, funds for cricket development and other income sources listed in the Staging Agreement, CWI looks to the future with great expectations.
“Anything that brings foreign exchange into the region in significant amounts, anything that brings expenditure of foreign currencies into the region benefits the people of the region,” notes Skerritt. The former tourism minister of St. Kitts/Nevis, and one-time chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation says the CPL has been a great earner of U.S. dollars especially prior to the Covid-19 onslaught.
Fact is, he observes, the matches over the last year, like many T20 tournaments around the world, have not had fans in the stands because of the cricket protocols which have been applied by governments. Skerritt is not being critical of governments which have imposed spectator restrictions at grounds, just stating the facts that without a live audience at the venues, the cricket pageantry ala a Bailey or Minshall Carnival Tuesday presentation is dissipated.
The CWI President lists the West Indian style of cricket, celebration on and off the field, the well-known and internationally advertised West Indian joie de vivre as factors which give the CPL a competitive advantage over other international T20 tournaments.
But notwithstanding the Covid-19 restrictions, Skerritt notes that W.I. coaches, physiotherapists, producers and camera crews, umpires and regional cricketers are earning a living through the CPL. Very importantly, he identifies the upgrading and maintaining of wickets and grounds as benefits of the CPL.
“We do not maintain high standards at cricket grounds except when we need to,” says Skerritt, noting that the all-year-round maintenance of grounds for international cricket is a problem. “In the case of CPL and Cricket West Indies, we send in an expert ahead of time to help the local groundsmen to get the pitch and field ready to meet international cricket standards.
“Our young cricketers need quality grounds to play quality cricket. CPL stimulates and provides money through venue agreements, a significant portion of which goes towards the development of quality grounds and pitches,” says Skerritt.
Most critical of the expectations of the CPL, especially from those who live for the great ancestral tradition and heritage left to the region’s peoples by a long line of great West Indians, is for the tournament to produce West Indian players to dominate the other nations at least in the T20 format.
I pointed out to my interviewees that the West Indian champion teams which have won two T20 championships, have been with the likes of “The Universe Boss (Chris Gayle), Bravo, Pollard, Samuel, Sammy, Badree, Narine and others; they did not receive their groundings and develop their fearful reputations through the CPL. Instead, they have brought those abilities and reputations to the regional tournament.
“I don’t mind cynicism but it is not factual,” Skerritt responds adroitly to my cynical provocation. “A lot of good talent and players have come up through the CPL. But maybe what you are saying is that they have not gone as far as they have been expected to go in terms of dominating world arenas,” says Skerritt, holding forth but acknowledging that vaulting West Indian expectations have not been met even with the CPL as instigator.
“The CPL’s job is not to create world stars: the task is to create a platform where the world stars can come through,” is his retort. And while hesitant to single-out individuals to clinch his argument, Skerritt mentions Hetmeyer, Pooran and Allen, three T20 players with acknowledged great potential who have emerged out of the CPL.
No such conceding of a point by the CPL’s chief executive officer, Pete Russell to my observation of unmet expectations.
“I don’t agree with that. That’s a very simplistic way of looking at it,” says Russell. “A lot of the players who have played in CPL have gone on and are now going on to play at the international level at the IPL, they are all getting valuable experience,” Russell says.
“Outside of the CPL, these players are getting exposure to the pressures of international cricket. I think the CPL has done a fantastic job in bringing these young players on in a way that was not there before,” says the administrator who has been at the helm of the CPL from inception.
“The tournament is creating great opportunities for young players to thrive in their own backyard. Many of these young players have seen a future in playing cricket, an opportunity they would not have had but for the CPL. We think we are a very good conduit for West Indies cricket,” Russell says assured of the contribution being made by the tournament.
Maybe the attitude we as West Indians, whose sense of self-esteem is in part determined by how our teams face-off against the rest of the world, should adopt is to demand more of players who have been given international exposure through the CPL but are yet to consistently deliver on opportunities received.
Looking to the future and what he says is an organizational structure being developed by greater co-operation through an enhanced CPL-CWI relationship, Skerritt identifies “the gains made by his administration” that will add greater “West Indianess” to the tournament which previously had little administrative structure in place.
“What was most important was for us to bring a sense of partnership to the agreement with the CPL owners. I am happy to tell you, Tony, that we have brought in some objectives which are good for West Indies cricket. They are objectives which treat the CPL for what it is: a domestic T20 tournament for CWI; and not what it was, a foreign entity which was not welcomed by several administrators across the region.”
Financial arrears to the CWI, he says, are being addressed as one of the major outstanding commitments to West Indies cricket by the CPL.
He lists an Emerging Player Programme in which each franchise has to take on two young potentially outstanding West Indian players on its teams. The franchises have also agreed to adopt fitness standards for players. The makings of a women’s franchise programme; an agreement to ensure that all future draft agreements take place in the Caribbean to gain the full attention of the regional media, unlike the first one which was signed in England is on the way.
A West Indian-first policy which will ensure as many West Indian coaches as possible are hired, professional staff, inclusive of television production crews are utilized, and a firm agreement that no non-West Indian umpires are introduced without consultation with the CWI are other elements to come.
“What I am saying Tony, without too much details, is that we have come a long way in building a relationship with the CPL that’s mutually beneficial. And it’s important to note that we have had little or no resistance to our proposals; we have had full cooperation to make these areas of concern a reality,” says CWI President Ricky Skerritt.
My own reflection on the above statement from the perspective of a West Indian institution being forthright in its relations with an international organization, rather than having to take what is given was to the effect: “we”, i.e., previous boards, sold-out everything, whether by incompetence or timidity to challenge in the best interest of W.I. cricket.”
“Tony what I would say to you is that I don’t like the term ‘sold-out’; what I can say is that the staging agreement which was signed back in 2012 did not specify these objectives I have mentioned,” Skerritt’s response.
“They (agreements) were general terms about developing West Indian cricket. One very important one was the payment by the franchise holders of a total of US$360,000 to be used by CWI for developing cricket in the region.”
The CWI president of today says one of the reasons why that payment has been in arrears is because the franchise owners and the CPL criticized CWI for not having a development programme.” The logic of not making development payments is how can such payments be made when a cricket development programme does not exist?
“I am happy to say now that nobody can say now that CWI does not have a cricket development programme. The people we do business with are very committed to the objectives that are being set out in this MOU to be signed in the very near future,” says Skerritt.
“The key to us is to continue our close collaboration with CWI,” says the CPL CEO, Russell. “Over the last couple years we have worked the closest we have ever worked with CWI.”
He says television production crews now consist of up to 70 percent of locals, up from 15 percent at the start.
“Communication has been the major difference. Like everything in business, you communicate and everyone understands the objectives of the other and we have had great communication with Ricky and Johnny (Grave, CEO of CWI) at CWI, and that has allowed us to do a lot more to bring on more initiatives which have allowed us to work better together,” says Russell.
Can Caribbean investors become franchise holders to give business organisations here the potential for owning piece of the pie, I asked of Russell? “We would love such an offer,” says the CPL CEO.
The question to be posed: “Is there stomach for that level of risk-taking with equivalent profit potential amongst Caribbean business organisations; can we aspire to owning a portion of our cricket heritage?”
