Can West Indies cricket be salvaged?

Saturday, November 21, 2009 4:13 AM

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By Gary Peart Chief Executive Officer Mayberry Investments gary.peart@mayberryinv.com

Sunday, August 09, 2009

As a child, during cricket matches, I could not be separated from my radio. I grew up during the now-called Golden Age of West Indies cricket when the West Indies won matches all the time. Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards and Desmond Haynes were among my batting heroes and Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh, my principal bowling models.

Gary Peart

I was a young boy when the Golden Age started, in 1974, and a young man when it finally came to a head-shaking, jaw-dropping end on March 31, 1995 at Sabina Park. This was the day when the West Indies surrendered the Frank Worrell Trophy to Australia after their innings and 53 run victory, to end up taking the series 2 -1. The West Indies had held the Frank Worrell Trophy, which is awarded to the winner of the West Indies - Australia Test match series, for seventeen years, from March 3, 1978.

The fact is that the 'winningest' team ever in cricket history up to that point, produced the Golden Age, and I believe the future of West Indies cricket as a winning side involves, in great measure, trying to pinpoint what the Clive Lloyd/Vivian Richards teams and their predecessors, the Frank Worrell/Gary Sobers teams (1960-1971) did and how they did it. The Worrell/Sobers teams crafted the winning brand and the Lloyd/Richards teams were more responsible for the winning product.

During the 11 years of the Clive Lloyd captaincy, from 1974 to 1985, for example, the West Indies played 28 test matches without a loss; won eleven successive matches, including a 5-0 "black wash" of arch-rival, England (the other Test matches were drawn); and won two world cups.

The Frank Worrell/Gary Sobers teams made the cricketing world grudgingly accord West Indian cricket the respectability and world-class standard that they might have preferred to have bestowed on others.

The decline of West Indies cricket started right here in Jamaica at Sabina Park on March 31, 1995. In the succeeding years, West Indies cricket deteriorated gradually, eventually slumping to the unthinkable depths of the July 9 - 31, 2009 wipeout in the Test Match and One Day International series by Bangladesh, the weakest team in the International Cricket Council (ICC) ratings. This ignominious event resulted from the withdrawal of services by the A Team in the ongoing warfare between the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) and the WICB. A hopeful but struggling B Team was selected to go against the Bangladeshi.
One should bear in mind, however, the significant antecedents. By 1991, the West Indies had lost most of its stalwarts to retirement, namely Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Michael Holding and Jeff Dujon.

Do not get me wrong, however. The team that surrendered the Frank Worrell trophy to Australia in 1995 had talent. Captained by Richie Richardson, he had the bowling of Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, and Winston Benjamin, the bats of Brian Lara, Carl Hooper and his own, with the support of Phil Simmons, Jimmy Adams, Junior Murray and Sherwin Campbell. What they lacked, according to some analysts, was the 'teamness' without which victory is elusive.

The business side of cricket

Cricket, as I discussed in an earlier article (Sunday Finance May 19, 2009) is big business. To be successful in this domain, the sport must have at least an appropriate business model, an effective operating organisation, suitable strategic partnerships or alliances, and a valuable brand. The latter is not in question.

The writing on West Indian cricket within the last 15 years is bordering on being exhaustive. My highly selective and woefully incomplete reading of that body of literature reinforces the view that we need to proceed with the rebuilding of our cricket with deliberate speed.

Principal among the documents I have consulted are: History of West Indies Cricket by Prof Hilary Beckles (1998); Governance of West Indies Cricket, Final Report - Committee Chaired by former prime minister PJ Patterson (Oct 2007); WICB Draft Strategic Plan 2008 - 2012.

These documents, in their own way, make significant contributions to enlightening the public on the background of West Indies cricket, providing insight into the game's cultural and regional foundation, analysing the crisis confronting the sport and in pointing the way to the future.

A core recommendation of the Governance Committee is a change of name of the WICB and that a two-tiered system be established comprising a 23-member Cricket West Indies Council and a 15-member Cricket West Indies Board. The council would be the governing body and the board, the executive, with a secretariat headed by the CEO for day-to-day management and operations. The name-change is appealing because it suggests broader marketing, promotion and development functions. It also follows, more or less, the path already taken by the Australian and the South African cricket boards.

All the documents highlight the national content of the game, and the need for strong player development, discipline and education. They also support the view that West Indies cricket belongs to the people of the Caribbean, assigning to the game a uniting role within the region.

An appropriate sports business model

An effective sports business model is market-driven. Many say that the Cricket Australia model is exemplary in this regard. A visit to its website reveals why. From the moment you read the objectives of its business plan and see how it is presented, you know they mean business. With the use of attention-grabbing graphics and straightforward language, it tells you, among other things, that Cricket Australia intends to:

. Reinforce and celebrate cricket's place in the Australian community

. Substantially increase sustainable participation in cricket

. Grow the financial resources to invest in the game

. Grow Cricket Australia's revenue by 30 per cent

. Achieve total gate attendance of more than 4 million (international) and 1.4 million (domestic)

. Achieve member distribution of more than $120 million
. Improve television ratings

Furthermore, marketing plays a key role in the arsenal of Cricket Australia's CEO. Through its Client Marketing Service department, he seeks to "drive and consolidate revenue-raising and new business activities for Australian cricket" in areas such as: media rights; acquiring commercial partners and the development of consumer products for licensing. Cricket Australia currently has more than a dozen commercial partners.

Determining the value of the West Indies cricket brand

What is the West Indies cricket brand and what is its value? Consistent power batting and power bowling are two qualities that differentiated the West Indies cricket brand. A now-retired English player reflecting on the current state of disarray of the West Indies team reminisced, "The batsmen would come out and make 500 runs and the bowlers would come out and do the rest. You just remained glued to their performance to try to see how you could improve your own game. Those were exciting times." For the West Indies fan, the excitement was in the vanquishing of the opposing team, particularly when that team was the English.

A brand has a financial value comprising tangible and intangible assets. Brand value is derived from the measurable productivity of the marketing spend and it is an estimate of the profits attributable to the brand. Many advocate that this value should be a balance sheet item.

What is the value of the West Indies cricket brand? Even with the severe damage it has withstood over the past 14 or 15 years, a source close to the subject estimates, conservatively, that the unrealised value of the West Indies cricket brand today is between US$300 million and US$500 million.

Interbrand, a 35-year-old UK-based firm that specialises in valuing brands, has developed a set of criteria and a methodology for determining brand value. A principal criterion is that the company must have publicly available financial data, preferably as a listed company.

Can West Indies cricket be salvaged?

Yes, but the West Indies Cricket Board must decide to re-engineer itself from top to bottom. A perceived lack of transparency in the WICB's operations, a deep distrust between the players and the board and an inability to address the impasse effectively are at the foundation of the present and earlier crises confronting the game. To make matters worse, the public is left out of the discussions until it has boiled over into full-page letters and advertisements from either side.
I present the following views more as a take-off point for continued discussion than with the finality of authority. I believe we will be much more likely to arrive at workable solutions to the ills of West Indies cricket through meaningful public dialogue than by apparently taking sides. In this context, The WICB may want to consider the following:

1. Develop a business solution. The WICB should commit to becoming a publicly-listed company, say, within the next three years.

2. What better way to demonstrate the concept that West Indies Cricket belongs to the people of the region than by giving them the opportunity to experience the pride of ownership through shares?

3. This would be the largest and most attractive initial public offering (IPO) in the region's history.

4. The very process of putting its affairs in order to become a publicly-traded company will bring enormous benefits to the organisation's day-to-day operations. It will help to redefine the organisation's functional areas and facilitate decisions about the people and skills required to make the functions work optimally. It will certainly bring about the desired transparency in the organisation's operations.

5. Look again at the Golden Age and talk to the players - or have someone do this for you, particularly if you accept my recommendation of going public.

6. Become more market-driven, including embarking on a more active programme to identify appropriate corporate sponsors and strategic alliances.

7. The points already included in the WICB's own writing and elsewhere regarding the establishment of an academy, the strengthening of the club system and the reconnection with cricket and regional values will all become that much more doable.

8. Get the assistance necessary to resolve the outstanding issues between the players and the board.

We owe it to the past, current and to the next generation of cricket lovers to provide, once again, a culture of superior West Indies cricket.

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