For Chris Dehring, chief executive officer of the ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007, the memory is distinctly disquieting.

Some time after setting up offices in Kingston last year, his team offered tender for assessments of potential World Cup venues.

"We advertised only in the Caribbean," recalls Dehring, "and we put it on our website. The only place we put ads was in the Caribbean. We had 42 companies applying from around the world and not one Caribbean company."

Today Dehring is satisfied that much has changed. Certainly, the scores of businessmen and women who turned up at a symposium on the CWC 2007 at the University of the West Indies (UWI) early last month, to learn more about business opportunities, suggested as much.

No one knows for sure how much money will actually flow through Caribbean economies because of cricket's World Cup in just over two years. But that it will run to hundreds of millions of US dollars is not in question.

Don Lockerbie, the CWC 2007 venue development officer, told those at the Kingston Cricket Club annual awards dinner recently that the estimated cost of building and renovating 12 state-of-the-art stadiums for the World Cup opening ceremony, 51 World Cup games and a number of warm-up matches had escalated to close to US$240 million. Add to that the cost of infrastructural work on airports, roads, hotels, marinas etc.

It's projected that another US$300 million will be channeled through ticket sales, merchandising, concessions, television rights and sponsorship and so on. Round about 100,000 tourists, not counting returning Caribbean residents from the United States, Britain, Canada and elsewhere are expected to visit the region for the duration of the tournament. They are expected to spend in the region of US$250 million on accommodation, transportation, entertainment, food and beverages and souvenirs.

'Media value' including global media exposure, brand legacy and business networking flowing from World Cup 2007 is being put at US$200 million.

The ICC CWC WI 2007 is expected to spend about US$70 million on operating costs including administrative management, cricket operations, event management, security, transportation, accommodation and hospitality.

Once the tournament is run free of contractual breaches, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is guaranteed US$101 million for staging the World Cup, which will easily be its biggest bonanza ever.

All agree that the numbers add up to "outstanding" business opportunities spanning all areas of Caribbean economy.
For Jamaica which will host "12 World Cup events" in Kingston and Trelawny, the prospects are being described as particularly appetising.

An elaborate opening ceremony showcasing Caribbean cricket, history and culture will take place at a new stadium planned for the so-called greenfield site in northern Trelawny, close to Duncans. As World Cup organisers have repeatedly pointed out, the opening is the only event which all 16 teams will attend. The Trelawny stadium which will be subsequently developed as a multi-purpose facility will seat 25,000 people for the opening ceremony - 10,000 permanent seats and 15,000 temporary.

Four televised World Cup warm-up games involving the West Indies, possibly India and others, will be staged at the Trelawny stadium in the build-up to the start of the World Cup, set for early March 2007.

Seven World Cup games, with the West Indies as the seeded team, will be played at Sabina Park, the historic headquarters of Jamaica's cricket in Kingston. Those games will include the tournament opener, about two or three days after the opening ceremony in early March, and a semi-final some time in April.

Sabina will be extensively rebuilt and modernised. The George Headley Stand to the south is to be renovated, starting early next month. The bleachers' stand with its back to South Camp Road, is to be knocked down and replaced by an extended mound - a take-off of the exceedingly popular Red Stripe Mound. The 'Air Jamaica Stand' and the press box to the north will be knocked down and replaced by an elaborate curved stand extending from the north-east all the way to the historic Kingston Cricket Club, to the west.
The new stand will incorporate a modern media centre, the players' pavilion, a seating area for cricket officials, thousands of spectator seats and luxury boxes.

In addition, properties to the north of Sabina Park are to be acquired by Government, and - subject to negotiations - Emmet Park, which is owned by the Roman Catholic-run St George's College, is to be leased to facilitate World Cup cricket support services and corollary activities.

It's expected that it will cost about US$51 million for development work at Sabina Park and the Trelawny stadium. The Jamaican government has pledged US28 million with the rest expected to come from loans and grants.

While the money-making and job opportunities for Jamaicans that will flow directly from construction are self-evident, Dehring and others paint a picture of almost limitless opportunities in a host of other areas, including accommodation, transportation, merchandising, food and entertainment.

Take 'specialty foods' as an example. Dehring argues that with India expected to play in warm-up games in Trelawny, Jamaicans should prepare themselves for "large numbers" of the increasingly rich, cricket-crazy Indian community - estimated at 21 million - in the USA and Canada.

"That's clearly an opportunity for those who are able to satisfy the demand for Indian food," said Dehring. "If the demand is not met, we are not only going to have hungry Indians but upset, very angry Indians..." he added.

Entertainment is another key area. Dehring cites the annual Trinidad carnival as an example of how those with an eye for such things can cash in.

"Don't believe that limited hotel rooms are going to limit the number of people who come here (Jamaica) particularly (to watch) West Indies," he said. "Trinidad gets 42,000 visitors for their carnival mostly from the Caribbean, but has 500 hotel rooms . How do they host 42,000 people? It's a lot of people staying with private citizens, a lot of people not staying anywhere at all. Trinidad's strategy is to keep them happy, keep them out on the roads partying ..."

There, he argues, is where the bar/club owners, restaurants and the myriad purveyors of Jamaica's world-famous reggae music will come in.

And, say World Cup organisers, the limitations on hotel rooms means that ordinary people will get a chance to earn valuable foreign currency by letting visitors into their homes on bed/breakfast programmes.

But in the rush for profits, business operators, large and small, will have to obey strict rules put in place to avoid ambush marketing (the unauthorised association with brands and marks) and to protect sponsors.

It's something that Dehring claims gives him "sleepless nights" since, he says, many people don't even know that the unauthorised use of brands is wrong. Says he: "The World Cup doesn't belong to Jamaica or West Indies. It belongs to the international cricket community, including all its marks and logos."

As explained by the chairman of Jamaica's World Cup organising committee, Dr Wayne Reid, "the ICC have entered into a contract with Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) for running two sets of World Cups. The first being the 2003 tournament held in South Africa and one scheduled for 2007 in the Caribbean. That is the main agreement that governs everything that we do in 2007... Everything."

Global Cricket Corporation controls the "major rights" for the World Cup which include media and advertising. The "minor rights" have gone to WICB, which has passed them on to its wholly-owned subsidiary CWC 2007. Those minor rights, says Reid, include merchandising, ticketing, tours, accommodation and transportation.

Advertising, and ensuring that all business interests play by the advertising rules, constitute an area that will be of increasing concern for people like Dehring as the World Cup tournament approaches. He, Lockerbie, Reid and others involved in planning and organising for the World Cup waste no opportunity to remind everyone that there is a US$47 million claim against South Africa because of alleged contractual breaches relating to the improper use of advertising and brands during the 2003 World Cup.

At the business symposium, both Dehring and Reid referred to a newspaper advertisement promoting the event, to which "a prominent business" was "linked". Since there was a "direct link" in the advertisement between the company and World Cup Cricket 2007 without the permission of the GCC or the ICC, that amounted to ambush marketing, they said.

Further, said Dehring, the brand on an air conditioning unit in the room in which the symposium was being held, should have been "covered up" since it constituted a breach of contractual arrangements relating to the World Cup. "If this was the World Cup and the GCC were here, there would be a group of lawyers (called the rights police) and they would do the affidavit right away and a fine is levied and it comes in the form of a claim .," warned Dehring.

"Sometimes for annual Test (cricket) series (in the Caribbean) you see people buy tickets for the match and run a promotion in the newspaper that says 'come and shop with me and win two tickets'. That's ambush marketing, which will not be tolerated," said Dehring. "Believe me, the GCC will come after you with all the force that they have, because they have to protect these rights because of the contractual obligations ."

Likewise, people in the souvenir business will have to be wary.

"If there are 4 and 6 signs, handed out to spectators at the cricket match (with) a brand that is not one of the sponsors and has not been (properly authorised) that would be a breach . We have a habit of dressing up in (branded) tee shirts in groups and going to matches. If those tee shirts carry an unauthorised brand, we will have a problem," Dehring said.

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