I sat online through the recent Caricom Cricket Conference: Reinvigorating West Indies (WI) Cricket. We all feel the same way about WI cricket in our hearts, but we need to understand the real challenges and find solutions with our heads.

Governance issues, of course, need addressing. The current structure built for amateur days isn’t suited for the new paradigm of professional sports. But chasing the “governance windmill” doesn’t address the real challenge that has faced WI cricket ever since advanced video distribution technologies seized hold of the sport — the mammoth and ever-widening resource gap promulgating the sports’ evolution.

WI cricket doesn’t exist in a vacuum and the industry has dramatically changed. Someone with experience in this new cricket world could have provided insight on where the industry is going, how it has and will continue to impact WI cricket. Noticeably, there were no international sports media specialists or broadcasters, sport agencies or even franchise professionals aside from the Caribbean Premier League, present that I could tell. We can’t seriously address the core, fundamental issues affecting WI cricket’s competitiveness without identifying those issues and putting them in global context.

A new governance structure will not bridge the financial chasm of one cricket board generating US$2.5 billion a year while CWI collects pennies from our paltry domestic TV market. How do we combat Government-funded school programmes in places like Ireland, the Netherlands or Japan, with copious equipment, hi-tech virtual reality batting cages, well-paid coaches and nutrition programmes, when we struggle to fund our basic education and health-care systems.

The symposium was desperately short on sports industry specific expertise and data. This is professional sports, cricket being the second-largest sports business in the world by fan base. Understanding the latest commercial and technological developments, new sponsorship and rights models is paramount. But I watched a panel discussion entitled “The Business of Cricket” with no panellist seeming to have any knowledge of or experience in sports IP (intellectual property) or indeed, the global business of cricket. Of course, a fresh view from outside any industry can be useful, but would we hold a symposium on neurosurgery and absurdly not solicit the insights of any neurosurgeons?

There was no data to underpin various positions and opinions being shared. We know, for instance, the number of registered cricketers at every level and their skill sets in the United States, France, Japan, etc, all so-called minnows, and far more data available on the more established cricket nations. Where was the data on WI cricket versus our competitors for more informed discussion? There were also several rehashed ideas that didn’t work before. One presenter spoke of regional gaming to create a sustainable income stream. Have we forgotten the Caribbean lottery proposed for that same purpose, first agreed to, and subsequently killed by, the same Caricom governments?

The global cricket world is a rapidly changing industry whose crashing waves pound us mercilessly. And we have not even begun to contemplate the next wave which includes the Olympic Games and US Major League Cricket. At the Caricom forum, the need for financial resources to compete in this new world was mentioned ad nauseam. Yet there was no discussion, debate or data on why the WI “product” lost competitiveness. We imagine an easy fix to a far more complex challenge, conveniently wrapped in a simple, one-word answer — governance.

While we can all agree that the current governance model is unfit, in conjunction we need to examine the fundamental challenges that caused WI cricket’s demise so that whatever governance model conceived and implemented fits the bill and is able to stay afloat.

Otherwise we might fix the flat tyres on this old WI car, when what we really needed was a boat to survive a tsunami to come!

Editor’s note: Chris Dehring is a former investment banker and chief executive officer of ICC Cricket World Cup (CWC) and chief marketing executive of the West Indies Cricket Board (Cricket West Indies); founder of Sportsmax, the Caribbean’s first 24/7 sports media company broadcast in 26 countries. A former senior executive of Cable & Wireless, Plc (C&W), he has negotiated and structured numerous sports media deals including the landmark US$40 million with Sky Sports, US$550 million 2003 & 2007 ICC CWCs, English Premier League and C&W’s US$3.1-billion acquisition of Columbus Communication (Flow).