The Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 has become one of the biggest tournaments in the world of sports and Professional Football Jamaica Limited Chairman Chris Williams says this season of the Wray & Nephew Jamaica Premier League (JPL) has given him hope that they can replicate that feat.

The 14-team JPL, which began last October, will come to an end on Sunday at the National Stadium where defending champions Mount Pleasant Academy battle Cavalier FC at 6:30 pm in a repeat of last year’s final. Former champions Waterhouse and Arnett Gardens FC will fight for the third place spot at 3:30 pm.

Following what he says are record achievements over the last seven months, Williams says the JPL has the potential to be as big as the Indian showpiece.

“That’s what Wray & Nephew bought into,” he told the Jamaica Observer. “They bought into the dream to make the Jamaica Premier League play-offs the IPL of this hemisphere.

“Every year, we want people flying into Jamaica, checking into hotels, just like people are doing to the IPL, Copa [America], the [NFL] Super Bowl, [FIFA] World Cup or the Olympics. We want people flying into Jamaica to watch the Jamaica Premier League and the Super Finals and making it a destination event. That comes with all the frills: great football, entertainment nonstop, drumming throughout the game, trumpets, flags, dancing girls, every time the ball goes out music. We’re copying the IPL model and that’s where we’re going.”

Since coming on board in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Williams says the interest of the league has grown significantly, both inside the stadiums as well as traditional and digital platforms.

“The attendance at the games, we are in excess of 120,000 people through the turnstiles over the entire season from October last year to May,” he said. “Don’t forget, the El Clasico at Waterhouse was sold out and that was the preseason game so the consistency of support is growing. The play-offs is now becoming what I like to call the IPL of football. What India did with T20 cricket with IPL which has turned IPL into a massive carnival. Our play-offs are perfect for that, over four weeks, win or go home, concentrated in one venue in the heart of Kingston, energy, traffic, intensity, ‘urban-ness’ and the Jamaican passion flows out and makes it a spectacle.

“When you take a look at our various media platforms from Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook to YouTube, free-to-air television, cable. From the uptown to all through, sitting down on a Sunday, kicking back, watching the game and enjoying the excitement of the Jamaica Premier League. Then when you talk about the media coverage, nine months every day from radio, print, television, bloggers, etcetera. so we’re ticking all the [key performance indicators].”

Sunday’s semi-final between Cavalier and Arnett Gardens at Sabina Park was marred by bottle-throwing incidents which halted the game twice.

With the help of the several bodies including ISSA, Williams has assured that measures have been put in place to avoid it happening again on Sunday and the seasons to come.

“There’s no entity where we can pick up the phone and say come manage this for us, ISSA doesn’t do that,” he said. “They manage their own events and they’ve built the competence internally through years of experience with Champs, so we’re going to have to learn and get up the curve because we couldn’t find anybody to do it.

“We started this thing in COVID. When Owen [Hill, PFJL’s chief executive officer] and I got the job, we never had crowds. Now we have a massive full play-offs packing up the stadium, so it’s growing fast on us and we’re trying to keep up and I’m confident we will. JFF, Concacaf, ISSA and the police have been looped in, so we have a strong steering committee in place now and they’re helping us to come up to speed fast to get the logistics. We’re working on fixing the various challenges that have been identified and we’re going to fix it. Apologies for the mistakes but know that every mistake we’re going to fix and we’re committed to that.”

Following discussions with the players, noted dancehall producer Rvssian will be honoured on Sunday as a dancehall icon following the introduction of the ‘Wray and Nephew Super Finals’. The Observer understands that Rvssian and dancehall artistes such as Valiant, Najeeri and Nigy Boy will be performing live during half-time and full time.

Williams says this will be an ongoing feature to show respect to Jamaica’s music culture.

“The players would always be in my ears and telling me, ‘Mr Williams, a dancehall a di ting’ and we listened to the players and we have come up with a massive merger between Wray & Nephew, Jamaica Premier League, and dancehall,” he said. “We’re going to be honouring at the Super Final every year a dancehall icon and we’re focusing on the producers because we think they’re unsung heroes. Their creative genius has resulted in a lot of success for dancehall. They’ve created these iconic ‘riddims’ that have defined each decade, so we have a lot of producers that have elevated dancehall to international stardom.”