I wouldn’t say I like American football, but my son and my husband do. Frankly, whenever they try to explain it, I zone out. When the National Football League (NFL) season begins, they get engrossed in their teams to the Super Bowl. Before you zone out, let me say from the onset that this is not about the game of American football. On the contrary, it is about Jamaica picking a winner.

So, please give me just five more minutes of your reading time.

The NFL season in the United States lasts from September to February every year. At the beginning of the season games are played on Monday and Thursday nights and most Sundays until the teams begin getting eliminated.

Now, here is the exciting part. Billionaires buy football teams to make money. How do they make money? From ticket sales and television rights to all the games their teams play. Usually, these games can be viewed on mainstream American television sports channels. However, recently, on a Thursday night, lovers of this game must pay to view their teams on a streaming site unless they are already subscribers to Amazon Prime.

Amazon paid the NFL US$11 billion for the rights to show 198 games over 11 weeks exclusively on Amazon Prime every Thursday night. That is US$55.55 million per game.

The global market for media and entertainment is US$2.8 trillion. According to the Department of Commerce, in the US, media and entertainment are worth US$649 billion.

Jamaica needs to tap into its global cultural potential.

In April 2021 I pointed out in this column how digital innovations have radically changed our physical world. Record stores disappeared with the advent of music streaming, which accounted for more than half of the total global recorded revenue. Encyclopedias were replaced by
Google, newspapers were repositioned online within social media spaces, and streaming services made constant access to an unlimited supply of video content a possibility.

It took the Internet 7 years to reach 100 million people; Instagram, 2.5 years; TikTok, 9 months; and ChatGPT, only two months.

Today, users of YouTube — the world’s largest online video platform — total one-third of the world’s population, viewing one billion hours of content daily and uploading 500 hours of material every minute. That’s a lot of content consumption. Furthermore, with the popularity of sites such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, the global streaming market size, valued at US$342 billion, is projected to grow to US$843 billion by 2027.

There are two convenient truths in a digital world: International trade is uncomplicated and content proliferation is constant. What content will Jamaica develop to sell to our digital world?

Reggae music is known around the world. What if someone or our Government had the foresight 50 years ago to trademark the name reggae? Can you imagine the royalties today?

The United Nations recognised the potential of creative industries “to support countries with economies in transition in diversifying production and exports…” (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD]). The contribution of arts and culture to the US’s gross domestic product (GDP) is valued at US$804 billion, exceeding construction, transportation, warehousing, travel and tourism, mining and extraction, agriculture, forestry, and fishing (US Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2016). This represents a per capita revenue of US$2,436 per person, which, based on Jamaica’s population, would be US$ 7.3 billion.

Let us, for the moment, set our target at one-tenth of the US’s per capita revenue. In other words, our culture as an industry could have a potential value of US$731 million. At a minimum, the Ministry of Culture should be allocated two per cent of this value per annum, US$14.6 million, to develop the creative industries. A review of the 2021-2022 Jamaican budget reveals $178.4 million, or US$1.23 million, for creating and promoting this area — one-tenth of the allocation it needs to be effective.

Over the years, successive governments have viewed our culture as a mere season of ad hoc activities intended to make our people feel nice, but not as a serious industry requiring stimuli that could grow our economy significantly. This lack of vision to truly value the potential of our rich culture is preventing our economic viability in a digital world addicted to content for leisure and learning. Our raw talent alone is simply not enough to monetise our cultural impact on the world. We need a structured plan to take us there.

Jamaica’s enviable record of gold medals in track and field is a direct outcome of the infrastructure implemented for our athletes’ training and development. Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA), Boys’ and Girls’ Champs, G C Foster College for Physical Education and Sport, and Carifta Games are some of the essential platforms we’ve used to identify, train, and develop the talents of our athletes for the world’s stage. We have no such infrastructure for music, theatre, visual arts, and other creative industries. Our last significant investments in cultural performance spaces were in 1912 and 1958, with The Ward and Little Theatre in the Corporate Area alone. Yet we continue to boast about being a “cultural super-state”.

The rhythm of how we do things as Jamaicans makes our culture highly sought after. Our objective over the next five years should be to convert our island into a mega performance stage for professionally produced Jamaican talent and lifestyle content, creating a Jamaican channel via satellite for the world to access. The rental cost for time on the satellite is the easy part; the challenge will be developing a constant source of quality content to remain viable, as viewers currently have hundreds of channels to choose from.

We are a nation with a proud history of creative people. Our Miss Lou was dubbed the Queen of Jamaican theatre for over 50 years. Although we have a population of less than 3 million, we are recognised the world over for our contribution to music and sports. Spice has an Instagram following of over 4.5 million, and Shenseea over 7 million, achieved all on their own, with little or no Government support in kind or policy.

The recent Taylor Swift tour and associated revenue will earn her as much as US$4.1 billion (Washington Post), more than 4.5 times Jamaica’s national budget.

The African continent has 1.2 billion people, primarily black people. Currently, less than 10 per cent have access to a smartphone. It’s projected that 90 per cent of the population will have a smartphone in less than five years. What will they need? Content!

Blind optimism is not a good model for economic success. Jamaica must position itself as a leading provider of that content and realise the potential of our greatest export, our people’s talent.

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member.

With the popularity of sites such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, the global streaming market size, valued at US$342 billion, is projected to grow to US$843 billion by 2027..

Lisa Hanna

Lisa Hanna