CWI Missing Out On North American Market

By Tony McWatt

India’s national cricketers are scheduled to tour the Caribbean this coming July for an extended series of matches that include Tests, ODIs and T20 against hosts West Indies.
As it has done for the now better part of the past 30 years, Cricket West Indies (CWI) seems set to yet again miss out on the available opportunities to market the matches to the millions of Indians now resident in Canada and the USA.
According to unofficial estimates, over four million South Asians, the greater majority of them Indian, now reside in major Canadian cities, particularly Toronto and Vancouver. The comparative benchmark for Canadian to US resident populations has always been approximately 1:3 so by that measure, the American South Asian immigrant residency would be estimated at 1.2 million, again most of those hailing from India.
Even if those statistics are not totally accurate, the reality is that between Canada and the USA there are now more Indians resident in North America than the population of the entire Caribbean. Millions of Indians, with their historical love for and fanatical interest in cricket, living virtually on our doorstep, just a mere three to five hour flight away.
Furthermore, many of them have never before visited the Caribbean.
They are a significantly large and easily accessible target market and should be targeted through specific promotional initiatives.
The importance of tourism to the economies of many of the member states that constitute the Caribbean is well known, particularly those that have also traditionally served as hosting venues for international cricket matches, specifically Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts, St Lucia, St Vincent and Trinidad & Tobago.
However, CWI, which is directly responsible for the marketing and promotion of Caribbean cricket, has failed to tap into the North American market to promote cricket-related travel to the region for the past three decades.
As far back as 1993, the seasoned Jamaican cricket journalist Ray Ford wrote an article in that year’s October-December issue of Tony Cozier’s Caribbean Cricket Quarterly entitled A Blueprint for Profitability. As ever insightful as he has always been, Ford suggested several, “out-of-the-box” thinking initiatives worthy of implementation by the then West Indies Cricket Board of Control (WICBC), as a means of making some home tours, particularly those of South Asian teams such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, more profitable.
Ford wrote as follows: “More frequently as I roam the crowds at Sabina Park’s international fixtures, I encounter spectators who are domiciled in the major cities of the United States. Are these occurrences by chance or are they the nature of things? I would surmise that more and more West Indians abroad are choosing to bundle a short holiday back home with their interest in following international cricket. This presents another opportunity for the marketing arm of the WICBC to pre-sell tickets and reap additional currency. It should explore alliances with tourist boards, hoteliers, and regional airlines to offer holiday packages to the Caribbean when a tour is on!
In North America, the target market should not be narrowed to just West Indians. Thousands of immigrants from other Test playing nations now settled in North America have the wherewithal to see their stars in the Caribbean – if only we would ask!”
Ford’s suggestions, as well as those made by others over the years, present company included, appear to have fallen on deaf ears. For the past 30 years, there has certainly been no evidence of anyone trying to form alliances with any of the regional tourist boards.
In the contrary, marketing representatives of the respective tourist boards, whose jobs are to promote visits to their home country by resident North Americans, have often been the very last to know and be advised of any forthcoming cricket tours. The same is for the travel agencies, many of which are staffed by individuals who may not themselves be cricket oriented and as such would have to be informed and advised of the opportunities concerning forthcoming tours.
A constant lament of veteran and former West Indies cricket radio commentator Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira in recent years has been the lack of any promotion of forthcoming or even ongoing international matches to guests staying at hotels within the region. Last year’s ICC U19 World Cup matches involving Australia, England, India and Pakistan among others being played at Antigua’s Sir Vivian Richards National Stadium were a state secret to the greater majority of the island’s hotel visitors at the time of the tournament.
Regarding the opportunity of tapping into the very large North American-based Indian market, CWI’s strategy within the past decade has been to “take the mountain to Mohammed!” This they have done by staging at least two T20 matches of a scheduled Indian series in the USA, specifically Florida.
While such a strategy may be impactful for CWI, in terms of its provision of useful revenues generated from grossly inflated ticket prices, it is of extraordinarily little benefit to the people of the Caribbean and more importantly, to the economies of their respective countries. The much better strategy would be for the CWI to instead, forsake hosting such matches in the US, thereby forcing the Indian cricket fans to travel to the Caribbean to see their national team stars.
As the visits to the region by the thousands of fans and followers of the Australian and even more so Barmy Army English cricket fans have clearly demonstrated, their attendance at Caribbean-hosted matches invariably serve as a major economic boost to the respective island economies. Such fans stay at hotels, increasingly often also at bed and breakfast local homes, they fraternize the groceries, bars and restaurants and they also rent cars or utilize taxis. On every occasion during the entire period of their stay they are spending much welcomed monies and as such, contributing directly and significantly to the local economies.
The significant impactful difference should be easily and readily appreciated by all. Unless of course, as an individual you are unappreciative and indifferent to the needs of the Caribbean and its peoples, especially in these now very taxing post-Covid times.
About The Writer:
Guyana-born, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets/monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted toward Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.