Bri­an Lewis

Na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and the Olympic Com­mit­tee have to se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er adopt­ing a joint ap­proach to sports mar­ket­ing. An in­te­grat­ed and col­lec­tive ap­proach is nec­es­sary if the in­tractable is­sues that are sys­temic are to be ef­fec­tive­ly and ef­fi­cient­ly ad­dressed.

Lo­cal sport is star­ing in­to the abyss. There are so many things tak­ing away time, en­er­gy and fo­cus from the strat­e­gy and ex­e­cu­tion of the core busi­ness of sport.

We live in a glob­al en­vi­ron­ment and lo­cal sport is com­pet­ing not on­ly for mon­ey and cap­i­tal, but al­so at­ten­tion.

So many is­sues take up man­age­ment and ex­ec­u­tive time.

In­stead of fo­cus­ing on im­prov­ing tech­nol­o­gy and process­es, at­ten­tion is dis­persed to things that may be ur­gent but not nec­es­sar­i­ly im­por­tant.

Fo­cus­ing on de­vel­op­ing a com­pre­hen­sive plan for the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment is a re­al prob­lem giv­en the need for fire­fight­ing and prob­lem solv­ing.

But re­gard­less of how hard it may be, fundrais­ing and spon­sor­ship is the ma­jor pri­or­i­ty for all na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions.

A com­pre­hen­sive plan that man­ages and co­or­di­nates long term mar­ket­ing from a strate­gic per­spec­tive is ur­gent and im­por­tant.

Most sport or­gan­i­sa­tions are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing neg­a­tive eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, in­sti­tu­tion­al fail­ure and sig­nif­i­cant in­sta­bil­i­ty.

It is against this back­ground that it should be ob­vi­ous that co­op­er­a­tion be­tween na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions has strate­gic ben­e­fits.

Ri­val­ry be­tween sport or­gan­i­sa­tions is un­help­ful.

Re­cent­ly I was try­ing to come up with a list of the most mar­ketable ath­letes and sports in T&T. I am still work­ing on it.

How many peo­ple in­volved in T&T sport un­der­stand the eco­nom­ics of the in­dus­try and the key is­sues in the mar­ket­ing of sport?

The im­por­tance and com­mer­cial sig­nif­i­cance of sport as an in­dus­try is plac­ing a de­mand on na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions to ap­ply and de­vel­op an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of mar­ket­ing the­o­ry.

Na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions must take their des­tiny, brands, as­sets and fu­ture in­to their own hands.

Too of­ten dis­cus­sions about what's wrong with sport points to the di­rec­tion of gov­ern­ment and gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

Mov­ing for­ward it's time for sport or­gan­i­sa­tions to change the nar­ra­tive and con­ver­sa­tions.

How can the links be­tween the sport, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, en­ter­tain­ment, tourism and cul­tur­al sec­tors be made and sus­tained to the ben­e­fit of all stake­hold­ers?

It's not that sport mar­ket­ing isn't a big thing, it is that the main ben­e­fi­cia­ries are for­eign brands.

The lo­cal mar­ket is clear­ly say­ing to every­one in­volved in T&T sport for­eign is bet­ter.

In­stead of sit­ting in a cor­ner and lament­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, we need to take a close look and ask what do all con­cerned with­in lo­cal sport have to do bet­ter.

How do na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing the Olympic Com­mit­tee am­pli­fy their voic­es from a mar­ket­ing per­spec­tive and get the brand mes­sage out there?

What is the end goal? When T&T sport ap­proach­es cor­po­rate T&T what will make the de­ci­sion to spend rev­enue and in­vest a fi­nan­cial­ly sen­si­ble one?

Is T&T sport good for the brand? Is T&T sport some­thing to be proud of?

Fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty for T&T sport is a top pri­or­i­ty.

It comes down to mar­ket­ing. Mar­ket, mar­ket, mar­ket some more oth­er­wise soon­er rather than lat­er obliv­ion is a cer­tain out­come. Mar­ket­ing, brand build­ing, brand re­la­tion­ship build­ing, spon­sor­ship, fund rais­ing–what­ev­er spin you but on it, the bot­tom and top line is na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions need to be­come mar­keters.

Ques­tions that na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions can come to­geth­er to ad­dress in­clude:

What do we do best?

Where is the room for im­prove­ment?

What is our core ser­vice?

How can we strive for con­tin­u­ous im­prove­ment?

How do we get bet­ter every day?

How can we im­prove the over­all ex­pe­ri­ence for sport stake­hold­ers?

How can we make sport, na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and ath­letes more mar­ketable?

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.

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