Bri­an Lewis

Na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs) have to think about how to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves in the minds of the busi­ness sec­tor. Sport must be looked up­on as mar­keters who can help busi­ness, not just a group look­ing for a do­na­tion or help out.

Sport lead­ers have to cre­ate the en­vi­ron­ment that would lead to in­creased rev­enue to­mor­row, next month, and next year.

It is time for NSOs and lo­cal sport to go on the of­fen­sive. For too long lo­cal sport has re­mained closed in on it­self, a pris­on­er to the be­lief that with­out gov­ern­ment, busi­ness, a fairy god fa­ther or moth­er sport will not thrive.

NSOs can be the au­thors of their own des­tinies and growth over stag­na­tion. Is there a mag­ic wand? There is no such thing. Suc­cess nev­er of­fered a promise that it is for the faint of heart.

Sport in T&T can be trans­formed in­to a vi­able in­dus­try and sec­tor. The fu­ture is bright.

I lec­ture (part time) with the UWI mas­ters in sport man­age­ment de­gree pro­gramme teach­ing a course–en­tre­pre­neur­ship and sport.

It's a small group but the dy­namism of ideas and vi­sion is in­spir­ing.

There are bright, tal­ent­ed young peo­ple in­volved in sport who hold the key to the bright fu­ture of which I write.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly for many of them sport of­fers no path­way. Their en­er­gy, ideas and pas­sion seem to meet a brick wall and glass ceil­ing. New ideas, new hopes, new as­pi­ra­tions, cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion fos­ter and dri­ve growth and wealth.

Tra­di­tion­al and con­ser­v­a­tive think­ing frus­trate cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion on the al­tar of con­for­mi­ty.

How do we en­sure the sta­bil­i­ty and fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence of sport? How do we cre­ate and main­tain sus­tain­able rev­enue streams?

Rev­enue gen­er­a­tion with­in lo­cal sport must eman­ci­pate it­self from the tra­di­tion­al mind­set.

There is no fairy god­fa­ther or god moth­er. The mag­ic wand method has not with­stood the test of time.

How can lo­cal sport progress to­wards be­com­ing sus­tain­able in a mod­ern and fast-chang­ing en­vi­ron­ment?

What are NSOs try­ing to achieve? What is their tar­get? Who do they at­tract?

In the mod­ern busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment con­flict of in­ter­est, good cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, an­ti-bribery and an­ti-cor­rup­tion rules, guide­lines and poli­cies have made it im­per­a­tive that sport or­gan­i­sa­tions be able to meet ob­jec­tive and strate­gic cri­te­ria.

Sport has a speci­fici­ty that is recog­nised by the Eu­ro­pean courts.

Sport lead­ers must be able to em­brace the para­dox of cre­at­ing fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty while at the same time pro­tect­ing sport and the ath­letes from po­lit­i­cal and com­mer­cial abuse.

They have to lead the fight against dop­ing in sport, take mea­sures to pro­tect the health of ath­letes, ded­i­cate ef­forts to en­sur­ing that in sport the spir­it of fair play pre­vails and yet at the same time push for ex­cel­lence and vic­to­ry.

Sport lead­ers have to en­cour­age to­tal par­tic­i­pa­tion and the de­vel­op­ment of sport with­in com­mu­ni­ties in the con­text of al­lo­cat­ing fi­nite fi­nan­cial and hu­man re­sources, demon­strate on one hand con­cern for the en­vi­ron­ment and en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues while at the same time ad­vo­cat­ing for more fa­cil­i­ties for sport.

Sport lead­ers must bal­ance the de­sire to make their in­di­vid­ual sport the best with the re­al­i­ty that it's on­ly by in­ter­de­pen­dence, uni­ty and a col­lec­tive will the full po­ten­tial of sport can be re­alised.

To un­der­stand where sport can go and the heights it can reach sport has to be first un­der­stood.

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Richard Bran­son to name a few, could not have built the em­pires they did with­out first know­ing and un­der­stand­ing what they were do­ing. Trans­form­ing the lo­cal sport sec­tor to the ex­tent that T&T be­comes the sport cap­i­tal of the Caribbean is achiev­able as is grow­ing a gen­uine sport mar­ket­ing in­dus­try.

How­ev­er, NSOs must gen­er­ate the ex­cite­ment need­ed to grow their sport's par­tic­i­pa­tion num­bers and in­di­vid­ual club and fan base and in­no­vate to cre­ate val­ue. The growth and val­ue cre­ation can on­ly come with self be­lief and the de­sire and will­ing­ness to take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the big vi­sion and dream that will cre­ate the bright fu­ture.

Bri­an Lewis is the Hon­orary Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee http// www.ttoc.org. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.

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