Bri­an Lewis

How can we get sport on the eco­nom­ic agen­da? Why is it so dif­fi­cult to get sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment stake­hold­ers to give sport a hear­ing?

There are a lot of nice sen­ti­ments ex­pressed about the role sport can play. But against a back­ground of pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment and strate­gic vi­sion­ing can we re­al­ly say sport is on the ta­ble?

How can we fur­ther the idea of trans­form­ing the sport sec­tor to a val­ue cre­ation and added val­ue cul­ture?

a Last week two im­por­tant events were held in T&T and it's hard not to feel that lo­cal sport was left out once again.

The two events were: The third an­nu­al Caribbean In­vest­ment Fo­rum (CIF). CIF al­lows for very im­por­tant dis­cus­sions that can im­pact mi­cro and macro en­ter­pris­es and is at­tend­ed by cap­tains of in­dus­try, heads of gov­ern­ment, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors. Crit­i­cal is­sues such as en­tre­pre­neur­ship, in­no­va­tion and in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties are dis­cussed.

CIF is pre­sent­ed by In­vestTT whose mis­sion is to sus­tain­ably grow T&T's non-oil and gas sec­tors.

There were ses­sions on Pub­lic Pri­vate Sec­tor Part­ner­ships (PPPs) and new Op­por­tu­ni­ties in Tourism yet no sig­nif­i­cant rep­re­sen­ta­tion for sport.

No blame can be placed on In­vestTT. It is not their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to chart the way for­ward for lo­cal sport.

The oth­er event held was the Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion.

Again lo­cal sport was not a full par­tic­i­pant.

If sport lacks re­spect or the at­ten­tion from those who are re­spon­si­ble for chart­ing the coun­try's eco­nom­ic wel­fare, it's the fault of sport. I am not point­ing fin­gers at Sport Com­pa­ny or the Min­istry of Sport.

I would like to see the na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions at the fore­front of the ef­forts to get sport on the agen­da of In­vesTT and TTMA.

Those who are re­spon­si­ble with­in the na­tion­al sports or­gan­i­sa­tions for the strate­gic thought lead­er­ship must take the lead role.

Sport has a place at the eco­nom­ic ta­ble–a mod­ern, in­no­v­a­tive and vi­brant sport sec­tor is key to Trinidad and To­ba­go's eco­nom­ic fu­ture.

But for the idea to be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly, lo­cal sport stake­hold­ers have to take it se­ri­ous­ly.

How do we im­prove the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment?

How do we cre­ate and de­vel­op mar­kets, goods and ser­vices for sport?

We need to do re­search and pro­vide sport stake­hold­ers with the in­for­ma­tion and knowl­edge of trends.

It's up to lo­cal sport to earn the re­spect of or­gan­i­sa­tions such as In­vestTT, TTMA, Cham­ber of Com­merce, the lo­cal busi­ness jour­nal­ists and me­dia.

There are any num­bers of ini­tia­tives and strate­gies that can be adopt­ed to in­cen­tivise in­ter­est in a sport in­dus­try.

Let's call it the dri­ve to thrive.

Those who have told me the task is daunt­ing point to the strug­gles of the T&T Pro League as an ex­am­ple.

In­stead of look­ing at the strengths of the Pro league, at­ten­tion is al­ways fo­cused on why it can't work.

It's time we get past the neg­a­tiv­i­ty and fo­cus on a strate­gic vi­sion for the fu­ture of sport.

Let the talk­ing points sur­round sus­tain­abil­i­ty and a vi­brant lega­cy and the po­si­tion­ing of lo­cal sport for what's com­ing and shap­ing the di­rec­tion that sport should be head­ing.

Sport lead­ers of to­day face en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent chal­lenges from those of years ago.

To­day's lead­ers wear mul­ti­ple hats and must be able to un­der­stand all as­pects of the chal­lenge in front of them.

They need in­tel­lec­tu­al hon­esty to ar­tic­u­late a path to the fu­ture that is vi­able.

A re­think is need­ed to in­spire a new strat­e­gy, vi­sion and am­bi­tion.

Lo­cal sport has to look re­al­i­ty in the eyes and de­cide how the fu­ture should look... Ask and an­swer the ques­tion–how will T&T and the world look in five, ten years from now?

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee.

Vis­it ttoc. Org to learn more http: www.ttoc.org about Olymp­ism and the Olympic move­ment.

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