Clarence Ramb­harat, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Lands and Fish­eries, iden­ti­fied ten is­sues post-COVID-19 that sports stake­hold­ers must con­front to emerge stronger and bet­ter suit­ed to the chang­ing eco­nom­ic land­scape.

Sen­a­tor Ramb­harat was speak­ing at the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) sixth an­nu­al Sport In­dus­try TT held over Zoom on Thurs­day.

A for­mer ad­vi­sor to sport­ing teams and or­gan­i­sa­tions pri­or to his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, Sen­a­tor Ramb­harat said these is­sues were sig­nif­i­cant in an era of COVID-19 that has made the sport­ing and eco­nom­ic at­mos­phere world-wide: “un­clear, un­cer­tain and risky”.

At the con­fer­ence mod­er­at­ed by so­cial en­tre­pre­neur Ki­ran Math­ur Mo­hammed and themed: ‘The Fu­ture is Now; COVID-19 im­pli­ca­tions for the Sport In­dus­try,' Ramb­harat ze­roed in on the hu­man be­ing and the pri­or­i­ty on per­son­al health and well­ness as one of the ar­eas that will af­fect the resur­gence of sport­ing as­sets and re­sources around the globe

He added this pe­ri­od will al­so be char­ac­terised by chang­ing ap­proach­es in risk man­age­ment, in­sur­ance cov­er­age and the im­po­si­tion of ac­cess through vac­ci­na­tion.

“In so far as it be­comes manda­to­ry for trav­el, for the need for proof of vac­ci­na­tion. What is the life of the vac­ci­na­tion, whether there will be an an­nu­al re­boot of the vac­ci­na­tion process,” Ramb­harat said, “Al­so if vac­ci­na­tion will now be seen as a pre­req­ui­site to par­tic­i­pa­tion in the post-COVID-19 era and a pre­req­ui­site to en­try to sta­dia and ath­let­ic venues?”

Ramb­harat added the ab­sence of spec­ta­tors must be weighed against the emer­gence of broad­cast rights and the shift in dom­i­nance from tra­di­tion­al tv to dig­i­tal plat­forms for mo­bile, tablets, and oth­er hand­held de­vices.

With the con­trac­tion and repri­ori­ti­sa­tion of avail­able house­hold spend, stake­hold­ers must ex­am­ine the im­pact and val­ue of brands and spon­sor­ship while the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of mega sport­ing events like the Olympics will be se­ri­ous­ly chal­lenged, open­ing the path­way to po­ten­tial in­vest­ment from oth­er un­der­world sources.

“Are we go­ing to be more sus­cep­ti­ble to dirty mon­ey? Are we go­ing to see that sports be­come a con­duit for mon­ey laun­der­ing and most im­por­tant­ly are we go­ing to be more and more de­pen­dent on gam­bling?” he asked rhetor­i­cal­ly, adding there could be a so­cial and moral dilem­ma be­cause of these ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ramb­harat al­so spoke about le­gal con­sid­er­a­tions sport­ing con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments in the COVID-19 era might en­counter.

TTOC pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis said the Con­fer­ence of­fered the pos­si­bil­i­ty to re-imag­ine the sport­ing land­scape go­ing for­ward.

“All of us par­tic­i­pat­ing in this Sport In­dus­try to­day have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, du­ty and oblig­a­tion to each oth­er, to this gen­er­a­tion and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions to em­brace chal­lenges, face up to them and to cre­ate and craft a fu­ture post-Covid-19 that al­lows our youth, young peo­ple and ath­letes to feel a sense of con­fi­dence in the lead­er­ship, di­rec­tion and the vi­sion,” he said.

Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty Af­fairs, Sham­fa Cud­joe said the COVID-19 pre­sent­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for lo­cal, re­gion­al and world en­ti­ties to re-en­gi­neer their way of do­ing busi­ness.

“It is all about ush­er­ing a brighter fu­ture for sport at this try­ing time and this is the fu­ture that we have all been talk­ing about for many years,” Cud­joe said,” ...this is the fu­ture. The fu­ture is now and even in the ab­sence of peo­ple in the stands and we look at low tick­et sales, sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties post­poned and can­celled, the show must go on. All's not lost and this pan­dem­ic has opened a gate­way of op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Yao Williams, head of in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness for Ath­letes First Part­ners (A1P) em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of align­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions with a brand and the val­ue of con­nect­ing to stake­hold­ers through sto­ries and nar­ra­tive.

Kriszti­na Csava­j­da, sports op­er­a­tions man­ag­er, In­ter­na­tion­al Teqball Fed­er­a­tion, and two-time Olympic gold medal­list Heather Moyse founder of The Pos­si­bil­i­ty Play­ground high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of com­mu­ni­ties and path to the goals

Riv­eli­no Sim­mons, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Riv­et­ing Me­dia Inc and Ariel Valdes, busi­ness de­vel­op­ment di­rec­tor, Bor­nan Sports Tech­nol­o­gy, touched on the op­por­tu­ni­ty to leap in­to us­ing tech­nol­o­gy to de­vel­op con­tent to con­nect with stake­hold­ers.

Georgina Ter­ry, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, BPD As­so­ciates Lim­it­ed ad­dressed the guid­ing prin­ci­ples of en­tre­pre­neur­ship and lead­er­ship while Zwede He­witt, for­mer na­tion­al 400m cham­pi­on and 2014 Com­mon­wealth Games medal­list and now co-founder/ CEO at LUHU (Let Us Help U) ex­plained how he utilised his de­sire to help peo­ple guide him to be­come an en­tre­pre­neur/ busi­ness­man.

Edith Cox, trea­sur­er at the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) and the Turks and Caicos Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tion dis­cussed plan­ning for the fu­ture while Tim­o­thy Odle, deputy pro­gramme man­ag­er ser­vices sec­tor de­vel­op­ment, CARI­COM, talked about how the CARI­COM is at­tempt­ing to cre­ate a func­tion­ing data­base of the sport­ing sub-sec­tor of the Caribbean econ­o­my.

(Cour­tesy TTOC)