It has witnessed unprecedented growth in television and sponsorship revenues with even the once sacrosanct white flannel now adorned with unsubtle product endorsements. It has seen international sports agents, players representatives and lawyers becoming more active in the process as everyone fights for their perceived deserved piece of what has become a significantly larger economic pie.

As I understand it, there was a time when international teams like England came to the West Indies because it was simply a great place to get away from harsher climates at that time of the year. Or subsequently as world champions, beating us meant a boost to prestige and reputation.

Those days are long gone, replaced by the harsh reality of economics where tough negotiations on tour guarantees and appearance fees, reciprocal agreements and player compensation are the order of the day. Once content to tour the Caribbean purely for higher purposes, teams in addition to their desire to beat the West Indies, now demand large sums of money which they could command elsewhere and perhaps rightly so, we must now pay our own way.

The glorious game, for better or worse, has become a very serious business. The stakes and liabilities have been raised to unprecedented levels and the bottom line is just as important as the talent quotient of our team if we are to be competitive in this new commercial world of cricket. But where does the West Indies stand in this new world order?

Unfortunately, the realities of a small, splintered population, depressed economies and logistical challenges of doing business in the Caribbean do not give us the same competitive advantages that our talent, spirit and determination have given us on the field of play.

England, with a GDP of US$1.5 trillion has domestic companies larger than the sum total of all the countries in the Caribbean. Its per capita income of US$25 000 facilitates gate receipts of nearly US$5 million per game, seven times that obtained in the West Indies. In fact, the gross revenue of the English Cricket Board is over 12 times that of the WICB strictly because of the size and strength of the home market they operate in and irrespective of the quality or strength of the English team.

Large economies

Not unlike our doctors, engineers, journalists or any other professionals in the Caribbean, our cricketers face the harsh reality that their counterparts in larger economies are likely to be nominally better paid, even if they are deemed inferior. It may not seem fair, but then again, neither does the fact that today's West Indies cricketers earn substantially more than our magnificent players of the 70's & 80s. But let us not begrudge them. They are fortunate to have come along at the right time, maybe not the right place from a financial point of view, but certainly the right time.

We have not just lost our dominance on the field, but we now also find it more challenging to fund development, domestic and international tournaments and player compensation because of where the stakes have been raised. The current manager of the West Indies team, Clive Lloyd said in a recent article that substantial capital is needed to move West Indies cricket forward. We must and can rise to the challenges on and off the field because cricket means so much to us, economically and psychologically.

Commercialization of the Caribbean game is not a substitute for pride and passion or the privilege of representing the West Indies and its 5 million people. It is aimed however at earning the necessary money for the games' development to help put us back on top. Pride, talent and determination are still the essential ingredients of a winning and great West Indies team but money is also needed to help discover, nurture and ultimately reward these qualities.

Some argue that we shouldn't commercialise the game in the Caribbean at all or that we perhaps have gone overboard with the commercialisation process.

West Indies cricket does not operate in a vacuum. Global forces are at the root of some of the directions WICB had to take, while other moves were purely determined by the need and the desire to find money for the development of the game. Commercialisation of the game in the Caribbean is not an end but merely a means to fund development of the sport.

I make this point to those who try to make a comparison of the recent dispute with our players in London, with the current impasse in the NBA. In the case of the NBA, the end is almost purely commercial with the team owners protecting their own personal interest and bottom line from the ravages of free agency and its spontaneous impact on player salary increases.

Our cricket administrators don't gain personally if the players are paid less. When there are profits, these are put straight back into the sport with the goal of generating new players.

This is an important point to remember that WICB has no vested interest in not paying players well. In fact from a marketing perspective, it would be a much easier job to sell the sport to youngsters in the Caribbean if our players earned as much as the players in the NBA.

The fact that fees paid to West Indian cricketers generally compare favourably with those paid to English cricketers, despite WICB earning 12 times less than the ECB, stands as testimony to the efforts of WICB to compensate fairly but within its means. Not that this means that WICB or the players should be satisfied, because it is clear through the players' action that more needs to be done.

But if the players need more money, and more money is at the same time needed for development, commercialization of the game remains critical.

During the impasse, it was almost amusing to hear criticism from some quarters that WICB was not paying the players enough while at the same time also criticising WICB for trying to commercialise the game. I'm not sure how those critics would propose we accomplish the former without the implementation of the latter.

Commercialisation of Caribbean cricket is bound to meet with resistance, because it is a new dimension and the objectives will either be misunderstood or perhaps not properly communicated by WICB or for that matter the media.

When the format of the Red Stripe Bowl was changed for commercial purposes, i.e. to facilitate television within that tournament and the commercial interests of the sponsor, there was objection to the new format because it appeared to restrict the games to two territories at a time.

But the objective of the new format is in fact to develop the medium to have the games seen as far and wide as possible. That is because the medium WICB has chosen to spread the game is television which reaches a potential audience of five million versus the 10 000 capacity of our cricket venues. By using the savings of the new format, WICB has been able to televise highlights and live games from the Red Stripe Bowl throughout the Caribbean and as far afield as the United States.

When funds are limited, the emphasis must be on spreading the game as far and as economically as possible so that the foundation is laid for future revenue growth and regeneration of the sport in the Caribbean.

This approach is simply a modern one, recognising global changes in consumption patterns from live gate attendance to television programming, which in turn eventually impacts positively on live gate attendance. One only has to look at how popular the NBA has become in the Caribbean, yet to my knowledge, no NBA game has ever been physically played in the Caribbean.

To be continued next week ...