Sports-related Services Sample Clauses

Sports-related Services. Background The member states of CARIFORUM have for decades “punched above their weight class” in certain sports segments, particularly track and field and boxing, cricket, and more recently in soccer, netball and a number of martial arts disciplines. This track record has triggered repeated rounds of calls for the development of a range of marketable sports-related services. There is little question that this world- beating reputation presents an opportunity to earn the region an edge in sports tourism (Mode 2) as well as to expand earnings from the region’s sportspersons who sell their services abroad (Mode 4). For the most part though, there have been less than significant or sustained efforts to make this a reality. While the top sportspersons have been awarded national honours or designated as honorary ambassadors, or have had a multiplicity of bridges, stadiums and the odd airport renamed in their honour, member states still struggle to develop and implement coherent strategies to enable the region to derive long-term benefits from their sporting achievements. A longstanding concern to some, it is arguable that in recent times the staging and outcome of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC2007) may have soured some on the potential of sports tourism. The massively “oversold” and expensive regional event left many Caribbean politicians, businesspersons and consumers, arguably at a loss to justify its staging as the hype surrounding the projected multiple thousands of high-spending (potentially repeat) visitors from new markets gave way in short order to the reality that very few extra-regional tourists materialized during the events. What was undeniable was that a number of CARICOM nations borrowed and spent extensively in constructing or upgrading what have since been little-used facilities. Few countries, it turned out, had well- thought-out plans to capitalize on the infrastructural enhancements or the skills gained through the organization of a complex schedule of activities. One thought offered by some observers is that the development infrastructure - beginning with the national education systems and following through to sports associations driven largely by volunteer administrators and dependent on ad hoc governmental funding or private sector sponsorship - is not inherently conducive to business development. Sporting activities, especially events, have historically been organized by sporting organizations for purely sporting purposes. Thus, maxi...