DJ Stress shows how it should be done!

May 05, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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One of the things that I have noticed that is much different within the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season as against the last is the large number of logos that players are wearing on their uniforms.
During the first season there were only a few endorsements being worn by players. In this season, however, there is hardly space on some uniforms to fit the many companies which are being endorsed by the respective teams.
The IPL is a lucrative league. It is now the richest tournament in world cricket. This was not always the case. Allen Stanford’s $25M winner-take-all match between England and the Stanford All Stars, which was supposed to have been run over five years, represented the largest prize money for any match.
But as we know that tournament is no longer on the cards
The collapse of the Stanford empire in the Caribbean has brought to an end the proposed big money matches, the inaugural one of which created millionaires overnight in the players of the winning side.
There are some who are glad that this tournament will no longer be on the cards. Not everyone was convinced that such big money was good for cricket.
Not everyone was happy about the US$25M match. There were some who felt such a large prize would have a negative effect on cricket; some even said that the contest was a sort of exhibition match.
Whatever people may have felt were the motivations of Mr. Stanford, there are few who will doubt that in the short period of time in which he was involved with regional cricket, he did help to change the way things are done and change it for the better.
The six-week training session that he had for the All Stars team transformed the regional unit from an ordinary side to one, which is today performing at a much higher level than it ever performed for decades. The players were made to appreciate the responsibilities of professionalism, that the big bucks did not come easy; that hard work was required.
That lesson, however welcome, was not new to West Indian cricket. Thirty years ago, Australian television magnate Kerry Packer launched a rebel league, offering big bucks to players.
His goal had nothing to do with the long-term future of cricket.
He was instead trying to make a point to the Australian Cricket Board, which had bypassed his channel for the grant of television rights.
The Packer league brought a division in West Indies Cricket. The regional team was split, with most of the top players opting to play in the World Series tournament and the large sums offered by Packer while the West Indies Cricket Board was forced to string together a second-eleven to represent the regional side.
World Series Cricket made a huge impact on professional standards in the game.
The players were also required to train hard and work hard for the big bucks that they were earning and it was the World Series tournament that brought about the sustained success of the West Indies cricket team, even though at the time the series was launched the West Indies were already atop of world cricket.
Close to thirty years later, it took Allen Stanford and his mega-bucks tournaments to once again bring back that high level of professionalism to West Indies cricket.
The same thing is going to happen to Indian Cricket with the IPL and the ICL. These tournaments with the huge commercial investments they attract will have a positive effect years from now on Indian Cricket, notwithstanding the fact that Indian Cricket was on the upswing prior to the launch of both leagues.
The West Indies Cricket Board and its affiliate Boards should learn from what is taking place and ensure that the structure and organization of cricket within the various territories are changed and professionalised.
Cricket cannot be organised within the region along the same lines, and definitely in Guyana there needs to be a total change in the way things are done.
The Guyana Cricket Board can perhaps take a leaf out of the book of a local cricket promoter, DJ Stress, who last Friday organised a 20/20 cricket festival.
While the attendance can be considered fair, the model for the festival is something that the Guyana Cricket Board should look at closely since by adopting this approach it stands to have a similar impact on local cricket as Stanford had on regional cricket.
DJ Stress got four major companies to sponsor the four teams in his competition; he offered a lucrative prize for the tournament, and he had other companies come on board his promotion. He advertised his festival extensively.
This contrasts totally with the inter-county under-19 one-day tournament organised by the Guyana Cricket Board, which had a single sponsor as has been the format for eons.
What the GCB needs to do is to mimic what DJ stress did. Its leaders need to brand a tournament and then go around and attract corporate sponsors for the tournament itself and for the team.
They need to market this tournament so that it would create the same excitement as the 20/20 festival and to offer huge prize money.
If DJ Stress can do it, the Cricket Board can do it also.

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