Given the Caribbean passion for cricket and its penchant for revelry, there is no more appropriate location for a T20 tournament than the region.

It was a combination that influenced Digicel, the Irish mobile-phone company long established in the region and in its cricket, to sign a 50-year agreement with the West Indies Cricket Board, originally through Barbados-based merchant bank Verus International, for the ownership of the Caribbean Premier League.

The league comprises six franchised teams, along the lines of the high-profile IPL, and the "Greatest Party in Sport" was an obvious slogan for it. The CPL has been an unqualified success on the field through its three seasons, the third of which ended in Port-of-Spain last weekend, with Trinidad Red Steel defeating the 2014 champions, Barbados Tridents, in the final.

Two Trinidadian icons of T20 cricket were rival captains, Dwayne Bravo leading Red Steel, Kieron Pollard headed Tridents. The new champions included in their ranks three South Africans and a Pakistani (the limit for overseas players for each team), along with a Bajan and six Trinidadians.

Hours before the first ball, stands were packed with an estimated 20,000 - there might have been more; there certainly weren't less. They partied as only Trinidadians can, while their franchise team, part-owned for the first time by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who also owns Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, took the title.

The red and black Trinidad and Tobago colours were everywhere. A sea of national flags waved non-stop, dozens of "sport's hottest cheerleaders" gyrated as soca and calypso blared from deafening speakers and drums beat a constant rhythm. The mayhem intensified with every Red Steel run or wicket.

At the end, Bravo, an IPL star, became surely the first captain in any format to take the mike and sing and dance to the latest hit in front of one of the stands. The irony of his choice as Player of the Tournament was not lost on those affronted by his dismissal from the West Indies team last January.

There were similar scenes wherever the other 32 matches were contested over the six weeks - Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts, Jamaica, Guyana. It was an antidote to the fans' further despair at the simultaneous confirmation that West Indies had dropped below Bangladesh and Pakistan to ninth in the ODI rankings and so failed to qualify for the 2017 Champions Trophy.

Such triumphs on the field were counterbalanced by stark economic and political realities off it. Damien O'Donohoe, the CPL chief executive, acknowledged that the West Indies is "a small economic region going through hard times", and that the CPL would "never be worth even a tiny fraction of the likes of the IPL".

In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, he predicted "a move into profitable territory from next year". Even then, he said US$2-3 million annually was "a realistic goal". He spoke of other lucrative possibilities - some matches in Florida in CPL4 that would be a foot in the door of a sizeable, untapped market, and increased investment from India to follow Khan and the earlier takeover of the overall sponsorship by Hero Motocorp.

A group of wealthy Indian businessmen out of Dallas already owned the Jamaica Tallawahs franchise; the first-time St Kitts and Nevis Patriots were sold prior to the season to Uday Nayak, chairman and co-founder of Veling, an aircraft leasing company based in Mauritius and St Kitts.

Chief financial officer Barrie Corcoran put the cost of staging the tournament at $25 million a season and revealed that the organisation was "in debt in some parts". To offset it, investment from the relevant governments and private sectors was important, he said.

The point was pressed earlier by O'Donohoe and chief operations officer Pete Russell, a former English minor counties player. They complained to the media that Barbados was "a commercial disaster" since the government and private sector had "failed to come on board", adding that they were prepared to pull out if they received a good offer from "people knocking on our doors".

There was a strong and quick reaction. The region still has memories of a similar strategy by the ICC leading into the 2007 World Cup.

In an editorial, the Nation newspaper said it was "surprised, even taken aback" by the comments. "The reality is that, apart from certain concessions, most Caribbean countries cannot put the financing of the CPL ahead of the long list of national necessities already seeking a piece of the economic pie," it wrote.

Tony Becca, the widely respected veteran cricket writer, made the same point in his weekly column in the Jamaica Gleaner.

Yet on the surface, statistics supplied by the CPL, through an independent report by SMG-Insight, the sports and sponsorship researchers, made a strong case for Barbados and other governments putting up money. The CPL claimed that the report showed they had pumped "a massive" $166 million into the various economies in 2014.

Yet Antigua and Barbuda had the plug pulled from the its Hawksbills franchise team after two years when the government baulked at the CPL's requirements in spite of the stated return of $13.8 million from three matches in 2014. It was moved to nearby St Kitts as the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots.

Grenada put up $500,000 to stage the opening matches in 2014; its government didn't bid again in spite of the $13.3 million CPL said the island gained from the venture.

The Barbados government seemed unimpressed with the figure of $23.7 million given as input into the economy for 2014. The change of governments in St Kitts and Nevis and Guyana just before the 2015 tournament complicated the issue for the CPL.

The Minister of Sports in the new St Kitts and Nevis government, Shawn Richards, charged the previous administration with leaving no budgetary support to host Patriots matches. Even so, the contract, costing $7.25 million, will be honoured in five installments for 2015-19.

The clincher seemed the realisation of the likely fallout from a public excited at having its own franchise team rather than the overall benefits listed by the CPL.

A few weeks later, a new government also came to office in Guyana.

Presented with an invoice of $500,000 from the CPL for its input over the previous two years, finance minister Winston Jordan said it would not be paid until his office saw contracts and other official documents concerning the matter.

Minister of state Joseph Harmon regretted "the ad hoc manner" of the previous government's dealings with the CPL. He reportedly told O'Donohoe, "This time round, things will be done differently." In other words, negotiations would be opened with the CPL only after what he termed a structured, legally sound, cabinet-approved agreement was in place.

The moment had come for damage limitation.

After the CPL committee met with the Guyana government, Russell said their differences had been sorted out. Stating that the government had done "the right thing" by carrying out due diligence, he was confident the CPL would be "a major factor in Guyana… for years ahead". Time will tell.

After Red Steel had collected its trophy and champions' cheque following the final, the Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, pledged ongoing support to the tournament. The president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board, Azim Bassarath, responded with a plea for her government to fund a $5 million development plan involving all aspects of the game.

"If there are no cricketers who we develop and cultivate day in and day out, there would be no finished product to sell to the CPL," Bassarath argued.

It was a reasonable point.