BCA drive for beefed-up revenue

Conscious of the need to beef up its revenue streams, the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) is expected to employ a full-time marketing director by month-end.

Investigations by WEEKENDSPORT revealed the island's biggest sporting association has shortlisted three candidates for the high-profile job.

They are a former Barbados Tourism Authority official, a businessman and a journalist.

BCA president Stephen Alleyne confirmed yesterday the position would be filled in a matter of weeks, but was not prepared to discuss or confirm who were candidates for the job.

Alleyne, however, gave some insight over the creation of the new position.

"The BCA wants to put its marketing operations on a more secure footing," he said.

"If you look at the profile of the BCA, the majority of the revenues come from marketing, be it advertising, sponsorships, gate receipts and those kind of things.

"What we have found is that relying on a part-time marketing committee is not consistent with our needs. We need to get someone to focus on it - not in a part-time way."

WEEKENDSPORT also understands that the marketing director would benefit from an attractive compensation package and sources suggested the employee would be paid a flat salary in addition to earning commission.

Among the responsibilities of the marketing director would be to pursue sponsorship opportunities, explore player and product merchandising opportunities and to initiate development and implementation of programmes to promote the BCA's cricket development plan.

The successful candidate is also expected to engineer development of successful relationships with public and private sector partners, to initiate the promotion of Kensington Oval as a commercial venue and maintain the BCA's websiteto allow exploitation of commercial aspects.

With its development plan heavily dependent on financial resources, it is hoped the creation of the new post would significantly improve the revenue streams of the BCA, whose expenditure exceeded revenue in the last two years.