West Indies: ‘Empty' Bowl

In spite of almost empty stands for the Final Four weekend of the Red Stripe Bowl, West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) chief marketing executive Chris Dehring is beaming with the knowledge of unprecedented levels of regional viewership.

'Our objective is to have more eyeballs watching it versus attendance,' Dehring told NATIONSPORT during Sunday's final at Sabina Park which was watched by no more than 1 000 spectators at the ground.

'In the 21st Century, an eyeball is an eyeball, whether it is live at the game, over the Internet or over television.'

Among the reasons for the low turnout, Dehring identified a lack of quality cricket and change in venue for the Final Four, which prior to this year, was played at the Kaiser Sports Club in Discovery Bay on Jamaica's north coast.

By making the switch to Kingston, it cost officials US$60 000 to televise both semifinals and final, while the previous year there was a cost of US$84 000 to televise just the final.

'We took the decision as a trade-off. We knew that we were going to run the risk of crowd by bringing it into Kingston,' Dehring said.

'The important thing is to get eyeballs watching the sport. Those eyeballs are created these days mainly through television, as much as we like to remember the good old days when a lot people went to the grounds.'

It was a comment made against the background the Final Four was also televised on local stations, which is not in keeping with the practice when international matches are staged in the Caribbean.

'In an international series, the objective is more revenue driven. This is for exposure,' Dehring explained.

'There are very little revenues at present in regional cricket.

International cricket creates all the revenues so that we can have regional tournaments. Because international cricket is revenue driven, you take a different decision in terms of allowing television.'