BU stated previously that we would wait until after the CWC final before commenting in any serious way about CWC 2007. The truth is that so much has been said already that to rehash would be a bit boring. For example here is what the BBC blog had to say, see if you can detect the feeling that the writer is glad that the show is over:

BBC Blog Site ~ written by Martin Gough

Many Barbadians I spoke to when the news broke a few years ago that the region had successfully negotiated to host the CWC 2007 were happy at the idea. Of course this was before any number crunching was presented to a trusting public around the cost that would be required to host the event. In fact to this day I have not been able to find any business model which was used to cost justify the reported 1 billion plus dollars spent by the region so far. If we read between the lines from the sound bites which our Prime Minister has given us it seems to is here at BU that the decision to buy into Pat Rousseau’s aka Chris Dehring’s cricket vision for the Caribbean was predicated on a healthy dose of sentimentality. Here is a sound bite to demonstrate our point:

PRIME MINISTER OWEN ARTHUR hopes that the legacy of the Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 will be a brand new generation of cricket lovers in the Caribbean, and with it a regeneration of the sport.

He made his comments at a reception at his official residence, Ilaro Court, on Thursday, to thank all those involved in the Barbados World Cup effort.

The Prime Minister called the CWC a “memorable event in the lives of Caribbean people”, and spoke of its effect on his own family.

“I have a seven-year-old daughter who now knows about Sir Everton Weekes and Sir Garfield Sobers.

“I hope that this tournament will leave behind a new generation of Caribbean people who are as enthusiastic about cricket as I was at eight years old when I witnessed my first Test match in 1958,” Arthur stated.

Source: Nation

Now the PM must be out of his cotton picking mind! We don’t need to employ any pollster to determine that the emotional attachment which we once had for cricket is rapidly being diluted by the plethora of options which generation X and Y now have before them. We will not even bother to list them. PM Arthur should not ask his 7 year old daughter but instead his 21 year old daughter what is the interest in cricket in her peer group. I suspect that he will get a response which is consistent with what we all know. King cricket is dying! Blogs around the Caribbean have been discussing this issue for some time; the consensus it seems to us is the same across the Caribbean.

Let us examine the key consideration which appears to have influence the decision for the region to host CWC 2007-THE LEGACY BENEFIT which has been discussed at length over at Barbados Free Press. At BU we have declared our hand that Messrs Owen Arthur, George Mitchell, PJ Patterson et al, the baby boomers who would have experienced the value which cricket brought to an oppressed Caribbean people of the 60s and onwards no doubt allowed that to distort their thinking when agreeing to host CWC 2007. To think that Mitchell is a mathematician and Arthur an Economist!

At BU we tried to do some back of the envelope analysis to satisfy this topic. We selected the countries that participated in CWC 2007, listed their populations and graded them based on what we think is their market potential. A quick and dirty criteria was if the potential traveller had to journey more than 10 hours to get to the Caribbean. I am sure that our good friend Adrian Loveridge can offer the technical knowledge missing to beef-up the criteria. Readers to BU can make their own judgment call on what we think is an investment which was made on flawed business logic. The conclusion which can be immediately drawn is that with the exception of England, Canada and to a lesser extent Ireland none of the other countries that participated in CWC 2007 offer any significant value-added to increasing our tourist traffic.

Is it conceivable that the majority of our leaders committed to the CWC 2007 undertaking to pad their legacies by stoking that sentimentality we referred to earlier? No, No…what a stupid idea on my part.