Photo Credit: LinkedIn Profile Photo of Chris Dehring
Cricket West Indies (CWI) CEO Chris Dehring has acknowledged the staggering commercial revenue gap between the West Indies and global cricketing powerhouses like India and England, while also highlighting the need for talent diversification in the region to strengthen the sport’s future.
Speaking in an interview with Radio Jamaica News, Dehring painted a stark picture of how the financial disparity has evolved over decades. “The commercial revenue gap with England and India, say, 50 years ago when the West Indies ruled the roost, was perhaps $10 or $20 million U.S. a year,” he explained. “By the time I joined the West Indies Board in 1997, that commercial gap was $200 million a year. Today, the gap with India is $3 billion US a year.”
The challenge, he emphasized, is not merely financial but structural. “You have that commercial resource gap that you’ll never be able to bridge because of our size. We’re 6 million people, and no television market per se — domestic television market.” This reality, he noted, means West Indies cricket must innovate in ways that go beyond traditional revenue streams.
One such avenue, according to Dehring, is talent acquisition and development. He pointed to Jamaica’s dominance in sprinting as an untapped well of athletic potential that could be funneled into cricket. “Why is it that we are producing in Jamaica, for instance, so many highly talented, fast young ladies (sprinters) at class three? Our class three record might be the national record in 70% of the world’s countries.”
One strategy would be to divert some of this over-supply of young athletes excelling in track and field into elite cricketers if they were identified early and nurtured within the right development programs.
The principle, he contended, applies to the both the women’s and men’s game. “You need to find a way to pull those young ladies into our production pipeline to play cricket because we know that athletic portion tends to play well across all sports. And similar with the men.” This, he suggested, is critical for bolstering cricket at a territorial level to ensure the overall strength of the West Indies team.
Dehring emphasizes the need for West Indies cricket to think beyond traditional cricketing structures and instead build a robust talent pipeline that capitalizes on the region’s natural athletic prowess. While the financial gulf with nations like India may never be closed, leveraging untapped talent could be a key strategy in keeping West Indies cricket competitive on the global stage.
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Name of Author: Cricexec Staff
