Ajmal Khan: No Profit Yet from the CPL The following is an abridged question-and-answer interview with founder of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) Ajmal Khan on the recently concluded Twenty20 tournament, conducted by Geralyn Edward, Associate Editor (Business) of the Nation Newspaper, Barbados. Tell us about your attachment to cricket. It started in England. I am not a very good cricket player and I am not a cricket fanatic but I grew up in a time when West Indies dominated with the likes of Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Michael Holding, Andy Roberts, and Gordan Greenidge. That was something that left an impact on me and whenever they came into town, I would watch them destroy every team they came up against. A lot has happened between then and now—so why put so much money into a Twenty20 tournament in the region? I think cricket is part of the West Indian DNA. Cricket is to the West Indies what soccer is to Brazilians. You have the glamour; there is a lot of excitement and the fans make it into a big carnival atmosphere. But having a population of not a billion people in your backyard makes it very difficult to drive revenues. From a business perspective it is probably something that led to the deterioration of cricket and the demise I’ve seen since I’ve lived here. Five-day cricket is tremendous and great as well as the one-day and they have their place but what Twenty20 cricket has done has revolutionised the game to make it much more action-packed and more exciting. It has allowed the game to be more enjoyable in a short period of time… Did the CPL make a profit? No! Not at all and I have to be candid about that. This is something that is a long-term investment that requires capital to be invested. You will lose a significant amount of money putting this together but the hope at the end of the day is to have a product that keeps the integrity and professionalism of the game at the highest levels and along with that Caribbean secret sauce that allows this to be a unique, carnival-like atmosphere that attracts the world. This is not just about the Caribbean—this is about the world seeing what we have staged here. We are keeping our fingers crossed because that is the bet that I am making that this will be an event that people are going to come to and watch and eventually will have an investment that is going to be profitable…
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 15:59:18 +0000
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