Grave: CWI has to live within means

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

Cricket West Indies (CWI) chief executive Johnny Grave has cautioned that the governing body needs to continue “living within its means” as it seeks to further consolidate its finances in the face of challenging global conditions.

CWI has been hit by bleak finances in recent years, and lost an estimated US$20 million in 2018, a year that Grave described in an interview last year as “fi­nan­cial­ly hor­ri­ble”.

And while lucrative 2019 home series tours against England and India had been expected to be a huge boost to CWI’s coffers, Grave said this week that, with international media companies experiencing “enormous pressure and strain”, it was critical that CWI continued to exercise prudence in managing its financial affairs.

“One of the things we are going to have to do in a far better way than ever before in our history is live within our means,” Grave said.

“The international landscape isn’t necessarily the way it’s been [before], where, for the most part in professional cricket, and in professional sport, revenues have been increasing year on year.

“We’re now into a challenging few years where traditional media companies, which have been the bread and butter of most organisations in professional sport, their business is under significant pressure as everyone who watches sport and TV and live entertainment changes their habits significantly, and fewer and fewer of us are watching any sort of live entertainment, and particularly sport, through TV.

“Therefore, the business plans of TV companies are under enormous pressure and strain, and many nations in the world, including ourselves, are facing a drop in revenue, and therefore, we’re going to have to be very agile in terms of how we manoeuvre that ever-changing landscape,” he said.

Apart from broadcast rights revenue, Grave indicated that key to CWI’s finances will be the redevelopment of the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua, formerly the Stanford Cricket Ground.

Increased revenue

The Englishman said that CWI was poised to undertake long-term financing on the venue in order to underwrite “ambitious” redevelopment plans that would ultimately lead to increased revenue.

“We’re certainly going to do long-term financing for the Coolidge Cricket Ground,” Grave said.

“At the moment, we’ve effectively bought the venue out of our operating cash flow, and we need to turn that into long-term financing and replace some of that operating cash in the business.”

He added: “It (the venue) has been making revenue, but in terms of our plans to redevelop the entire 16-acre site, they’re much more ambitious, and we would be looking to significantly increase the revenues from [those plans].”