Go Lean…Caribbean

Go Lean Commentary

Introducing a network without the “network”. This is espnW, the ESPN (see Appendix below) channel, without a channel, specifically catering to women’s sports; this network is delivered via the internet only.

Wow, how the world has changed.

So this commentary is a melding of ICT (Internet & Communications Technology), sports, television, gender equality and economics – this is a big deal for the Caribbean to consider.

espnW…

espnW’s mission is to serve women as fans and athletes. espnW.com provides an engaging environment that offers total access to female athletes and the sports they play, takes fans inside the biggest events, and shares a unique point of view on the sports stories that matter most to women.

Founded in July, 2010, espnW lives across television, films, events, digital and social platforms. The annual espnW: Women + Sports Summit is the leading event of its kind in the sports industry. The Women’s Sports Foundation is a charity of choice for espnW.
ESPN W. – About Us Page – Official Website (Retrieved December 7, 2014) – http://espn.go.com/espnw/v1/about

VIDEO: espnW at the 2012 Olympic Games – http://youtu.be/z7vGVQAatig
Published on Aug 14, 2012
Alex Morgan sits down with Julie Foudy to talk about what it feels like to have her first Olympic gold

The Caribbean does not currently have an eco-system for sports business … for men nor women. There is no viable sporting enterprises, other than baseball development/winter leagues in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Communist Cuba. There is absolutely no intercollegiate athletics arrangements. Only Amateur athletics abound in the region.

While so much of the sports business infrastructure is missing, the Caribbean is awash in the underlying assets: the athletes. The Caribbean supplies the world with the best-of-the-best in the sports genres of baseball, basketball, track-and-field, soccer-FIFA-football and other endeavors. This athletic supply applies equally to men and women.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. The roadmap recognizes and fosters the genius qualifiers of many Caribbean men and women. The goal now is to foster the local eco-system in the homeland so that  those with talent would not have to flee the region to garner the business returns on their athletic investments.

This Go Lean economic empowerment roadmap strategizes to create a Single Media Market to leverage the value of broadcast rights for the entire region, utilizing all the advantages of cutting edge ICT offerings. The result: an audience of 42 million residents (plus 10 million Diaspora) across 30 member-states and 4 languages. ESPN and espnW provides a great role model for this execution, see Appendix below, facilitating television, cable, satellite and internet streaming wherever economically viable.

At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the value of sports, for all genders, in the roadmap with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

xxvi.      Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxvii.      Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

xxviii.      Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

xxxi.      Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations and community investments to garner economic benefits of sports and talented athletes, men and women. One of the biggest contribution the CU will make is the facilitation of sports venues: arenas and stadia. Sports can be big business (and great educational opportunities) for the athletes, promoters, vendors and landlords. Still, even fans get great benefits: image, national pride, and entertainment. (The E in ESPN means Entertainment). The eco-system of sports is therefore inclusive in the roadmap’s quest to make the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies detailed in the book Go Lean…Caribbean to deliver the solutions to elevate the Caribbean region through sports:

The book Go Lean…Caribbean, and aligning blog commentaries (highlighted throughout this page in bold), asserts that the region can be a better place to live, work and play; that the economy can be grown methodically by embracing progressive strategies in sports and sports broadcasting/streaming at all levels: professional, amateur and intercollegiate.

The Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap is bigger than just sports, its a concerted effort to elevate all of Caribbean society, for all genders: men and women. The CU is the vehicle for this goal, this is detailed by the following 3 prime directives:

• Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs (21,000 direct jobs at fairgrounds and sport venues).
• Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
• Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This roadmap adheres to economic principles of supply-and-demand. Similar to the foregoing website on espnW, the roadmap looks for the opportunities to foster interest that may exist in specific endeavors, in this case women’s sports, and then explore the business opportunities around servicing that demand. This is not limited to the domestic Caribbean, but rather can refer to local interest in sports abroad and foreign interest in Caribbean sports and athletes.

This is heavy-lifting. This is the quest of Go Lean/CU, to do the heavy-lifting to make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

———

Appendix – Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN)

ESPN is a U.S.-based global cable and satellite television channel that is owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which operates the network, through its 80% controlling ownership interest) and Hearst Corporation (which holds the remaining 20% interest). The channel focuses on sports-related programming including live and recorded event telecasts, sports news and talk shows, and other original programming.

ESPN broadcasts primarily from studio facilities located in Bristol, Connecticut. The network also operates offices in Miami, New York City, Seattle, Charlotte, and Los Angeles. While ESPN is one of the most successful sports networks, it has been subject to criticism, which includes accusations of biased coverage^[1] (not showing enough hockey or Women’s athletics), conflict of interest, and controversies with individual broadcasters and analysts.

As of August 2013, ESPN is available to approximately 97,736,000 pay television households (85.58% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.^[2] In addition to the flagship channel and its seven related channels in the United States, ESPN broadcasts in more than 200 countries,^[3] operating regional channels in Australia, Brazil, Latin America and the United Kingdom, and owning a 20% interest in The Sports Network (TSN) as well as its five sister networks and NHL Network in Canada.

Source References:

1. Geography lesson: Breaking down the bias in ESPN’s coverage, ESPN.com, August 15, 2008.
2. Seidman, Robert (August 23, 2013). “List of How Many Homes Each Cable Networks Is In – Cable Network Coverage Estimates As Of August 2013”. TV by the Numbers. Zap2it. Retrieved August 25, 2013.
3. ESPN Inc Encyclopedia Britannica.