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John Myers Jr, Gleaner Writer
Jamaica has garnered little economic benefit from its world-renowned prowess in sports, particularly athletics, a failure business and management experts are arguing is due to an absence of the requisite know-how to properly harness the opportunities available.
Dr Maurice McNaughton, lecturer at the Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) at the University of the West Indies (UWI), said sports has the potential to generate the kind of economic activity from which benefits could be derived to assist with boosting the nation's economy.
"I see sports as a platform and I see opportunities both to use our performance in sports as a kind of basis for other areas of economic activities," McNaughton said during a Gleaner Editors' Forum held Friday at the newspaper's North Street, Kingston, offices.
"Sports in and of itself can create tremendous value for the economy and the country as a whole."
But management consultant Dr Henley Morgan disagreed on the basis that the elements necessary to properly make use of those economic benefits do not currently exist and so the country is unable to tap into the opportunities that abound.
"The cold, hard truth is this: in the circumstance of Jamaica, there are no jobs, no wealth to be created by sports except for the few icons who it has produced," Morgan asserted. "It's mythology we are dealing with; there is (no money) to be made except by the icons."
In countering, McNaughton argued that "if we broaden that to the notion of some kind of engagement that can create economic activity, which can be shared or co-created by a reasonable number of people, then absolutely sports can bring jobs in that context".
Ambassador Byron Blake, economist and former assistant secretary general of CARICOM, highlighted what he identified as Jamaica's inability to properly analyse, plan and package its product to maximise on the economic spin-offs from sports.
"There is nothing inside which creates an arrangement whereby you can make resources or any money out of it. Right now, the money is made outside," Blake lamented. "We create the basic raw material, we allow it to pass through and it goes elsewhere so that other people make money out of it."
He advised: "When we have a performance such as was in England (2012 Olympics) and what will be in Brazil (2016 Olympics), we have to say now, what is it that we package around it so as to make it a meaningful activity so we have different areas that can make returns from it."
In the meantime, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the UWI, Professor Evan Duggan, said a concentration in sports and events management has been introduced in the Master of Business Administration programme offered at the MSBM. This programme is intended to assist with equipping local sports personnel with the requisite knowledge so they might be able to effectively identify and plan the kind of activities that can harness opportunities that can be derived from sports.
"In addition to that, we'll start in September a sports management programme and diploma that are linked together that will allow people who have matriculation deficits to enter a master's programme," Duggan told those gathered for the forum.
Further to that, he said the UWI would be consolidating all its academic programmes on sports in one package in two to three years' time.
"The objective is to replace those persons who have infested our region in providing these services for a fee when people here would have the competence to do those things but are not obtaining the compensation that they deserve from doing those things," Duggan explained.
Jamaica has garnered little economic benefit from its world-renowned prowess in sports, particularly athletics, a failure business and management experts are arguing is due to an absence of the requisite know-how to properly harness the opportunities available.
Dr Maurice McNaughton, lecturer at the Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM) at the University of the West Indies (UWI), said sports has the potential to generate the kind of economic activity from which benefits could be derived to assist with boosting the nation's economy.
"I see sports as a platform and I see opportunities both to use our performance in sports as a kind of basis for other areas of economic activities," McNaughton said during a Gleaner Editors' Forum held Friday at the newspaper's North Street, Kingston, offices.
"Sports in and of itself can create tremendous value for the economy and the country as a whole."
But management consultant Dr Henley Morgan disagreed on the basis that the elements necessary to properly make use of those economic benefits do not currently exist and so the country is unable to tap into the opportunities that abound.
"The cold, hard truth is this: in the circumstance of Jamaica, there are no jobs, no wealth to be created by sports except for the few icons who it has produced," Morgan asserted. "It's mythology we are dealing with; there is (no money) to be made except by the icons."
In countering, McNaughton argued that "if we broaden that to the notion of some kind of engagement that can create economic activity, which can be shared or co-created by a reasonable number of people, then absolutely sports can bring jobs in that context".
Ambassador Byron Blake, economist and former assistant secretary general of CARICOM, highlighted what he identified as Jamaica's inability to properly analyse, plan and package its product to maximise on the economic spin-offs from sports.
"There is nothing inside which creates an arrangement whereby you can make resources or any money out of it. Right now, the money is made outside," Blake lamented. "We create the basic raw material, we allow it to pass through and it goes elsewhere so that other people make money out of it."
He advised: "When we have a performance such as was in England (2012 Olympics) and what will be in Brazil (2016 Olympics), we have to say now, what is it that we package around it so as to make it a meaningful activity so we have different areas that can make returns from it."
In the meantime, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the UWI, Professor Evan Duggan, said a concentration in sports and events management has been introduced in the Master of Business Administration programme offered at the MSBM. This programme is intended to assist with equipping local sports personnel with the requisite knowledge so they might be able to effectively identify and plan the kind of activities that can harness opportunities that can be derived from sports.
"In addition to that, we'll start in September a sports management programme and diploma that are linked together that will allow people who have matriculation deficits to enter a master's programme," Duggan told those gathered for the forum.
Further to that, he said the UWI would be consolidating all its academic programmes on sports in one package in two to three years' time.
"The objective is to replace those persons who have infested our region in providing these services for a fee when people here would have the competence to do those things but are not obtaining the compensation that they deserve from doing those things," Duggan explained.
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