Trip to Trinidad – Caribbean Premier League T20 Cricket Group

Earlier this month I flew to Trinidad to speak to the Caribbean Premier League. The Caribbean Premier League is a T20 cricket group with a very popular tournament. For the 20th anniversary of the league, they put together a sponsor- only event. My topic was “Optimising Sponsorship through Activation”.

First, I want to go on the record as saying everything about the friendliness of the folks in the Caribbean was certainly true here. Everyone was very gracious and helpful, especially my hosts. There is a bit of history about the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain. It was shown in a documentary about FIFA handing out bags of cash at the hotel. I guess it is like the Watergate hotel of Sports? Anyway a beautiful setting for some actual business.

The main topics were:

• Patronage, Partnership and Sponsorship; What is the difference and what is your obligation under each scenario?
• The updated Activation Value Pyramid
• What works and what doesn’t work, with examples
• Engagement using tech and not using tech with examples
• Digital Activations
• Naming Rights Activation

After lunch we had a 90 minute working session where we mixed all the groups and asked them to identify a situation where a revised or new activation could improve sponsorship results. Members of the CPL team and I circulated to support the groups and the last half hour was spent with each group presenting their issue and proposed solutions.