IT WASN’T IRIE hearing that Brian Talma was contemplating moving a leg of his World Surfing Tour from Barbados to Turks and Caicos because of a lack of sponsorship.
Barbados’ self-titled “Action Man” must have felt really deflated to reach that point because Talma is a true patriot.
While at the height of his powers as a top 10 world-rated windsurfer, he pulled Barbados along in his wave of success. He took the gospel of our beach culture and spread it to the world, promoting our country as the best and ideal place to come for water sports and to explore all the country has to offer simultaneously.
He took the lead at home too with his annual Waterman Festival, which enticed several world class windsurfers to come here to compete and subsequently left with their own eyewitness accounts and testimonials that we lived in a paradise.
All of his efforts required sponsorship, and by his own admission there was a time when segments of corporate Barbados gave him the support he needed.
I believe one of his main allies would have been the tourism board because of the potential of his competition to attract visitors to the island.
Truth be told, the closure of the Silver Sands Hotel was a hard blow for the Waterman Festival because it was strategically located in the heart of a seafaring community and offered the obvious advantage of accommodating the foreign surfers and their entourage.
So, it could be in the minds of the stakeholders that it was no longer profitable to back Talma’s projects in money or in kind.
Sponsorship has always been a two-edged sword: what’s in it for you and what’s in it for me?
It comes down to the bottom line, no matter what anybody says. Both sides seek benefits and if the shelf life of a particular brand is perceived to have expired or on its way there, you can expect fewer resources to work with.
In that case, you fold up or seek another option as Talma said he was exploring but something has to give.
The organisers of the Hockey Festival have found themselves in a similar situation, where they lost their title sponsor last year after 29 consecutive years of patronage.
That decision would have been tied to the fact that without the use of the Wildey AstroTurf for the past five years, the number of foreign and regional teams has dropped appreciably.
Consequently, it meant fewer sales of the company’s products at the event and the obvious decline in money made. Unless there is a near 360 degree turnaround, it will be difficult to regain that sponsorship at the level it used to be. It was a business decision, though, that hurt the festival as its chairman David Rouse conceded.
The organisers will now hope that the laying of a new surface will help reignite the interest in the festival and serve as a selling point to get tangible sponsorship once more. I hope they do because the Hockey Festival was a major force in boosting sports tourism not so long ago.
Having said that, I note that the International Masters Football Tournament played at Whitsuntide continues to maintain its sponsorship levels and this has to be because the local, regional and international interest has been sustained.
They have an excellent package that makes it difficult to resist. All of this would be taken into account by current sponsors and potential ones because they are assured that their various brands will be in the forefront and they will see significant returns on their investment.
It isn’t by chance that the forthcoming Sol Barbados Rally is continuing to thrive in the way it has done over the years. Not only does it have a long term title sponsor but there are several other partners who have seen benefits from aligning themselves with what is arguably the biggest and most prestigious rally in the region but in the Commonwealth. The numbers speak for themselves and so too do the diversity in the nationality of the competitors.
So clearly it is what you are offering and the ability to sustain and improve the quality of events that will lure businesses to commit to long-term partnerships because of the benefits they can derive from them.
Despite his best efforts in the past, some may have decided that Talma’s project didn’t meet their criteria this year.
• Andi Thornhill is an experienced, award-winning sports journalist. Email: andithornhill1@gmail.com
