Cameron hails CPL's impact

Cricket West Indies President Dave Cameron has hailed the social and economic impact of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) across the Caribbean, pointing to a study carried out by sports research company SMG Insight in 2017.

The data, Cameron outlined, indicates that the tournament has injected about US$95 million (J$12 billion) in the regional economy.

According to Cameron, the CPL, which has grown to become one of the world's leading T20 competitions, has created numerous opportunities for stakeholders across the Caribbean in various sectors.

"Over 35,000 room nights, 2,700 persons employed across the venues and players' salaries plus the taxi service," Cameron explained.

"There is some euphoria when CPL is in town. We are now appealing to the youngest and the oldest coming out to watch and that to me has been the biggest impact social-wise. Everybody is looking forward to CPL. People are calling you for tickets. The economic impact has been massive."

CPL was formed in 2013 and replaced the Caribbean Twenty20 as the region's premier T20 competition.

Injection of impetus

Cameron believes that it has injected the impetus cricket in the region needed as the 'Gentleman's Game' struggled for relevance in the Caribbean and he hopes it will cause the best athletes in the region to want to play the sport again.

"I see more kids excited to go to Sabina Park and wanting to play cricket. They are asking for bats and balls and that wasn't there before the CPL, so it tells me that they are excited, and it is the new generation that we need to capture," Cameron said.

"One needs to understand that West Indies cricket is a funnel, so at the base we want to have a lot of people playing. We want to have them in every school, in every college, but at the end of the day, it is a funnel and the 92 years that we have been playing cricket in the region, we've only had 316 Test players. We are not going to grow that exponentially because it just doesn't happen. So what we want to have is maximum players with opportunities and more guys fighting for spots."

Over 140 million television viewers from across the world tune in to the CPL every year.