MIKE FENNELL and his Independence Park Limited (IPL) cohorts chose well when they picked Michael Hall to run the Kingston sport facility.
Hall knows sport - and sport business - inside out. He was general manager of the Sport Development Foundation (SDF) and most recently served as chief operations officer of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). Both of those roles should steel him for the tricky role ahead as general manager of the IPL.
Hall, 42, told The Gleaner on Monday that he believes "if properly run and managed it (Independence Park) can be a very profitable venue".
HARDLY A CASH COW
Hopefully, when Hall applied for the post, juggling was on his resume because the complex which includes the National Stadium, National Arena, the new National Indoor Sports Centre, outdoor netball and basketball courts and swimming pool has hardly been a cash cow and looks more like a white elephant.
From a sport perspective, the cost to hire most of those facilities for even a day are way beyond the means of most sport associations in the island without extreme discounts or benign government assistance.
The National Stadium fee is $750,000 per day plus $12,000 per hour when the lights are switched on. The Jamaica Football Federation can come up with this as can the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) twice or thrice a year but who else? The rest of the time, it's dormant.
DAILY FEE
The Arena is a neat $300,000 per day plus $13,000 an hour for air conditioning and lighting. The National Indoor Sports Centre, created for the World Netball Championships (WNC) and the possible jewell in the complex's crown, is yet to have a daily fee set.
The rate during the WNC was a bargain-basement $216,000 per day plus $13,000 per hour for air-con and lights. That fee is bound to jump substantially when a price is set at an IPL meeting later this month.
No doubt, some entertainers and political parties will be able to cover the spread, but this is supposed to be, by and large, Jamaica's premier sport facility.
The Arena and Indoor Centre are ideal venues to showcase sports such as netball, basketball, table tennis and badminton but there's no way in the world those cash-strapped organisations can possibly afford to host events there without substantial outside help.
The Jamaican public deserves to be exposed to such sports - and others - in the best facilities available. That must be Hall's primary task when he takes up his new post on Monday.
While overheads obviously must be covered, the rental fees have to be fair and realistic to make the venue available to local sport associations which, in turn, would open up those events to the wider public.
Otherwise, Hall will just be riding a dusty white elephant.
- Tym Glaser
