ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada, CMC:
GRENADA'S PRIME Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell late on Tuesday announced that CARICOM leaders had agreed on a new formula to share the profits of Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007.
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) had originally proposed that there should bean 80/20 split between the West Indies Cricket Board and the local cricket associations.
Dr. Mitchell, who also chairs the Prime Ministerial Committee on cricket, disclosed that the new profit sharing agreement would increase the share to the four Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) nations chosen as host venues.
"We made the point that we are all spending similar sums of money to build stadia around the islands, it would be difficult to see one share going to the Windward Islands and having to divide it among so many islands," he said.
Regional leaders also agreed that all proceeds from gate receipts would go towards the local organising committees minus the US$4 million dollars which is expected to be the cost of the production of tickets for all games.
COST SHARING
The WICB will share half of the cost of the production of tickets.
"The local organising committees will get all the gate receipts for the games hosted in their jurisdictions minus the proportion of the cost of two million dollars that they will be bearing for the production of the tickets," Dr. Mitchell said.
"That can yield in our opinion, quite a more substantial sum of money than the amount that you expect to get from the television rights because until all expenses have been settled by the WICB, including the possibility of any lawsuit which might come based on any activity during the World Cup, they will not be able to get one cent from the television rights, but the gate receipts are in our control."
Dr. Mitchell congratulated the eight countries selected as venues to host CWC 2007 matches and stressed that all countries can share in the benefits of the events.
"Whether or not a country is chosen, the entire region will benefit tremendously from a successfully implemented World Cup so even countries that have not received official games may have warm up games and practice matches and also can benefit from the success of the tourism product in the region on a whole," he noted.
