In 2003, Peter O’Connor remembered knocking on the doors of corporate sponsors, cap in hand, and being turned away.
All sponsorships contracts for the T&T football team had ended after the team missed the World Cup of the previous year.
Local football sponsorship was just not lucrative enough, he was told.
He recalled holding meetings, lunches and “people hosted lunches for us to address firms” but there was no interest.
The team was not lighting up the world, he said.
“We tried the business sector through David O’Brien (former T&T Chamber president) who hosted a lunch through Sagicor. It was quite well attended in terms of power but that yielded nothing at the time,” he said.
Then began the long process of wooing sponsors.
“It was extremely difficult but in Jack Warner we had a benefactor who did say that we were not to beg and not sell the team for less than it was worth,” he said.
Continuing on the point, O’Connor said he was told by Warner that the World Cup effort “would do it our own, if it needed to,” but that the Federation should not “demean the product or our players by giving people the right for their product banner to be seen throughout the world and they don’t give us value.”
That was two years ago.
Today, O’Connor is in the enviable position of having sponsors seek him out.
One goal from the national football team in Bahrain last week Wednesday qualified the country for its first-ever World Cup final next year and made it the most highly sought after sponsorship team in T&T.
“Everybody is there for the celebration but nobody is there for the development. Now, we’re holding them off,” he laughed, in an interview with the Business Guardian, on Monday.
But it’ll be difficult to find O’Connor, the T&T’s Football Federation marketing manager and former president, bitter with corporate T&T.
Now, he’s busy trying to organise the US$15 million that the team needs between now and June next year to prepare for the World Cup.
“We have not paid our hotel bills as yet and this US$15 million covers all aspects of the training, the travel, the players’ travel, allowances, the coach, the hotel bills, the medical, security, the promotions and organising. It is big,” he remarked.
Since his return from Bahrain last Thursday, his days have been packed with meetings and his phone has been ringing off the hook.
It doesn’t help that the two last fingers in his right hand are sprained and he has to shake with his left hand when he greets someone.
But that’s minor.
The task ahead is more formidable and long hours will be stretched even longer.
“I went to Italy as TTFF president in 1990 and it felt like I was going to the wedding of my girlfriend who was marrying my best friend,” he laughed.
“For me, this is 32 years in the making.”
How does the smallest country to qualify for the World Cup on an even smaller budget of $5 million prepare for the World Cup?
Simple. Seek advice from the Americans and the Jamaicans on how they did it and the best way forward.
“Well, we want to do it and get it right the first time,” he explained.
He said the contracts with TSTT, its main sponsor, KFC, its first sponsor, Blue Waters and SM Jaleel’s Busta had ended after the qualification and they would have first rights to new sponsorship deals.
Last Friday, Carib joined the line-up when it presented the TTFF with a cheque for $10 million which will provide assistance to the team over the next four years as they seek to build on their current success.
“Carib will now have the right to be with us in Germany. We needed to have Carib, we couldn’t go there with something else,” he said.
“What people don’t understand is that there is a value attached to sport sponsorship. Sport partnership is a multibillion dollar business and it is not that big hard-nosed corporations want to give away money, it is because they recognise the value of having their products and services, their company, their corporate image being involved in motor car racing, with a horse, with a cricket team or with a superstar footballer. All of these things have a tremendous value,” he observed.
“It is good for the players, it is good for the sport and it is particularly good for the sponsor. We will be carrying that name to Germany, and throughout the world, on the backs of our football. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
He pointed out that the National Lotteries Control Board had also come on board, not as a direct sponsor, but its money is being channeled toward the future development of the sport locally.
“Our development programme has a different level of attraction than it had last year. The Under-13 training, the Under-16 tournament which will be held here in August soon after the World Cup is finished, which is a huge market for other types of products and services and so on.
“So there are sponsors being put in place for that. Everybody can’t simply sponsor the Soca Warriors. What this has done for us is begun to attract sponsorship on the other levels of what we need to do,” he explained.
He said the Government committed to doing something for the players and gave $6.1 million before the team went to Bahrain.
“They have pledged more and have also pledged to pay the salaries of the coach through the World Cup,” he said.
But is sponsorship merely a one-time deal?
O’Connor pointed out that Carib is looking at South Africa 2010.
“We have already established a committee to take our Under-20 team to be the core of the 2010 effort headed by Sedley Joseph. They are being trained now. Yorke and Latapy will not be going to South Africa but there will certainly be members of the Warriors there. Some of the Carib spillover will go toward that continuing drive. It is very important to keep a success level,” he said.
He recalled having to worry about how to get the stadium full and how to sell blocks of tickets to companies.
“We were pretty much on our own until we played Mexico in October and then there was a great demand for tickets,” he observed.
How do you plan to market the team now?
He laughed.
“Well, we tell people where the next game is being played and we give them the rules where to park and so on. Honestly, the marketing function has changed from one of finding a way to get the stadium full, to finding a way to tell 23,000 when they reach in the stadium, stop.”
More seriously now, he said, the marketing thrust would look at various promotions with the players’ images.
“We are really now fine tuning what we are going to do, to see when we get our ticket allotment, see how they are going to be distributed in the local market and the diaspora,” he said.
“I think we will make Trinidad proud. I still can’t believe it. I’ll believe it when I get there and I see the team walk out there,” he said.
New company started
The T&T Football Federation has formed a new company called T&T Germany 2006, changed from the Local Organising Committee (LOC) Germany 2006.
“We are no longer LOC Journey to Germany. We reach, the journey ended Wednesday night,” said marketing manager, Peter O’Connor.
“It’s not operational yet. It’s behind the scenes. Right now it’s seeking staff, setting its mandate, it’s doing work. I am working for it,” he said.
He said the company was formed to smooth the way forward for footballers and would seek to staff about 100 people.
“We need people to do all of this. We need legal people, secretarial people, marketing people and communications people. In the area I’ll be working we need the physical people who know about travel, travel agencies, tour operators. We need contacts in Germany, we need a cultural liason,” he listed.
He said he already spoke with promoters to get the ball rolling.
“Frankly if we wait on the Government we might be a bit late. They are willing but they move a bit slowly,” he said.
He explained that right now there were three systems in place being worked out—the coach, Leo Beenhakker had to organise his team, arrange friendlies and meetings because most of the players played aboard; there was a back-up system which included people who would organise accommodation and transport for the players and the promotions.
“We are talking to people, we are getting calls. People are saying—look this guy is advertising a tour should I buy a ticket? We are working on it, but not functioning under a full corporate structure. That will be operational by the end of this month and that will be when the Americans and the Jamaicans come in to really show us what their plans are.
“That’s the kind of advice we are looking for. We don’t pretend we know it all. The Jamaican and the American experience will come and help us in this respect,” he said.
The Govt’s role
Local companies spend millions on sport sponsorship, but to induce investment in sport the Government has offered tax breaks to corporate T&T.
Among the top sponsors are Carib which promotes the Great Race, cricket, football and horse racing; RBTT which sponsors the Intercol championships, Republic Bank which backs youth football and netball and Angostura which puts its money into horse racing and sailing among others.
In May, Minister of Sport Roger Boynes said corporations will now benefit from tax breaks if they spend up to $1 million in promotion and sponsorship under the Corporations Tax Act Chapter 75 Section 2.
This applies to 54 sports.
At the time Boynes was quoted as saying that the development of sport must be a shared experience between the stable national sporting organisations and corporate T&T.
The act was first amended by the Finance Act No 2, 2002 to allow companies to qualify for a tax deduction of 150 per cent of their actual expenditure incurred for the promotion and sponsorship of sporting activities up to a maximum of $450,000.
The figure was increased to $1 million in May under the Financial Miscellaneous Provisions Act.
However, in his 2006 Budget presentation Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the Government planned to remove the 50 per cent uplift for other expenditures including sponsorship of the arts, sports and culture (up to a maximum of $1 million).
The Finance Act has not been not passed so this has not become law yet.