Sports – Page 5 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Tag: Sports

Sports Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network

Posted on August 24, 2014 in Economics, Government, Social

Go Lean Commentary

There is a new religion in the South (United States). It is SEC football. For many in the South, football is life, “everything else is details”. Now, (starting August 28) the SEC adherents can worship 7-24-365 on the SEC Network cable channel. This is a melding of sports, television, southern culture and economics – this is big business – and a religious-like devotion.

The SEC (South East Conference) is the Number 1 (American) football conference in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Their revenues, attendance, championships, NFL draft picks and TV ratings are the best-of-the-best of all other conferences. This last subject is the focus of this commentary: TV ratings and broadcast rights.

Title: Turn On the SEC
By: Jon Saraceno

In a melding of two powerful sports brands, cable-television behemoth ESPN and the football-crazed Southeastern Conference have joined forces to form the SEC Network, debuting August 14. ESPN Radio host Paul Finebaum, a veteran observer of all things SEC, believes audience response will be rabid. That view seems particularly valid given that college football is the unquestioned autumnal king of the South.

“SEC fans are an interesting bunch,” Finebaum observes. “They don’t like being subjected to other leagues [that have TV networks], like the Big Ten or the Pac-12. Now they can say, ‘Nothing else exists but us — the rest of the world can vaporize, for all we care.’ It is as irritating to non-SEC fans as it is pleasing to a son of the South.”

Finebaum understands the parochialism. The Memphis, Tenn., native worked for three decades in Birmingham, Ala., before relocating to Charlotte, N.C., as the SEC Network’s first on-air hire when ESPN announced the formation of the network last year. The network launches with a well-timed countdown to the start of the 2014 football season. Blastoff is Aug. 28, when Texas A&M travels to South Carolina. Brent Musburger, one of several marquee on-air hires, will call the game. But the SEC Network’s most popular personality might be former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow.

Programming for the 24/7 multiplatform channel will be highlighted by 45 SEC football games. The network also will showcase men’s basketball (an estimated 100 games), women’s basketball (60 games) and baseball (75 games), along with select coverage from the league’s 21 sports. In all, more than 1,000 events will be aired across the network’s digital platform.

Following ESPN’s time-tested formula of bracketing programming and analysis around live events, the SEC Network will televise studio shows and live-event days such as spring football games and national signing day for college-football recruits.

Beyond content, the marriage between ESPN and the conference should be a match made in financial heaven. Disney-owned ESPN expects to reap untold hundreds of millions in advertising revenue during the 20-year deal. Increased exposure and lucrative media rights bode well for all 14 SEC schools.
American Way August 2014 – American Airlines Inflight Magazine –
http://hub.aa.com/en/aw/turn-on-the-sec

The Caribbean does not currently have an eco-system for intercollegiate athletics. The book Go Lean…Caribbean, and aligning blog commentaries, asserts that the region can be a better place to live, work and play; that the economy can be grown methodically by embracing progressive strategies in sports at all levels: professional, amateur and intercollegiate.

While the Caribbean may not have the sports business eco-system, we do have the underlying assets: the athletes. The Caribbean supply the world, including the NCAA, with the best-of-the-best in the sports genres of basketball, track-and-field, soccer-FIFA-football and other endeavors. The Go Lean book recognizes and fosters the genius qualifiers of many Caribbean athletes.

The goal now is foster the local eco-system in the homeland so that those with talent would not have to flee the region to garner the business returns on their athletic investments.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the value of sports in the roadmap with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

xxvi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations to better garner the economic benefits of sports. One of the biggest contribution the CU will make is the facilitation of sports venues: arenas and stadia. Sports can be big business! But even when money is not involved, other benefits abound: educational scholarships, image, national pride, and something more, something non-tangible yet of utmost importance for the Go Lean roadmap: less societal abandonment. A mission of the CU is to reduce the brain drain and incentivize repatriation of the Diaspora.

Another area of the Go Lean economic empowerment roadmap that relates to the foregoing article is the strategy is to create a Single (Media) Market to leverage the value of broadcast rights for the region, the resultant consolidated market would cover 30 member-states, 4 languages and 42 million people. The successful execution of this strategy will elevate the art, science and genius of sport enterprises in the region. Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean to re-boot the delivery of the regional solutions to elevate the Caribbean region through sports:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Strategic – Vision – Consolidating the Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (Fairgrounds)	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education – Reduce Brain Drain	Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Expositions	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

The Caribbean is the best-of-the-best address on the planet, but there are certain missing features, such as intercollegiate athletics… and jobs. The foregoing article aligns with this Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap to fill these voids. This effort is bigger than sports; this is about Caribbean life; we must elevate our own society. The CU is the vehicle for this goal, this is detailed by the following 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap anticipates 21,000 direct jobs at fairgrounds and sport venues throughout the region; plus 40,000 new jobs by re-optimizing the region’s educational engines, including colleges & universities.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. Now is the time to make this region a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

APPENDIX – SEC Conference Schools/Teams

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Sports Role Model – US versus the World

Posted on August 23, 2014 in Ethos, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

This is a big weekend in the world of sports, its the US versus the World … again. This time, its the Little League World Series, the baseball tournament in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Even though baseball is played in many countries around the world, the expectation is that it takes an All-Star team from the rest of the world to compete against one American team.

This is the tournament’s Final Four teams, (see Appendix-Bracket below):

US: Chicago* -vs- Las Vegas
World: South Korea* -vs- Japan
* = Winner

The attitude of the US versus the World is the attitude in many other sports endeavors as well; sampled as follows:

The NCAA College Baseball Championship Tournament is called the College World Series.
The NBA Playoff Champion is referred to as World Champions.
Major League Baseball Championship Best-of-Seven Match-up is branded the World Series.
National Hockey League All-Star Game is a Match-up of North America (US and Canada) versus the World.

It is evident that the sports eco-system is bigger in the US, than anywhere else in the world. Needless to say, the Caribbean region pales in comparison in accentuating the business of sports. Deficient would not even be a fitting adjective, as there is NO arrangement for intercollegiate sports in the region, despite having 42 million people in 30 different countries. The Caribbean misses out on many opportunities associated with the games people play – especially economic ones: jobs, event bookings, media coverage.

This is the assertion of the book Go Lean…Caribbean, that the Caribbean can be a better place to live, work and play; that the economy can be grown methodically by embracing progressive strategies in recognizing and fostering the genius qualifiers of many Caribbean athletes. So many times, those with talent have had to flee the region to garner the business returns on their athletic investments.

It does not have to be.

The following news article indicates that even amateur Little League baseball is big business:

Title: Little League means big business as revenues soar
By: Josh Peter, USA Today

The images remain quaint — kids sprinting around the base-paths, fans watching from grass hills, Norman Rockwell-like scenes abound at the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., which culminates Sunday with the championship game. But make no mistake, Little League is big business.

Little League Inc. reported revenue of almost $25 million and assets of more than $85 million in 2012, according to the most recent publicly available tax return it must file to maintain tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Over a five-year period, compensation for Little League Inc.’s CEO, Steve Keener, nearly doubled to $430,000 a year. And in 2012, the 100-person full-time staff made almost $7.5 million in salaries — a year before ESPN agreed to more than double broadcast fees as part of an eight-year, $76 million contract to televise the games during the two-week tournament.

“That’s a lot of money when all the grunt work is volunteer,” said Randy Stevens, president of the Little League in Nashville, Tenn., whose all-star team qualified for the World Series each of the past two years. “Now I’m wondering where it’s all going.”

Keener, elected as CEO in 1996, said revenue has grown at a steady pace and said new money is going back into the program.

“I’m not going to apologize for generating revenue to support the programming issues of this organization,” he told USA TODAY Sports. “But I would apologize if I felt we were not using it to the best of our ability in a prudent manner and getting the most out of the money to benefit this program.”

Keener said the majority of the organization’s costs stem from maintaining the national headquarters in Williamsport, five regional centers — in Connectcut, Georgia, Texas, California, Indiana — a full-time facility in Poland and offices in Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and Canada.

When Little League signed its contract with ESPN in 2007, Keener said, it lowered affiliation fees for the local leagues. He also said Little League pays for 125 criminal background checks for each local league and provides training program for coaches.

“Those are ways we try direct the funds right back to the local programs,” he said.

Little League also pays for travel, lodging and food costs for 16 teams, each of which include 13 players and three coaches. But Stevens, affiliated with the Nashville-based league, said families of the players should receive financial help for travel costs.

He estimated the parents of his players needed up to $35,000 to cover those expenses. A father with the team from Chicago said parents were unsure how they would pay for the trip until five Major League Baseball players offered to cover all travel expenses for the parents.

Keener said the idea of travel assistance is not under consideration.

“I’ve learned never to say never, but it’s unlikely at this point,” he said. “Our responsibility is to provide the travel, the accommodations and all the expenses related to participating in the World Series for the players and the coaches and the umpires who are here working the World Series.”

Keener said giving the players money that could be used for scholarships is not under consideration.

“Anything we would do for one group of kids, we would do for all of the kids. And it’s just not feasible to think that they’re all going to head off to college when they’re getting out of high school, particularly with the kids from the international region,” he said. “It’s just not something we feel is necessary for us to be thinking about when they’re 12 or 13 years old.”

Little League does not charge admission for games at the World Series, but officials do solicit donations while passing around cans during games.

“Whatever money they’re getting, they’re looking for more,” said Ellen Siegel, affiliated with the team from Philadelphia.

But Keener said the $25 million a year pales in comparison to organizations such as the Boys Scouts of America, which reported revenue of $240 million in 2012. He said Little League could not operate without the support of about 1,250,000 volunteers in 7,500 communities.

As far as his salary is concerned, he declined to comment other than to say his compensation is set by a committee of Little League Inc. board members.

Davie Jane Gilmour, Little League International Board of Directors Chairman, said Keener’s salary — and that of the other senior staff members, who in 2012 earned between $100,000 and $250,000 apiece — are in line with salaries at comparable non-profits.

“To be perfectly honest with you, there are many board members on that (compensation) committee who think that our senior staff, and in particular Steve, are underpaid at this point in time,” Gilmour said. “There’s a a pretty strong feeling on the compensation committee that they are highly marketable based on their success here in their work here at Little League.”

The claim of the book Go Lean … Caribbean is that excellence in sports requires a genius qualifier and that genius ability can be found in abundance in the Caribbean. Further that there is something bigger than sports alone at play here, that this is the full effect of globalization in which the Caribbean can export products and services to benefit the homeland.

This commentary has previously promoted the monetary benefits of the sports eco-systems and how Caribbean progeny participate on the world stage:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1508	St Croix’s Tim Duncan to Return to Spurs For Another Season
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446	Caribbean Players in the 2014 World Cup
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341	Sports Landlord Model of the College World Series Time
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Sports Landlord Model – The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Caribbean Sports Revolutionary & Advocate: FIFA’s Jeffrey Webb
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Sports Nature -vs- Nurture: Book Review of ‘The Sports Gene’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=334	Bahamians Basketballers Make Presence Felt In Libyan League
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	The Need for Collegiate Sports Eco-System in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

xxvi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the market organizations to better explore the economic opportunities for sports. Sports can be big business! But even when money is not involved, other benefits abound. As such the CU will enhance the engines to elevate sports at all levels: amateur, intercollegiate and professional.

The Go Lean book’s economic empowerment roadmap features huge benefits for the region related to sports. The strategy is create leverage for a viable sports landscape by consolidate the region’s 30 member-states / 4 languages into a Single Market of 42 million people. The CU facilitation of applicable venues (stadia, arenas, fields, temporary structures) on CU-owned fairgrounds plus the negotiations for broadcast/streaming rights/licenses will elevate the art, science and genius of sports as an enterprise in the region. As depicted in the foregoing article/VIDEO, even young children, Little League, will participate/benefit in the sports eco-system.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean to re-boot the delivery of the regional solutions to elevate the Caribbean region through sports:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (Fairgrounds)	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Expositions	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

The foregoing VIDEO features many sub-stories associated with this year’s Little League World Series (LLWS) tournament, the compelling stories of the rise from the despair of the Chicago inner-city, and Philadelphia’s Mo’ne Davis, the only girl in the tournament. The drama of sports is a microcosm for the drama in life.

Despite the presence of a Caribbean team in this LLWS tournament, no compelling Caribbean stories have emerged. This is an American drama: the United States versus the World. This is not just an attitude in sports, but in many other endeavors as well. The drama and challenges in the Caribbean are of no consequence in the US, we are just a playground for their world.

We need our own tournament to foster Caribbean sports drama and economic benefits.

We need to lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap to build the sports eco-systems to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. We must elevate our own society.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

———–

APPENDIX – LLWS BRACKETS (Double-Click for a legible Viewer)

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The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism

Posted on August 12, 2014 in Ethos, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The book Go Lean…Caribbean calls for the elevation of Caribbean society, to re-focus, re-boot, and optimize all the engines of commerce so as to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. “The games people play” therefore have relevance for our consideration. Golf is one of those games. But golf is more than just a game, it is an eco-system; but this eco-system is in peril.

“The financial bubble burst and the Tiger bubble burst as well”.
“Even as the economy recovered, golf is still in a nose dive”.
“Your house is on fire”.

These (above) are among the key phrases from the narration of the following HBO Real Sports documentary story:

Host Bryant Gumbel speaks with industry leaders, including Jack Nicklaus, the most accomplished golfer of all time, and executive Mark King about the state of the sport and what innovations should be embraced.

Full Length VIDEO:

YouTube Online Video Site (Published July 23, 2014; Retrieved August 9, 2014) –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFEYC4Z44v0

This subject is pivotal in the roadmap for elevation of the Caribbean economy, which maintains that tourism will continue to be the primary economic driver in the region for the foreseeable future. The game of “golf” plays a significant role in the business model of tourist resorts. The publisher of the book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that understanding the macro-economic patterns of the game/sport of golf is critical in the roadmap to grow the region’s GDP and creating jobs (2.2 million new jobs projected).

Also important in this discussion is the functionality of economic planning.

According to the foregoing VIDEO, there are major issues in the eco-system of golf. There are 4 major events during the year: The Masters, US Open, British Open and the PGA Championship. The viewership numbers for all 4 events have been declining in the last 7 years, since 2007, the eve of the Great Recession. Stakeholders in this industry cannot ignore this downward trend. For many, this discussion is not just about their past-time, but rather their livelihoods.

For the Caribbean perspective, the subject of golf encapsulates the activities of live, work and play. (Some of the most prime residential properties are on or overlooking golf courses).

Change is constant. Change can be lateral, forward and backwards too. Empires rise and fall, past-time activities change; new sports come into fashion, while others fade into obsolescence. (In the US, boxing is on the decline while Mixed Martial Arts are on the rise).

This book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU/Go Lean roadmap has 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines and marshal against economic crimes.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

Early in the book, the benefit of the “business of sports for community empowerment” is pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 13 & 14), with these opening statements:

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries… In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries like tourism… – impacting the region with more jobs.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Caribbean tourism resort properties depend on golf amenities. Many times too, golf courses are built as municipal establishments, so as to benefit citizens through the Parks & Recreation infrastructure. The issues of sufficient returns on the public investments in golf is an important discussion in the execution of this roadmap.

This commentary previously related details of the changing macro-economic factors (like demographics) that affect the region’s economic engines. The following are samples of earlier Go Lean blogs:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1715	Lebronomy – Economic Impact of One Superstar on a Sport/Team’s Viability
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Business and Sports Bubbles – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=841	Declining Economic Trends – Having Less Babies is Bad for the Economy
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=782	Open/Review the Time Capsule: The Great Recession of 2008
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709	Econometric Analysis – Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’ – Identifying and Fostering Sports Genius Abilities
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=356	Book Review: ‘How Numbers Rule the World’ – How Demographic Studies Dictate Policies
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Empowering Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	10 Things We Want from the US and 10 Things We Don’t Want from the US – # 2: Tourists
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=254	Air Transport Industry Changes – Air Antilles Launches St. Maarten Service
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=242	The Erosion of the Middle Class
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=235	Tourism’s changing profile

According to the foregoing VIDEO, the opulence of golf has not fared well in today’s real economy. The game costs too much, and takes too much time. There is a real chance that this sport will die off with older generations, unless reform can be incorporated to attract and retain younger generations to the sport. Many revisions have been tried – as depicted in the video – there is no tolerating the status quo.

The Caribbean must do the same. Our societies are also in need of reform/reboot to attract and retain the youth to consider their future in their Caribbean homelands. The homelands have been losing at this … badly. There are validated reports of over 70% of the college educated population fleeing the region (https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433); this constitutes an undeniable brain drain. The Go Lean… Caribbean book details the community ethos to adopt to proactively mitigate the dire effects of the changed landscape, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier	Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations	Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI)	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Integrate Region in a Single Market	Page 45
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Trade and Globalization	Page 70
Separation of Powers – Sports and Culture Administration	Page 81
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Planning – Lessons Learned from 2008	Page 136
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism	Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Preserve Caribbean Heritage	Page 218
Advocacy – Ways to Impact the One Percent	Page 224
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Youth	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229

The CU will foster industrial developments to aid and abet tourism. This is not planning for 1995, but rather 2015. The assumptions of the past, simply no longer apply today. It is what it is!

“Earlier this year, at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Mark King, the CEO of the company TaylorMade Golf announced the launch of Hack Golf, a TaylorMade-sponsored initiative that is, at heart, a worldwide call for fresh ideas. Over the next five years, operating in alliance with the Professional Golf Association (PGA) of America, King plans to pump $5 million of his company’s money into what amounts to a global brainstorm session. This constitutes a concerted effort to seek solutions to a demographic problem.” – (http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/hack-golf-aims-grow-game-taylormade-sponsored-brainstorm-session)

Golf may have a future.

The 2014 PGA Championship was won by Rory McIlroy, a 25 year old golf “phenom”. After Tiger Woods, this sports needs all the young stars they can get a hold off. If only they can attract young viewers.

For the Caribbean, this issue is bigger than just the game of golf; this is life – Caribbean life. We must have a better future, inclusive of all of our young people. How? With the concerted effort as detailed in the 5 year Go Lean roadmap, this region can and will be a better place to live, work and play.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Lebronomy – Economic Impact of the Return of the NBA Great

Posted on July 15, 2014 in Economics, Industries, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The commentaries of the Go Lean…Caribbean blogs have often addressed sports issues. But mostly from the point-of-view as the business of sports, and its impact on the communities’ economic engines.

This commentary continues that pattern, plus it couples one more assignment: Mea Culpa.

We were wrong! The publishers of the Go Lean book (dated November 2013) included an anecdote on the Miami Heat (Page 42), stressing the “Not one, not two, not three, not four…” quotation from superstar free agent LeBron James when he joined the team in 2010. The Mea Culpa, (Latin verbiage for “My Bad”), obviously applies in that, there would only be 2 championships. Everything else of that anecdote applies, but a technocratic approach, different than previous Caribbean administrations, requires that we learn lessons from successes and failures. Already this commentary has congratulated the 2014 winner of the NBA Finals, San Antonio Spurs, who went on to beat the Miami Heat; as follows:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1508

St Croix’s Tim Duncan to Return to Spurs For Another Season

What are the lessons that we learn from our failure to prognosticate the winning basketball team? Number one: Don’t bet!

The Bible words are correct: “Time and unforeseen occurrences befall us all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). That’s what we got wrong, but what we got right is so much more impactful, the economic impact of sports on the local community:

By: ABC News

Title: Lebronomy: Economic Impact of the Return of NBA Great LeBron James

A ticket to the Cleveland Cavalier’s season opener used to go for $40, now goes for as much as $600.

Yahoo Video Sharing Site (Retrieved 07/14/2014) –
http://news.yahoo.com/video/lebronomy-economic-impact-return-nba-030818278.html

This discussion of sports and the basketball team in Cleveland is not just academic. Community pride, jobs, and the growth of the regional economy is involved; the foregoing VIDEO summarized that LeBron James’ absence was worth $50 million a season for this metropolitan area. This point aligns with the objections of the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This effort harnessed the individual abilities so as to elevate the athletes (micro) and also economic impact for their related communities (macros). Modern sports cannot be analyzed without considering the impact on “dollars and cents” for the community. In his essay to the people of Cleveland, announcing his return, after taking his talents to South Beach, this was the exact point LeBron James made:

“My relationship with Northeast Ohio is bigger than basketball. I didn’t realize that four years ago. I do now.”

“Before anyone ever cared where I would play basketball, I was a kid from Northeast Ohio. It’s where I walked,” James told SI (Sports Illustrated). “It’s where I ran. It’s where I cried. It’s where I bled. It holds a special place in my heart. People there have seen me grow up. I sometimes feel like I’m their son. Their passion can be overwhelming. But it drives me.

“I want to give them hope when I can. I want to inspire them when I can.”
(http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20140711/SPORTS20/140719891/-1/sports12)

These words in this eloquently written essay could have been concurred by so many of the Caribbean Diaspora that had taken their talents to “South Beach, South Toronto or South London”. The economic impact of their absence has been duly noted in research and analysis and the conclusion is bad:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433

Caribbean loses over 70% of tertiary educated citizens to the brain drain

The Go Lean roadmap attempts to impact change in the region, by elevating Caribbean society. The CU, using all the economic benefit that can be derived from sports in the region, will pursue a charter that is bigger than basketball, football, baseball or any other sport. Rather the CU will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book identified this vision early in the book (Page 13 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

xix.   Whereas our legacy in recent times is one of societal abandonment, it is imperative that incentives and encouragement be put in place to first dissuade the human flight, and then entice and welcome the return of our Diaspora back to our shores…

xxi.   Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxi.   Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to lean-in to the following community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies detailed in the book Go Lean … Caribbean to foster the elevation and industrialization of sports in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (Fairgrounds)	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region	Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Expositions	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This is a big deal for regional sports. This book provides the turn-by-turn directions for how to get from Point A, where we can only hope and dream about foreign sports stars, to Point B, where we can finally celebrate our own sports stars.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Bad Tweet: Dutch airline angers Mexico soccer fans

Posted on July 1, 2014 in Implementation, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

“In 2 minutes a computer can make as many mistakes as 20 men in 20 years” – Murphy’s Law on Technology.

“Once posted, you can’t take it back” – Social Media Harsh Reality.

These two expressions are the new normal. Social media can be an effective communication tool to reach the general public and/or a dedicated controlled group. This can be a blessing and a curse. This fact was demonstrated after the recent World Cup Elimination Game between Mexico and The Netherlands. Mexico lost! In its haste to capitalize on all the fanfare, representatives at Dutch airline KLM committed this PR blunder of denigrating Mexican fans:

By: AP Writer Alan Clendenning
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — What was meant to be a joke has turned into a PR blunder for Dutch airline KLM after it angered Mexican soccer fans by taking to Twitter to celebrate the Netherlands’ dramatic comeback victory in the World Cup.

Within minutes of the Netherlands’ 2-1 victory over the Tri, KLM let loose on its Twitter feed a picture of an airport departures sign under the heading “Adios Amigos!” Next to the word “Departures” is the image of a man with a mustache wearing a sombrero.

The post immediately went viral, with A-list Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal using not one but two expletives in a 140-character Tweet to tell his 2 million-plus followers that he’ll never fly the carrier again. Amid the widespread protest online, the post was pulled a half-hour later without an explanation.

“It was meant to be a joke,” KLM spokeswoman Lisette Ebeling Koning told The Associated Press, adding that the airline never intended to offend Mexicans, which it serves via a daily direct flight between Mexico City and Amsterdam. “But there was too much negative reaction.”

KLM issued a formal apology late Sunday.

“In the best of sportsmanship, we offer our heartfelt apologies to those who have been offended by the comment,” said Marnix Fruitema, director general of KLM in North America.

For its part, Mexican national carrier AeroMexico is also getting in on the fun, broadcasting on Twitter its support for the country’s soccer team under an arrivals sign.

“Thank you for this great championship,” AeroMexico said. “You’ve made us proud and we’re waiting for you at home.”
Associated Press (AP) News Wire Service (Retrieved 06/30/2014) –
http://news.yahoo.com/bad-tweet-dutch-airline-angers-mexico-soccer-fans-205929269.html

The expression “the post immediately went viral” could be a good thing or a bad thing. The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that the power of social media must be harnessed strategically and tactically in order to explore all the benefits of Internet Communications Technologies. The book further asserts that the internet can be a great equalizer between large and small economy states, that talent and value can readily be searched and discovered.

The foregoing article depicts a Bad Tweet; then proceeds to describe how impactful response tweets can be, especially when wielded by an “Influencer” – a person with at least 100,000 followers – such as A-list Mexican celebrity Gael Garcia Bernal.

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This effort will launch the Caribbean Postal Union to facilitate the region’s “mail” functionality. In 2014, the mail delivery cannot be seriously mentioned without considering electronic messaging options. Social media is an electronic messaging scheme. The CPU will administer the domain for www.myCaribbean.gov. The universe for this domain is scoped at 130 million unique users.

This strategy will elevate Caribbean society, and image. There is the need for a sentinel role for Caribbean image, as there are a lot of times that Caribbean life and people are denigrated in works of media arts: film, TV, books, magazines. Consider the example of Jamaican “Yardies”, or Dominican Cartels. The Go Lean roadmap calls for the CU to assume that role.

The CU, using cutting edge delivery of best practices, will employ strategies, tactics and implementations to impact its prime directives; identified with the following 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book speaks of a Caribbean crisis and posits that this crisis can be averted, the same way the non-malevolent jest on social media by KLM was quickly averted using stronger social media tactics. Considering the events in the foregoing article, an undeniable credo is reiterated that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. The Go Lean roadmap seeks to optimize the entire Caribbean economic/security/governance eco-system. This vision is defined early in the book (Page 12 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence:

xv. Whereas the business of the Federation and the commercial interest in the region cannot prosper without an efficient facilitation of postal services, the Caribbean Union must allow for the integration of the existing mail operations of the governments of the member-states into a consolidated Caribbean Postal Union, allowing for the adoption of best practices and technical advances to deliver foreign/domestic mail in the region.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

xxx. Whereas the effects of globalization can be felt in every aspect of Caribbean life, from the acquisition of food and clothing, to the ubiquity of ICT, the region cannot only consume, it is imperative that our lands also produce and add to the international community, even if doing so requires some sacrifice and subsidy.

The Go Lean book details a lot more, a series of assessments, community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to garner the benefits of ICT in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future	Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development	Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide	Page 31
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating a Non-Sovereign Union	Page 45
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Caribbean Postal Union	Page 78
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change	Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Improve Mail Services	Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media	Page 111
Planning – Ways to Improve Image	Page 133
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs	Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce	Page 198
Appendix – Measuring Media Consumption	Page 265

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. There is reason to believe that these empowerment efforts can be successful. The Go Lean roadmap conveys how single causes/advocacies have successfully been forged throughout the world (Page 122 – Anatomy of Advocacies). With social media deployments, millions of people can be advocates. No defamation of Caribbean image will go unchallenged. We, in the Caribbean, can do the same as the Mexican power brokers when bad sportsmanship was displayed by the KLM airline.

The Caribbean can succeed in the advocacy to improve the Caribbean image and deployments of social media in the region. There are previous blog commentaries that delve into aspects of these same issues:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1416	Amazon’s new FIRE Smartphone
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1404	Facebook goes down across multiple countries
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=857	Caribbean Image: Dreadlocks

Congratulation to the Netherlands football/soccer national team in their pursuits of the FIFA World Cup. There is room for good sportsmanship for all.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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St Croix’s Tim Duncan to Return to Spurs For Another Season

Posted on June 26, 2014 in Ethos, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Congratulations Tim Duncan. You deserve your champion’s accolades.

This commentary has previously sided with Mr. Duncan’s opponent in the recent NBA Finals. Here below are the previous blogs citing a hope for the Miami Heat’s dominance in the NBA Playoff tournament.

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=689	eMerge conference aims to jump-start Miami tech hub

But talent recognizes talent!

It is also good news, according to this foregoing news article, that Mr. Duncan will be returning for at least one more season.

By: The Caribbean Journal Staff

Tim Duncan isn’t going anywhere.

The St Croix native, who recently won his fifth NBA championship, will be returning to the San Antonio Spurs for his 18th NBA season.

The team announced Monday that the 38-year-old Duncan had exercised his player option for the 2014-2015 season, putting to rest any notion that he would be retiring.

Duncan helped the Spurs to a dominant 4-1 series win over the Miami Heat in this month’s NBA Finals.

The Christiansted native is one of five players in the history of the NBA to win five championships and five MVPs (either NBA Finals or regular season), along with Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Duncan leads all active players in career wins, with 898.
Caribbean Journal Online News Source (Posted 06-23-2014; retrieved 06-26-2014) –
http://www.caribjournal.com/2014/06/23/st-croixs-tim-duncan-to-return-to-spurs-for-another-season/

There is something bigger than sports alone at play here. As the foregoing news article depicts, Mr. Duncan is a member of the Caribbean Diaspora. He is recognized as one of the best in his field of endeavor; perhaps one of the best of all time. This is a claim of the book Go Lean … Caribbean, that sports require a genius qualifier and that genius ability can be found in abundance in the Caribbean. Mr. Duncan makes us all proud: Christiansted, St. Croix, the US Virgin Islands and all of the Caribbean.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the value of sports with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

xxvi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The other issue related to Tim Duncan is that of “image”. Mr. Duncan could be a proud ambassador of Caribbean character. Personally, he does not advocate any political or economic agenda, so others must do that for him. As a public figure, his story is free to relate to the listening world of how impactful a Caribbean heritage can be.

The subjects of sports and Caribbean image have been related in many previous Go Lean blogs; highlighted here in the following samples:

a.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446	Caribbean Players in the 2014 World Cup
b.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341	College World Series Time
c.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums – No White Elephants
d.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
e.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
f.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=857	Caribbean Image: Dreadlocks
g.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’
h.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=334	Bahamians Make Presence Felt In Libyan League
i.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
j.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

The book Go Lean…Caribbean has an economic empowerment agenda, but there are still huge benefits for the region related to sports. The strategy is to consolidate the region’s 30 member-states / 4 languages into a Single Market of 42 million people – leverage for a viable sports landscape. The CU facilitation of applicable venues (stadia, arenas, fields, temporary structures) on CU-owned fairgrounds plus the negotiations for broadcast/streaming rights/licenses will elevate the art, science and genius of sports as an enterprise in the region.

Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways	Page 21
Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Negotiations	Page 32
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Strategic – Vision – Integrating Region in to a Single Market	Page 45
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities (Fairgrounds)	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Expositions	Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

The foregoing article celebrates a Caribbean Champion. But there is more to celebrate with Caribbean life, culture and the homeland. With the Go Lean executions, we can all be champions, by making the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

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Caribbean Players in the 2014 World Cup

Posted on June 23, 2014 in Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Soccer (Association Football) is the world’s most popular game. The book Go Lean … Caribbean contemplates greater exploration of the economic opportunities associated with the business of sports – the Caribbean has a failing record in this important area. This quest must therefore give consideration to the eco-system of the World Cup. As such, the news story in the foregoing article synchronizes with the Go Lean book in that it depicts the societal abandonment by so many Caribbean athletes and the lack of professional opportunities in the Caribbean homeland. The two issues: lack of opportunities and society abandonment is a cause-and-effect conundrum. See article here:

Caribbean Journal – Caribbean e-Zine Online Site (Posted 06/14/2014; retrieved 06/21/2014) –
http://www.caribjournal.com/2014/06/16/caribbean-players-in-the-2014-world-cup/
There aren’t any teams from the traditional Caribbean in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil (although there are several from the wider Caribbean Basin), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a strong Caribbean contingent. From powerhouses like the Netherlands and England to up-and-coming teams like Costa Rica, there are a number of Caribbean footballers in Brazil this month. Here are some of the featured Caribbean athletes:

Raheem Sterling

The 19-year-old phenom who plays for England was actually born in Kingston, Jamaica. A midfielder, he plays professionally for Liverpool.

Raphael Varane

, Varane who plays professionally for Real Madrid, is a centre back for the French World Cup team. He is of Martiniquais heritage, as his father comes from the island.

Daniel Sturridge

The England striker is of Jamaican heritage, as both sides of his grandparents are Jamaican. Like Sterling, he plays for Liverpool professionally. (And he keeps up his ties to Jamaica with a charity in Portmore).

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Oxlade-Chamberlain, the son of former England international player Mark Chamberlain, is of Jamaican heritage. A winger and central midfielder, he plays professionally for Arsenal.

Jean Beausejour

Beausejour, a 30-year-old left winger for Chile, is the son of a Haitian father. He plays professionally for Wigan Athletic in England.

Nigel de Jong

Much of the Netherlands’ football success over the years has come from the Caribbean nation of Suriname, and the trend continues today. de Jong, of Surinamese heritage, is a defensive midfielder who plays professionally for Milan.

Jeremain Lens

Lens, a striker, is of Surinamese heritage (and has even played internationally for the country). He plays professionally for FC Dyanmo Kyiv.

Georginio Wijnaldum

Wijnald is of Surinamese heritage, and plays for professionally for PSV in the Netherlands. For Oranje, he’s a midfielder.

Leroy Fer

The Norwich City player is a central midfielder who plays for (and was born in) the Netherlands. His roots, however, come from Curacao, where he comes from a family of sporting talents.

Jozy Altidore

The Haitian-American Altidore is one of the leaders of the American World Cup squad. A striker by trade, he plays professionally for Sunderland.

Chris Smalling

Smalling, of Jamaican heritage, is a centre back for England who plays professionally for Manchester United.

Patrick Pemberton

Costa Rica has a Caribbean coastline, and it’s an area with a distinct heritage and culture in large part due to an influx of immigration from Caribbean countries like Jamaica in the 19^th [and early 20^th century for the construction of the Panama Canal]. One result [has been] last names like Pemberton in a Spanish-speaking country. Patrick Pemberton, a native of Puerto Limon, and is the lead goalie for the Costa Rican World Cup side, playing professionally for LD Alajuelense.

Marvin Chavez

The winger Chavez is part of a group of Garifuna players on the Honduran side, those who live on the Caribbean coast of the country — indeed, almost half of the team is comprised of those of Garifuna heritage. Chavez plays professionally in Chivas USA in MLS.

David Myrie

David Myrie, a defender for the Costa Rican team, hails from the Caribbean area of Puerto Viejo. He plays professionally for the Costa Rican side Herediano.

Loic Remy

The 27-year-old native of Lyon is of Martiniquais heritage and plays for France. Professionally, the striker plays for Queens Park Rangers in England.

Jonathan de Guzman

The midfielder for the Netherlands is the son of a Jamaican mother. He plays professionally for Swansea City, on loan from Spain’s Villareal.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic federal government to administer and optimize the economic/security/ governing engines of the region’s 30 member-states. At the outset, the roadmap recognizes the value of sports with these statements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 13 & 14):

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that sport genius qualifiers are found throughout Caribbean society. With the planned market organizations of this roadmap, sports can be more lucrative for Caribbean residents, Diaspora and their legacies. This is big business! There is money to be made in sports endeavors like the World Cup, as stated here:

World Cup Brazil will generate $4 billion in total revenue for FIFA, or 66% more than the previous tournament in South Africa in 2010. The vast majority of the money will come from the sale of television and marketing rights. The World Cup generates more revenue for its association than any other sports tournament, save the Olympics. – Source: Forbes Magazine; retrieved June 5, 2014 from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2014/06/05/the-billion-dollar-business-of-the-world-cup/

This subject of sports and World Cup Soccer relates to many previous Go Lean blogs; highlighted here in the following samples, including tangential issues like societal abandonment/brain drain and Caribbean image:

a.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1433	Caribbean loses more than 70 per cent of tertiary educated to brain drain
b.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1341	College World Series Time
c.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums – No White Elephants
d.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
e.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
f.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=857	Caribbean Image: Dreadlocks
g.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’
h.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=334	Bahamians Make Presence Felt In Libyan League
i.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
j.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

The Caribbean already competes on the world stage, in all other aspects of life. But for the World Cup it is unfortunate that we have to compete with teams aligned to other countries, as shown in the foregoing article.

While it’s too late for this year, perhaps in the near future, at the end of this roadmap, there will be more recognition of the Caribbean contribution to the World Cup. Take the dream one step further and imagine a unified Caribbean team fielding its best athletes in competition with the rest of the world. This is the basic strategy of the CU, to confederate and collaborate as a unified team for sports and most other endeavors. The Go Lean roadmap asserts that no one Caribbean member-state can thrive alone.

Though Go Lean is an economic empowerment agenda, there are huge benefits for the region related to sports: optimization of eco-systems for amateur, intercollegiate and professional engagements. The CU facilitation is straight-forward: to supply the missing elements of the previous generations: applicable venues (stadia, arenas, fields, temporary structures) and broadcast/streaming capabilities.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean to forge permanent change by implementing the Five Year roadmap advocated in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The hope is to keep our “star” athletes at home, playing for the home team and home country. Then finally, with the Go Lean executions in place, the Caribbean can become a better place for all citizens to live, work and play.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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Blog # 100 – College World Series Time

Posted on June 15, 2014 in Economics, Industries

Go Lean Commentary

The sports world is all abuzz this weekend: World Cup in Brazil, NBA Finals, US Open Golf tournament, and the NCAA College World Series (CWS) baseball championship tournament.

History happens here!

This last event, CWS, is the subject of this blog, a milestone, the 100th in the series promoting the book Go Lean…Caribbean. This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). While the CU is NOT a sports promotion entity, it does present an important role for sports in the vision to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. As an expression of this vision Page 81 states:

“a mission of the CU is to forge industries and economic drivers around the individual and group activities of sports and culture”.

The Go Lean vision is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean forming a proxy organization to do the heavy-lighting of building, funding and maintaining sports venues. The strategy is for the CU to be the landlord, and super-regional regulatory agency, for sports leagues, federations and associations (amateur, collegiate, and professional). This strategy relates to the College World Series model. The CWS tournament opened this weekend (June 14/15) in Omaha, Nebraska USA; this is the 65th straight tournament in the same city. This is an anomaly for American sports, as every year most big sporting events (Super Bowl, US Open Golf, NCAA Final Four, BCS Football Championship) rotate/move to different cities. Consider 2014 thus far:

Sport	2014 Host	2013 Host	2012 Host
Super Bowl	New York City	New Orleans, Louisiana	Indianapolis, Indiana
US Open Golf	Pinehurst, North Carolina	Ardmore (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania	San Francisco, California
NCAA Basketball Final Four	Dallas, Texas	Atlanta, Georgia	New Orleans, Louisiana
BCS College Football	Pasadena, California	Miami, Florida	New Orleans, Louisiana

But since 1950, the 12-day College World Series, college baseball championship, has been held in the City of Omaha. It was held at Rosenblatt Stadium from 1950 through 2010; starting in 2011, it has been moved to the new ultra-modern TD Ameritrade Park downtown. The 2013 attendance of 341,483 belies the economic benefits.

These facts reinforce the marketing tag line of CWS Omaha, Inc., (a Nebraska technocracy):

History Happens Here.

The prime directives of the CU/Go Lean roadmap are described with these 3 statements:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This roadmap commences with the recognition that genius qualifiers can be found in many fields of endeavor, including sports. The roadmap pronounces the need for the region to confederate in order to invest in the facilitations for the Caribbean sports genius to soar. These pronouncements are made in the Declaration of Interdependence, (Pages 13 & 14) as follows:

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including … sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxii. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

All in all, the Go Lean book and accompanying blogs declare that the Caribbean needs to learn lessons from CWS-Omaha and other sporting venues/administrations. And thus this subject of the “business of sports” is a familiar topic for Go Lean blogs. The previous blogs as follows, and this one, constitutes 8 of the first 100 entries:

a.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums – No White Elephants
b.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
c.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
d.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’
e.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=334	Bahamians Make Presence Felt In Libyan League
f.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
g.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

This Go Lean roadmap is committed to availing the economic opportunities of all the Caribbean athletic abilities. The book details these series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies designed to deliver regional solutions:

Community Ethos – Return on Investments	Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good	Page 37
Strategic – Staffing – Sporting Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

The Go Lean roadmap encourages solid business plans to develop sports stadia and arenas at CU-owned fairgrounds. Where appropriate, there should be the deployment of temporary bleacher seats/grandstands and structures (think: golf tournaments and Beach Volleyball). There is an obvious economic impact from deployments of Sports Tourism in areas like jobs, ticket sales, hotel bookings and other community spin-off spending.

The following 8 teams in this year’s tournament are indicative of the need for hospitality as they are from cities all around the country:

UC Irvine	Texas Tech
Texas	TCU
Louisville	Ole Miss
Vanderbilt	Virginia

There are obvious community benefits from this business model. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap anticipates 21,000 direct jobs at fairgrounds and sports enterprises throughout the region. This is not bad for lessons learned from the College World Series in Omaha.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation, as prescribed by the Go Lean…Caribbean roadmap.

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The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums – No White Elephants

Posted on June 5, 2014 in Industries, Planning

Go Lean Commentary

Learn from Greece – Why build expensive permanent stadiums for temporary (sports/cultural) events, when there is such an effective art and science with temporary stadiums?! This important lesson was ignored in Brazil for the FIFA World Cup 2014.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean, serving as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), advocates this lesson and declares that “a mission of the CU is to forge industries and economic drivers around the individual and group activities of sports and culture”. There is the need for temporary stadiums for events and festivals; (see Temporary Structures Models & Systems Appendix below).

This temporary stadium was erected in Germany for the 2006 FIFA World Cup championship game.

The need to optimize sports/cultural events & festivals have previously been addressed in the following Go Lean blogs entries:

a.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball
b.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1020	Sports Revolutionary: Advocate Jeffrey Webb
c.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=676	PM Christie responds to critics of Bahamian ‘Carnival’
d.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=498	Book Review: ‘The Sports Gene’
e.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=334	Bahamians Make Presence Felt In Libyan League
f.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
g.	https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Could the Caribbean Host the Olympic Games?

All in all, the book and accompanying blogs declare that the region needs to learn lessons from other sporting venues like Athens-Greece, South Africa and Brazil. The people of the Caribbean cannot afford such monumental mis-steps – see VIDEO below. So this Go Lean… Caribbean roadmap applies the lessons learned and details the following 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This roadmap commences with the recognition that genius qualifiers can be found in many fields of endeavor, including music, sports and the performing arts. To exploit the economic benefits of these fields require some facilitation, like stadia, arenas and theaters. The roadmap pronounces the need for the region to confederate in order to invest in the facilitations for the Caribbean genius to soar. These pronouncements are made in the Declaration of Interdependence, (Pages 13 & 14) as follows:

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxii. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

The Go Lean vision is a confederation of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean forming a proxy organization to do the heavy- lighting of building, funding and maintaining sports/event venues. The strategy is to deploy temporary structures where appropriate on CU fairgrounds, as some events may require specific configurations, but only for a few days every year. Tactically, the Go Lean roadmap calls for a separation-of-powers between the member-state governments and the new federal agencies; so the CU will serve as the landlord for local, national and regional events.

The subsequent article and VIDEO (from the cable channel HBO’s documentary Real Sports) describes the folly for expensive permanent stadiums for short-term events; especially while the art and science of temporary stadiums is so effective.

Title: HBO’s Real Sports tackles the white elephants of the World Cup and Olympics
Posted by Joe Lucia on May 20, 2014 10:31
(http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/hbos-real-sports-tackles-the-white-elephants-of-the-world-cup-and-olympics.html)

The lead story of May’s episode of Real Sports on HBO tackles the World Cup, but in a different way …

Next month’s World Cup in Brazil (starting June 12, 2014) has resulted in numerous brand new soccer stadiums being built all across the country. Once the World Cup ends, the stadiums will more than likely remain dormant – which is where the “white elephants” title of the segment comes into play. In South Africa four years ago, ten stadiums were built at the cost of billions of dollars. Nine of those stadiums stand relatively unused today.

The same thing happens when countries host the Olympics – it doesn’t take too much effort to find evidence of stadiums or arenas being built solely to hold events and then be used for nothing or razed years later. The 2004 Olympics in Athens are a stark example of the waste that goes into holding events like the Olympics and the World Cup, as many of the arenas and stadiums built for the events stand empty.

Perhaps even more shocking – the organizers of these events in those host countries openly admit to having no plan for the future of the venues. The Greek economy collapsed in large part to the massive amount of waste that went into the Olympics a decade ago, with the crumbling stadiums as reminders of that waste.

Today, Brazil is preparing by the World Cup by spending more money than any country in history. A brand new, $270 million stadium was built in the remote town of Manaus for just four games this World Cup. Manaus is so remote that many Brazilians can’t even drive there. Materials to build the stadium were shipped from Portugal, across the Atlantic Ocean and transported down the Amazon River. All that for four games in a town that HBO described as “a weigh station.”

The organizers are oblivious to this. The designer of the stadium in Manaus claims that when people watch the games on television, they will become aware of the city, and tourism and investment opportunities will increase. Apparently, eight hours of soccer over the month of June will create all of that goodwill.

For a country like Brazil, bathed in poverty, to burn away billions of dollars on stadiums and arenas for the World Cup and the 2016 Olympics is shameful. Once the World Cup ends and Olympics preparation begins, homes in Rio de Janeiro will be razed to make room for the venues, sending many Brazilian citizens into homelessness for the sake of a two week sporting event.

… in a country like Brazil that is teetering on the edge of financial chaos, dumping billions of dollars into sports while a bulk of your citizens are poor, starving, and lacking healthcare seems like a recipe for a disaster, with nothing but empty stadiums and a page on Wikipedia to show for it when all is said and done.

VIDEO: Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel: Episode #206 Web Clip – White Elephants (HBO Sports) – http://youtu.be/lHUiyxKgg1s

Jon Frankel travels to Athens, Greece plus Manaus and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and looks for answers to the question of: Are billions being wasted on World Cup and Olympic venues?

The Go Lean book details these series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies designed to re-boot the delivery of the regional solutions, so badly needed and hoped for:

Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius	Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness	Page 36
Strategic – Visitors – Snow Birds at RV Campgrounds	Page 55
Strategic – Staffing – Events at Fairgrounds	Page 55
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy	Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Sports & Culture Administration	Page 81
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Fairgrounds Administration	Page 83
Implementation – Steps to Implement Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver	Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better	Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Local Government – Parks & Recreation	Page 169
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Events	Page 191
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 192
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Expositions	Page 197
Anecdote – Model of Miami-DadeCounty Youth Fair	Page 227
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 229
Advocacy – Ways to Improve the Arts	Page 230
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Music	Page 231
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Urban Living – Sports Leagues	Page 234

This stadium is the Pakar Seating Grandstand system. It is so versatile that it’s suitable for any type of Golf Competition event.

The foregoing article discourages investment in permanent venues unless there is a solid long-term business plan. The Go Lean roadmap concurs – Greece did not recover from the flawed Olympic build-out for facilities that were never used again after the 2004 Games. On the other hand, here is the encouragement and recommendation to develop fairgrounds and deploy temporary stadia, arenas and theaters. Imagine a golf tournament; no one would expect bleachers and grandstands at the putting greens to be permanent structures. No, there is a place for temporary structures in the world of sports.

The Bondi Beach Volleyball Stadium was constructed for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and stood for just six weeks. The temporary stadium was constructed on the world-famous Bondi Beach and had over 10,000 seats.

There is one sport, Beach Volleyball, which only uses temporary bleachers/grandstands – 100 percent.
So there is a place for the arts & sciences of temporary structures. There is the need for their economic impact.

The Go Lean roadmap anticipates 21,000 direct jobs at fairgrounds and sports enterprises throughout the region.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

========================

* APPENDICES *

Appendix A – Sample New Stadiums for Brazil
The permanent structures call for more elaborate construction schedules and risks. Some delays have been unavoidable – see this article (photos) on the Sao Paulo stadium slated for the opening game on June 12, 2014; posted and retrieved 06/04/2014:

http://www.businessinsider.com/bleachers-at-sao-paulo-world-cup-stadiums-2014-6#ixzz33iMAwtEf

Brazil prepares…
When Brazil drafted plans to host the upcoming World Cup, Natal, the Atlantic beach destination was exactly the type of city it wanted to show off. Five years later, and four weeks before kickoff, little besides the arena and a remote, untested airport are complete.

Almost half the more than $1.3 billion in promised developments [in Natal] never began. What did [begin] has languished, including ongoing road work that has rendered the stadium’s outskirts a raw sprawl of rebar, dust and concrete. (Reuters)

An aerial view of the Arena Pantanal soccer stadium in Cuiaba, April 25, 2014. Cuiaba is one of the host cities for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. See photos here (REUTERS/Joel Marcos):

An Aerial view of the Arena das Dumas from January 22, 2014; this stadium will host matches for the 2014 soccer World Cup.

This is the incomplete stadium in Natal; with 4 weeks before the first event, the infrastructural improvements for the surrounding areas have still not been completed.

People stand in the bleachers during an infrastructure test at Arena de Sao Paulo Stadium, one of the venues for the 2014 World Cup, in the Sao Paulo district of Itaquera April 26, 2014.

Appendix B – Temporary Structures Models & Systems
Many examples of successful temporary stadia, arenas and theaters abound – see photos here.

Here are 2 reputable vendors for providing these products and services.

1. PAKAR Grandstand is extremely versatile, therefore, it can be installed either as a PERMANENT or REMOVABLE Grandstand. It can be displaced and re-installed at any location quickly and easily. The system of frames is pre-assembled with an interlocking system, ties, braces, beams and deck units that locks together for fast assembly. Our Grandstand can be installed on any type of surface i.e. concrete, grass and sand (Desert). It can be installed on a slope depending on soil condition. Our system can be used both Outdoor and Indoor. For Outdoor use, it can be equipped with a roof system (Complete roofing or Semi-roofing). Source: http://www.pakar-seating.com/

Padel is a relatively new racquet sport that is extremely popular in Spain. The logistics of this platform accommodates each individual sports event and is 600 square meters in size and has 3,000 seats around it.

This stadium is a modular stadium built by NUSSLI who has developed flexible and sustainable concepts for popular global sports and cultural events

This stadium is not only for sporting events, but it is ideal for cultural activities as well.

Grandstand bleachers for a drag racing configuration

2. Temporary Stadium, Modular Stadium Construction, Stadia Expansion.

NUSSLI provides complete modular stadiums and arenas or additional grandstands – with or without roofing. We offer our stadium construction solutions for rental (temporary) or sale (permanent).

The experience gained from multifaceted stadium projects around the world makes NUSSLI a reliable partner in modular stadia construction and in stadium expansion. NUSSLI‘s mobile stadia fulfill the highest demands in regard to safety, functionality, and architecture.

The modular stadium® can be adapted to meet changing requirements and individual customer needs over and over again. The stadium can be installed in virtually no time and removed just as quickly after use.

The NUSSLI service range in stadium construction:
•Stadia and arenas (modular, temporary, permanent, mobile)
•Stadium expansion (modular, temporary, permanent)
•Additional grandstand, roofing
•Steel tube grandstand
•Service buildings

Modular Stadium® – a Convincing System.
Those who modularly build or expand stadiums and arenas enjoy considerable advantages over those using the traditional building method. The key factors of modular stadium construction are savings in cost and time.

Cost advantage: The use of modules can be temporally limited, therefore avoiding costs for possible surplus capacities. The standardization shortens planning and construction processes.

Fast and flexible: modular stadium constructions or expansions by NUSSLI beat any other system in regard to installation speed.
Source: http://www.nussli.us/services/stadium-construction.html

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Sports Bubble – Franchise values in basketball

Posted on June 2, 2014 in Economics, Social

Go Lean Commentary

The foregoing news article highlights a topical issue in the world of sports, basketball in particular: the blatant racism of basketball team owner by octogenarian Donald Sterling. The sports league, the NBA, expelled him from the league and has announced that it is moving forward with the forced sale of the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for $2 Billion.

There are many lessons to learn/apply from this Donald Sterling / LA Clippers drama. Lessons such as:

There are more important things than money – the sports world rallied in support of the campaign to divorce the antagonist, Donald Sterling, from his team ownership.
Money covers a multitude of sins – the indication is that Mr. Sterling’s conduct was unbecoming for a long time before this episode.
Sports are immune to economic cycles – team values continue to rise despite depressed asset values during the Great Recession.
Sports are not immune to economic realities – there is a real possibility of a bubble due to the absence of economic fundamentals of some teams; there is still the need for technocratic efficiency.
Technology in broadcasting is transforming the sports industry – since DVR programming neutralizes the exposure to advertising, live sports broadcasts stand out as an exception: reliable audience. This thereby increases league/team values.
Institutional racism is real – the generation that practiced segregation is still alive and wields power, like 80-year-old Donald Sterling.
Attitudes in sports can mold society – the public sympathized with Black personnel having to work for an owner with racist views towards Black people; the NBA was forced to act quickly to expel Sterling from the league, with national concurrence.
The business of sports can shape a community’s economic landscape – the new value assessment of the Clippers has now elevated all the sport franchises in Los Angeles and related cities; now all connected properties and neighborhoods have appreciated in value as well.

The book, Go Lean … Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This subject of blatant racism in sports ownership is in scope for the CU as this technocratic agency will assume responsibility for regional sports administration. The roadmap has the prime directives to elevate the Caribbean’s:

(1) economy,

(2) security apparatus, and

(3) governing engines.

The Economist Magazine (Posted & Retrieved 05/31/2014) –
FOR all Donald Sterling’s well-known faults—the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team seems to have comfortably secured a role as the face of racism in America—no one has ever accused him of being a bad businessman. Although most of his fortune came from real estate, he is now on the brink of closing out what is probably the most profitable investment in the history of professional sports. The other 29 team owners of the National Basketball Association (NBA) are set to hold a vote on June 3rd to terminate his control of the Clippers, in response to a tape of his offensive remarks about blacks that was leaked to the media. But the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver, had let it be known that he would prefer a voluntary sale to happen first—managed by Mr. Sterling’s estranged wife Rochelle, since Mr. Silver had already banned Mr. Sterling for life and thus prevented him from exercising control over the team.

On May 29th the commissioner’s wish was granted, when Ms. Sterling announced that Steve Ballmer the former head of Microsoft, had agreed to buy the Clippers for the eye-popping sum of $2 billion. Although the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team went for a slightly higher $2.15 billion in 2012, that deal included valuable real-estate assets as well, whereas the Clippers are essentially being sold on their own. The previous record price for an NBA club was just $550m, set by the Milwaukee Bucks earlier this year, and Forbes magazine valued the Clippers at a mere $575m in January. Mr. Ballmer’s bid comfortably exceeded the reported $1.6 billion offered by a group led by David Geffen, a media executive.

Mr. Sterling has not yet announced whether he will try to block the sale. Since he bought the team for a piddling $12.5m in 1981 and lives in the high-tax state of California, the deal would cost him an estimated $662m in capital-gains taxes. Moreover, his lawyer has demanded that the league retract its accusations against Mr. Sterling, though an after-tax profit of $1.326 billion might help him to swallow his pride. It is not yet clear whether Mr. Sterling could hold up the deal if he wants to. His representatives insist that no sale can proceed without his signature. But the family trust that formally owns the club has declared the 80-year-old Mr Sterling mentally incapacitated—an opinion shared by many viewers of his ill-advised interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN—in order to give his wife sole authority over the franchise. Mr Sterling has a well-earned reputation for litigiousness, and would surely challenge any sale by Ms Sterling against his will in court. However, that would cause the league to re-initiate termination proceedings against him.

The NBA will also still have to approve Mr. Ballmer, but that is expected to be a mere formality. Paul Allen, another Microsoft billionaire, already owns the Portland Trail Blazers, and the league vetted Mr. Ballmer when he made a failed bid for the Sacramento Kings. Mr. Silver will be eager to remove a pariah from the league as quickly and quietly as possible, and to avoid the prospect of a long court battle with Mr. Sterling. And the commissioner surely wants to lock in the lofty sale price, which sets a new valuation bar for every other franchise.

Mr Ballmer is yet to speak publicly about his financial calculus, except to assure the NBA that he would not seek to move the Clippers to Seattle, as he hoped to do with the Kings. (He told the Wall Street Journal that relocating the club out of America’s second-biggest market would be “value destructive”.) Microsoft shareholders who despaired at his string of high-priced acquisitions for the company can at least take solace that he is no thriftier with his own money: the Clippers will cost an estimated 10% of his net worth.

To be sure, there are strong arguments for a ten-figure price for the team. Sports franchise values have been soaring in recent years, thanks to record-setting rights deals from television networks desperate for DVR-proof programming. Both the NBA’s national contract and the Clippers’ local one are set to expire in the coming years, leaving the team doubly well-positioned to cash in. And following an acrimonious lockout in 2011, the league’s current collective-bargaining agreement sharply cut the share of its revenues that gets paid out in salaries, which made clubs far more profitable. Low interest rates are driving up prices for all assets, and the combination of rising inequality and greater international interest in basketball has increased the number of billionaires willing to splurge on an NBA team.

Moreover, the Clippers currently find themselves in an unfamiliar spot as the best basketball team in Los Angeles, and indeed all of California. The Lakers, their far better-loved crosstown rivals, are suffering through a difficult rebuilding phase, whereas the Clippers finished with the league’s third-best record this year. No one would blink an eye if the Lakers sold for $2 billion, and in theory there’s no reason why the team’s electrifying “Lob City” offence featuring Chris Paul and Blake Griffin could not supplant the slumping Lakers for Angelenos’ affections.

On the other hand, brand loyalty matters as much or more in sports as the on-field product. In 2009 the Chicago Cubs, baseball’s iconic lovable losers, sold for $845m despite putrid overall economic conditions, because they were the more popular club in a big two-team market. As measured by Facebook likes, there is not a single postal code in which the Clippers are even one-fifth as popular as the Lakers, and the Lakers are the preferred club in pretty much every part of the United States that lacks a nearby team save the Southeast. The Lakers’ local television deal pays them $180m a year; the Clippers are expected to fetch 60% less for their next contract. Mr. Sterling’s 33 years of penny-pinching mismanagement have left a stain on the franchise that no number of Paul-to-Griffin windmill alley-oops can erase. When Jack Nicholson attends a Clippers game, it’s news; when he goes to see the Lakers, it’s just normal.

The great unknown is whether the going rate for televised sports rates is sustainable. Cable carriers like Time Warner have already begun offering cheaper packages that exclude expensive sports channels, and John McCain, a senator from Arizona and former presidential candidate, has introduced a bill that would “unbundle” cable television and let viewers choose the channels they want a la carte. Both approaches would reduce the “sports tax” that non-fans currently pay to subsidise fans via their cable bills. Technological advances or piracy could also disrupt the current lucrative delivery model, as they have with so many other types of media.

Buying a team for a billion or two is essentially a bet on the sports-media status quo continuing for at least another decade. It may well be a bubble. But it has already lasted for far longer than the naysayers ever thought possible.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21603026-how-hand-over-272-billion-year-criminals-thats-where-money?fsrc=nlw%7Chig%7C30-05-2014%7C53552127899249e1cc9ea210%7CNA

The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap commences with a Declaration of Interdependence. In Verse XXXI (Page 14) it pronounces specific dynamics of sports:

Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism.

The foregoing news article is sourced from the Economist Magazine. Therefore this perspective is from a macro-economic vantage point, which is apropos for this roadmap, as this book posits that the right economic, financial and investment landscape can impact Caribbean society, forging sport franchises and facilitating growth in value and appreciation. The CU envisions being the landlord of sports leagues at CU fairgrounds – operating as Self-Governing Entities. Today in the Caribbean however, there is not much of a sports eco-system beyond the High School level. This roadmap envisions collegiate and professional sports manifestations, as a tool/technique to empower society.

The roadmap specifically elevates the region through a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the business of sports in the Caribbean region:

Economic Systems Influence Choices and Incentives	Page 21
Community Ethos – Anti-Bullying and Mitigation	Page 23
Anecdote – Hail, Hail, the Champs: Miami Heat!	Page 42
Tactical – Confederating a non-sovereign union	Page 63
Tactical – Separation of Powers–Sports Administration	Page 81
Implementation – Assemble Existing Regional Entities	Page 96
Implementation – Consolidating Regional Spectrum	Page 101
Implementation – Steps for Self-Governing Entities	Page 105
Implementation – Reasons to Repatriate	Page 118
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better to Play	Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Communications	Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Promote Fairgrounds	Page 193
Advocacy – Impact Media/Broadcast/Hollywood Roles	Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Sports	Page 218

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, athletes and non-athletes alike to lean-in for the empowerments described in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. The benefits are too alluring, an improved, economically viable sports world; and a better place to live, work and play.

The Go Lean roadmap is not about basketball. But basketball is among the games people play; and play can be a great source of leisure and economics. The world is now watching the tropical region for basketball dominance. This is because the Miami Heat will now play for the NBA championship, starting this week Thursday (June 5, 2014) in their 4th straight NBA Finals. The roadmap posits that the Miami Heat relates to the Caribbean since its base is in Miami, Florida; a metropolitan area that possesses the largest pocket of Caribbean Diaspora. So in many ways, the Miami Heat is the “home team” of the Caribbean. Go Heat!

Download Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

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*** APPENDICES ***

* APPENDICES *