 Thank you so much for staying with us. The Caribbean is home to many of the world's greatest athletes, past and present, who have dominated their various sports and stamped their names in history. However, there is one country that has stood out in its dominance and abundance of world-class talent. Jamaica, the land of wood and water, has without doubt been one of the Caribbean's most successful sporting countries, yet there has not been any solid plan to profit from branded Jamaica. Reggae Girls' head coach Lorna Donaldson made comments to the Jamaica Gleaner deriding the country's sports bosses for their inability to capitalize on the marketability of the Jamaican sports. So this is what he said, I don't think we market anything. I don't see any marketing going on. We might think we are, but we are lacking in that department. In Jamaica, we talk a lot when things are good, but when it's done, everybody forgets. I do not see anything going on that shows me that there is momentum. It is no different from the 1998 World Cup, so we do a lot of talking, but we need action. The Jamaican brand is very marketable and everyone wants a Jamaican shoot. If there is no merchandise in the stadium, it's a loss. These comments hold a significant weight considering the worldwide success of the national team's home kit, which crashed the Adidas website upon release in February and the Jamaica-inspired Arsenal warm-up kit, which was released last year. Well joining us to weigh in on some of Lorna Donaldson's comments are Tania Lee Perkins and Girmal Deep of Paramore. Good afternoon. Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for having me. All right. So I'll start with Tania first because she's on set, Girmal. So you just stand by, of course, very, very patiently. Tania, what do you make of Lorna Donaldson's comments, especially coming out of a match that the Jamaica Reggae Girls lost? I think those comments were made before the matches were played, if I'm correct. I think for me, what he said was right, but I take it as separate or to say he's concerned about merchandising. I'm going to be concerned about fans in the stands, people in the actual seats. How do we get people to come out and support the Reggae Girls and the Reggae Boys where the office or national stadium becomes a fortress again, a place where there is actual home advantage. And I think that's where I think we're lacking a marketing strategy. It is very clear to me that there is no marketing strategy. As far as I know, there is no marketing personnel specifically employed to the JFF at the moment. And I think that's something that needs to be looked at. We should probably look at the model that exists now for the local Jamaica Premier League and for the knockout competition, the linkup, where I was hired as a marketing consultant to actually strategize for that competition. So I think we need to take a long-term approach to getting fans in the stands. Now, how do we do that? One of the things that I think is necessary to look at first before we even look at the merchandising again is the stadium. We've all grown a national stadium. We have no match clock. There is no jumbo screen. When you think about fan engagement and sitting in the seats and being able to look up and see somebody from another section of the stands and the excitement that's being generated, that creates an electric atmosphere where you are captivated for 90 minutes and you want to come back for the next matchday. We have an opportunity to get significant revenues from people at the stadium. We have a capacity of about 30,000 to 35,000. If you're looking at even just a thousand dollars for seats in the general bleachers area, you could generate up to 50 million dollars for just one match. And that 50 million couldn't be put into developing your local leagues and competitions. So I think that's a wasted opportunity. When I got to the reggae girls' match in Jamaica last week and I'm seeing that there was there were sprinkling of supporters at the start. And I'm thinking that when our girls come out that most, you know, to some extent, they'd be starting for you to see. And when you think about what kind of interest we can generate, if you have cold sparks, the players are coming out and they're cold sparks, there's excitement being generated with smoke. All of those things that they use in other competitions, then they generate more excitement that lifts the play. You'd actually probably see more when you have a sea of Jamaican supporters. I don't know if you saw Colorado versus Oregon on the weekend. And they had a sea of green and yellow in the stands right throughout that stadium. And that created a fortress for Oregon. Colorado had no chance. From the start, they had no chance. It was like the TKR against the Ghana Amazon Warriors on Sunday night. TKR had no chance. That's exactly what it felt like. Mariah, it helped. But that's exactly what it felt like. And I think that so you look at your sponsors, are they able to provide t-shirts? Do we give these to persons in the bleachers so that there's a sea of yellow and green when persons come in? Merchandising. Anywhere in the world that you go, once you get into a stadium, the first thing you have is merchandising. You're able to purchase the jersey. You purchase a shirt. Yeah. Half-time. What are we doing at half-time? How do you engage your lots of families and kids? You had a unique audience of little girls that came to see the reggae girls. You had parents who took them, a mom who made up their football fan. I had somebody turn to me and say, so what's going to happen now? At half-time, nothing happened. So we have to find ways of ensuring that we are captivating an audience that will come back time and again, and long-term, we're building the fan base. Yeah. Well, we have Gurumal Deep online. Your thoughts on what Coach had to say and, of course, maybe you can respond to some of what Tanya just said. Yeah. I normally go by Gokis because it's my nickname since we were all manageable. In terms of what Lorne said, I think in terms of momentum, I think probably the better word you could have been using there is strategy. And at times, when I'm looking at the Jamaica setup, whether it be through me attending the games back in March with Delano to watch Jamaica's debut, there were so many things that you kind of looked at and thought, people aren't aware that these games are going on. So a little story was that I was on a Harmony Park beach that day for the Montego Bay game. And I bumped into somebody and I was like, oh, how do I kind of get to Catherine Hall? And I was talking to this guy. Now, what are you going to Catherine Hall for? Oh, Jamaica are playing. No one seemed to know. And they were like, it's the first time this has happened. And I'm thinking, how do you not know? And then I spoke to a few other people on the beach, all of them were football fans, and no one seemed to know that Jamaica were having a match in their own home city. So I think definitely that there's an issue in terms of locally how the matches are promoted. And also, some of my experience in Kingston for the second match as well, just being able to get tickets was a bit of a nightmare. I think there needs to be a better signpost than 100%. But also globally, there needs to be more of a strategy. We've got a huge diaspora out here. And just some of the marketing efforts here, it's clear that there's a big sponsor, which is Alidas. And they're pushing the Association of Jamaica, which is a super cool brand within itself. But there's no real cut through. So we had Carnival back in the August, which is quite big, not a single one of the young reggae boys were invited to anything to do with Carnival. Even the kit launch, a lot of the boys from London, not a single one of them got an opportunity to go to the kit launch down in Peckham. And it's just so poorly, I guess, organized and managed, because no real strategy. It just seems it's such a scattergun approach. And I look at, say, like some of the local partners, is there a way of actually being able to merge local partners and multinational companies? So I look at the holiday in, they're everywhere, right, around the world, but they're also all over Jamaica in terms of the results. How come that's not being tapped into? But also, who's the official travel partner? Historically, we see a lot of comments coming out of the reggae boys camp about people not having their tickets booked. Well, how about you work with a virgin or a BA who regularly send flights over? Or are there other providers of that elsewhere? What are the most common routes into Jamaica in terms of tourism? How can you partner with them? And it just feels like, I think Lawn kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of needing experts. I think there needs to be a cohesive effort with those on the ground, people at Tanya to see her work, and people out here who probably are Jamaican descent. So one guy's been someone like a guy like a Leon man of refresh sports done some incredible things out here, had some incredible sponsors involved with a lot of his work. But then I don't see him getting engaged, you know, by the JFF. And that's kind of surprising to me. I'm thinking this guy's got a real affinity for Jamaica. But yeah, the experts are there. It's just getting people to come together and actually work together and have a proper strategy. Otherwise, you're definitely going to keep having the same problems. You could have Lionel Messi essentially going for Jamaica, and nothing's going to move forward in terms of the commercial viability of it as a national team. One of the things Lawrence said ago is that there's a lot of talk. When things go well, there's a lot of talk. And that's not just just Jamaica, because from a football perspective, I think Jamaicans are just as disappointed with the growth of the game since the 1998 historic qualification to the France World Cup, as the Trinidadians are with their historic 2006 qualification for Germany. And it seems like everyone likes to talk and make big presentations when there is success. But as Lawrence says, that's where it stops. And there is not that trigger to propel things forward after that. Yeah, no, no. I agree. That's what I said. They need a long term strategy. And they need to try and realize that with local people who are within the space, but then also people, you know, from diaspora, hopefully, abroad and actually try and come and create a proper strategy where it's not just talk, getting into sponsors who have these relationships. So you notice a lot of marketing companies or those that kind of match sports rights holders, two brands, typically, they tend to be the same companies and they work with the brands in their time and time again. So how do you identify those? How do you kind of get into those rooms to make that happen? And how do you make it a way to spend strategically to help grow what's going on? And I do agree with that. And just looking at things, the way that they've been done, from my perspective, like, marketing just doesn't seem to be something that they're looking at. It almost feels like something to say, oh, we're down with resources for it. But I always felt that if you have a good marketing team, it pays for itself. And then some, it's an investment. Yeah, you know, Tanya, I wonder about your feeling when, you know, government officials and, you know, private sector, to a certain extent, converge on a success story. And it has long done, as it says, there's just stock. We've already pointed out to the reggae girl's success, the reggae boy's success in 98, Trinidad and Tobago's work of qualification in 2006. And there are many rights throughout the Caribbean. I was in Barbados when Rand Brathwaite won the sprint hurdles gold medal in Berlin back in 2009. They had a massive function that was televised live on the night to celebrate his success. Kirani has had many successes for Grenada. Kim Collins won the world 100 meter title in 2003 for St. Kitts and Nevis. And on each of those occasions that I've just mentioned, I'm not sure if any of these territories have, have used those landmarks to trigger the kind of growth and marketing that Goko just mentioned and you did yourself. That is possible out of these successes. Absolutely. And we keep missing the ball. But the important thing is, and that's why I mentioned to start that we need a long term approach. I think we can't just try to build momentum and maintain momentum around the performances of our different athletes over various sports because this is not just an issue in football. I think what we need is a long term marketing and PR strategy that's going to take all our sporting programs to where we need to get them. And this has to be something that everybody as a stakeholder is a party to. I love the idea that as he mentioned, Gavanize in the diaspora community, he mentioned Leon Mann. That's great. I work with Leon Mann. He actually does PR for one of my athletes, Sarah Miser, when she races in the U.K. So you're looking at reaching out to persons within the diaspora community who can help to Gavanize interest and generate momentum around it. But I think that just needs to be long term. So again, what are we doing to ensure that overall we're building on our sporting program? When we look at the football fields, that's still an issue we haven't addressed. When we look at a stadium, we still need a new stadium. Before we can even get to sports tourism and having people travel to even come to watch reggae boys and reggae girls here, we don't have a proper stadium. So the long term approach has to be where we start. And I think that until we have a strategy, we're nowhere. Yeah. And do you think that coach with the capacity, the office that he held, because we're still to see if his contract has been renewed, people like him coming to the forefront and talking out creates change or pushes that change? Well, it's kind of ironic because he says we do a lot of talking. So that's what we're doing now. Because we can't. It's not like we can go into the GFF or go into it. As a marketing consultant who has worked in sports marketing for many years, I consider myself a stakeholder with athletes that are a part of the setup. I am interested in seeing football grow. I am more than willing to make myself available to help the program. I believe that if we were to look at galvanizing persons from outside, I always maintain that we need to have the right people in the right seats in these associations that are interested in the growth of the product. And then we'll finally get to where we need to. But without that long term strategy, without the right people, without the brain trust as a part of it, I don't think we get there. Yeah. Well, Goku, based on what Tanya just said and the long term strategy that she's talking about, how do we get to that aspect? What do you think we need to do? Because you're looking on at what's happening in Jamaica, of course, reading the headlines, seeing all these stories, listening to these soundbites from coaches and players. Where do we start? I think, first of all, we need to get people like Tanya involved looking at a local strategy of people internationally. As I already mentioned, I think that's the first one. And you've got to be sensible with it. And it's got to be okay. 2026, that's when the run-up is going to happen towards the World Cup. Jamaica should hopefully be there just based on the pure talent they have alone. And this 2030, and actually have people who are there trying to create long-term chain. And some of these sponsorship and PR opportunities, if you have the right brand, they'll help you grab headlines. They'll help you do things. They'll help you develop the sporting infrastructure in the country. Also, they'll help you galvanize the diaspora in England. I sit here and I look at it and think, we've got a huge Jamaican community in England. We've got a huge Caribbean community. Why aren't they over here playing friendlies? You know, why aren't they getting some games in against teams like Ghana? So we were talking about this the other day. It happened years ago. And I'll talk to somebody who works at my United about it. And he went, oh, I went there as a kid. I loved it. I thought it was an amazing opportunity. And this guy isn't Jamaican and he's in Ghana. I just love being a part of that game, the part of the atmosphere. And that has to happen. And we also have to look at how things are done locally in terms of, you know, how to stealth. Tanya mentioned, you know, making it a lot more showbiz when people come out. Kind of like the IPL. And I completely agree with that. Also, Jamaican have a great roster of artists that come through. You've got guys like Balian, Dex the Daps, who are massively popular out here, even Jada Kingdom. How do you get them more involved in these games? And is there way of their social reach helping, you know, brands and sponsorships within football? Can you partner with those local artists who have these big platforms and marry them to essentially the football? There's a lot of that around those sports and rap music in the US. We've seen that growth in the UK because, you know, in the UK, we are probably like 20 years behind the US in terms of marketing. But how can we kind of tap into that space with Jamaica? And I think people just don't see it as something that's serious, I guess, but that attitude needs to change. And you do need leaders to stand up together and move forward as a group, as a collective, rather than it being one person saying this and another person saying that. And it just being taught. And people need to be held accountable as well. And if people aren't delivering certain things that they've said they have, then leave. Gokul, would you say that the level of the athletic performances in the Caribbean at this point in our history would be outstripping the quality of administration of sport? Because it does seem quite evident to me having been in this thing for decades now that the administration of sport right throughout the Caribbean and not just football is sadly lacking. In many instances, I would give some of our sporting administrators one or two out of ten. Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. What you've said there, absolutely. I see the Caribbean, in particular, Jamaica being an outlier in terms of no sporting success versus the actual population. You mentioned Kim Collins. I remember growing up watching him sprint, right? He was someone we looked at that, wow, he's so cool. He's a skinny little guy. He's beating everyone. He's big, big, strong sprinters. He's killing it. And we all loved him for it. But then we look at the Atto Baldens, who, whilst he never, I don't think he really won a gold medal, but he was always on the podium, right? Or there and thereabouts. Crammy James as well for Grenada. So, yeah, 100%. And also the West Indies cricket teams are the 70s and then 80s and 90s. Until things started slopping in cricket, at point, the West Indies were absolutely dominating. I remember watching Kirtley Ambrose and Courtney Walsh as a kid. And I know Courtney Walsh becoming the world's leading wicket taker in the Test Match cricket. These are all amazing sporting achievements and it's historically happened. But yeah, there's always been some kind of arguments. And I look from outside in, I'm obviously of Indian descent. And I remember just as a kid reading stuff, you know, like what we had like on TV, where you kind of read C-facts is what it was called. And you hear about these arguments, you know, with the administration within cricket. And you see it across all the sports. And I see a lot around the JFF and what's going on there. It's been bad. Like even out here, the key thing for a lot of diaspora players, a lot of people are worried about them having to pay their own flights because the whole reggae girls go fund me. That took off massively out here in terms of headlines. And there wasn't much that came back to say, actually, that might not be the full story. But yeah, no, administration has been really to be honest. And that's of course all the sports and it's such a shame because the athletes just keep delivering. I don't know what's going on there in terms of the grassroots. But it's been incredible. Yeah. You know, Tanya, you were actively a sports enthusiast and professionally involved in sport when the reggae boys qualified for the World Cup in 1998. Were you? I was as pretty young when the reggae boys qualified. But I've been attending football in Jamaica for quite some time. I mean, I'd say maybe over 15 years and I hardly ever miss a match. Yeah, I'm going here now. They lead up to the historic qualification, the input of Captain Horace Porellis, GFF president at the time, and the newly appointed coach, René Simois, who they went to Brazil to uproot, to come to Jamaica. And the kind of marketing thrust and the way they were able to get the entire nation to buy in to the road to the road to France project is something that is indelibly written in my mind as an achievement, as a sporting achievement. Because prior to René Simois coming to Jamaica, no one had realistic thoughts or hopes of Jamaica qualifying for the World Cup. And they did it in a manner that anyone who was alive at that point, even outside of Jamaica, would have been impressed with what they saw. To a large extent, we are failing our athletes who are doing well. And you're right. What we did in 1998 as Jamaicans was to really, from the top down, galvanize a country around the football. We saw an inspirational coach who made a country believe. Now, what we have now is a sophisticated sporting audience who we are aware of what's happening in the world of sports right throughout. It's very easy to galvanize support now for what it is that we're trying to achieve. And I think that again, once we have a plan in place, we should be able to do that. We have to capitalize on a patriotism. So I'll go back to the match. There was no reason for us to have the reggae girls playing and the seats are not full. Why didn't we use this as an opportunity to have a homecoming, invite people to come and celebrate our girls, invite musical artists, you know, as go commensure on the Jada Kingdoms, et cetera, valiance to perform. And we use it as a celebration for our girls. If this is a budgetary constraint, I'm sure somebody would do it for free. It's an opportunity. And we're celebrating our girls who have done so well to go top 16 in the World Cup. So we've missed that opportunity to celebrate with them, to galvanize a country around them as we make this thrust to do, to make the Olympics possible. So it's a missed opportunity again, and we're going to keep missing it. I think if we do not continue to, if we do not start to strategize, we're going to be left behind. I just presented to Goku my own rating of Caribbean sports administration as about two or three out of 10. Would you agree with me on that? Boy, Lance, I think there's a lot more that we can do. And I will say that one of the things that I love about football in particular, and I'll say this about the football community in Jamaica specifically, is that they generate a lot of content. So there's a lot of user-generated content that you'll see on a match day that helps to build some momentum. And prior to a match day that helps to build the momentum locally. Yes. But we need to do much more to support that fan base and to support those bloggers, the people online, the sports maxes and 876 streams and football in nineties, et cetera, that are that are creating content to sit on boring, that will go to a training day and generate content for brands that are associated and around the reggae boys and girls. So our administrators need to move with the times. I'm going to put it as plain as that. Move with the times and let's get going. And what is the things I notice, Tanya, is that the hype is around when we win or there's a one-off hype because I've been here. We have a Wagon culture in this country. Yes. So like if we're winning a match, I say we, I call Jamaica we as well. There's a lot of fanfare. People are coming, everybody's excited, but the moment we lose a match, then it's the opposite. The stadium is empty. People are walking off. And I think those that are doing the marketing needs to remember that this is a process. As you said, you talk about strategy and all the different things that we have to take, but it's, it's where we support them, even when they're not winning, even when they're not playing. There should be things going on where we keep pushing the narrative of, you know, building that culture of support. Right. And that's why I said the strategy has to be long term because it has to start with how are we getting people into those seats? How do we generate revenue to continue to pump back into the program? And as Goku mentioned, you have to spend money to make money. So if you're thinking about revenue generation, how are you spending to ensure that you're properly promoting it? How are you building awareness? This is not even something that you need to even call a marketing consultant for. To be honest with you, you can use a model of anyone use a U.S. sporting model where as you get in merchandising starts, there's a store there, you can buy a jersey, then you go and sit in the seats, you get a t-shirt on the seat, there's something happening at all times. Use that model or use a model of the Premier League teams in England that are doing tours in the summer outside of the season. So they're going to China, they're in Asia, they're in America. They're ensuring that they're cross promoting so that they continue to build a fan base. And these are material football products. I mean, the viewership for the Premier League is through the roof. Why would they need to do it? So we need to do that at our level to ensure that the strategies long term and the returns are significant and we begin to match the prowess of our sportsmen and women. Yeah, Goku, any closing comments before we put a lid on this discussion just for this show? I completely agree with a lot of what's been said actually. I think one things that people don't seem to get sometimes is that you could sell your youth if that makes sense in Jamaica and sell that to an audience because one thing that I think is incredible from the outside in is looking at how much support the high school championships get. There have got to be people like the KFCs of the world who are blue chip brands who can kind of partner with no-view football in Jamaica, whether it be the U-20s, the U-17s or the U-15s or 14s, but actually tapping into that natural passion to support your own nation and the patriotism and hopefully that could match guys being able to get together in a room, have strategy and stick to it. Yeah, well of course we have enjoyed your input, Goku, as well as you Tanya for stopping by. I think, you know, despite Loan Donaldson saying that all we do is talk, we need to have the conversations so we can move forward, right? So we're doing that. We're putting that platform so that we can stop the discussion and the discussion does not end here. Let's take a break. We'll be right back.