It’s Business Unusual – The Business of Sport International Conference, 2013

The Business of Sport International Conference is on for May 1 and 2 at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in the commercial environ of New Kingston.

Jamaica will, yet again, experience riveting conversations and assertive dialogue on The Business of Sport as corporate interests, investors and professionals rub shoulders and exchange views with stakeholders of what is now globally accepted to be more than a billion dollar industry.

The theme, “Change the Game”, signals that it will be “business unusual” which will be the watchwords for two days of conferencing with a collegiate/youth forum being held for the first time to enable our young entrepreneurs – the business generation of tomorrow – an enterprising opportunity, in a competition, to construct and present viable business models for the management and development of athletes which will be evaluated by elite judges from regional multi-lateral organizations, the education and business sectors and professional cohorts.

Patron of the Collegiate Forum will be Jamaican Olympian and Third Vice President of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), Michael Frater, who has a command of the business of sport from a competing athlete’s perspective and as a policy maker.

The young will be challenged beyond their limits to give tomorrow an aggressive plan of action to “change the game” and stakeholders of the industry will be rallied by presentations by local and international experts to think prudently and proactively in establishing sustainable partnerships for the optimization of talent and brands and in “making money talk”, to create and manage investments and wealth.

Horace Madison who has handled the financial portfolios of celebrities such as Usher, Swizz Beatz, Outkast and Mase and countless entrepreneurs will provide a “been there done it” script for “Putting your money where your mouth is” while the ESPN team of Bernard Stewart, (Vice President & General Manager, ESPN Caribbean and Maritime Media) and Robbie Earle, (Sport Executive and former Reggae Boyz national representative, footballer for Wimbledon & Port Vale and Inductee, English Football Hall of Fame)  will give the winning formula to the athlete, coach and sport associations for successfully managing media relationships in the business of building sustainable brands.

NFL Broadcaster and journalist, Steve Wyche, now well sought after, and Clyde Jureidini, General Manager of the successful Harbour View Sport Club and well known football analyst and commentator, will guide a conversation on managing the personal and business relationships of the trilogy – the athlete, coach and manager – in forging a vision pursuing a mission and creating success.

Mike Townley, a respected British  Barrister and General Counsel for the International Paralympic Committee (I.P.C.), and Cubie Seegobin, President and CEO of QB Management and an international elite Sport Manager and Agent in his own right  will microscope that controversial Rule 40 of the International Olympic Committee Rules affecting the image rights of athletes during the “Olympic Period” to determine whether fairness and equity are being served particularly with respect to realizing the value of the investment made by event organizers, managers and sport associations.

Sport tourism, national sport policies and blue printing successful models for sport associations and federations while defining their signal role in the industry’s and national development, will all be spotlighted in a debate with experts which promises to be robust, constructive and full of outcomes.

Stakeholders from the Caribbean, North, Central and South America, and Europe will convene and converse with local industry players and members of the public on a wide range of issues critical to sport, its rules spirit, vision and business.