The government of T&T has won the bid to host the final of the upcoming Caribbean Premier League (CPL) T20 tournament and fans in this country will be afforded the opportunity to see the semifinals as well.
It is understood that the government invested TT$4.5M to win the bid with the closest competitors being the government of St Kitts/Nevis who hosted the previous final last year.
Sources close to the situation said that the government was successful in their bid and come July 24-25 fans can make the trek to the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain for the semifinals and the final will be played on July 26. The entire tournament this year will be fitted into the period June 20 to July 26.
Recently, the TTCB sent out a press release which stated that the government was being asked for a total of TT$7M to host the semifinals and the final but the source rubbished this claim.
The source went on to add that the government decided to make the investment as an ongoing drive at developing the sport tourism sector in this country. This follows their investment in the Regional Super50 tournament which gets off Thursday. The government has made an investment for a three-year period (the first year was 2014) as a part of their diversification plan.
The source further defended the government spending saying: “The finals weekend will an excellent time to showcase this country to the world because millions of eyeballs will be focussed at the Queen’s Park Oval given the fact that the matches will be televised. You really cannot put a price to this and this is why the position was taken to make this investment.”
Meanwhile, fans will get more than their fair share of CPL matches at home because this country’s franchise the Red Steel will be taking part yet again. They are expected to have a number of home matches in the home-and-away round robin phase, leading to the finals weekend.