Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Pro League Larry Romany hailed the level of play and the improving popularity of the Trinidad and Tobago Pro-League at the FCB Cup Prize-giving ceremony that was held at the VIP Lounge of the Hasely Crawford Stadium Thursday night.
Before the main awards were distributed, Romany delivered the feature address, outlining the great improvements the League had made this year.
He cited numbers from a survey conducted by the firm Markets, Fact and Opinion to support his assessment of an increase of awareness by the wider public.
The first survey completed in April with the old Pro-League logo, returned a dismal zero per cent awareness.
"Nobody who they showed the logo to in April knew what it was," stated Romany categorically.
However after some "strategic marketing" that incorporated the use of the media that targeted the 18-25 demographic, and included a new logo--an image of a footballer about to kick a sphere that is part football, part steelpan-the picture changed. Dramatically.
The response from 609 families throughout the country at the end of September, according to Romany, revealed that there was a 23 per cent unprompted awareness to the new logo.
"Most businesses would tell you if you can get a 20 per cent increase then you would have done extremely." Romany said.
The T&TOC vice president detailed a three-part marketing plan involving a corporate identity through the new logo; promotion of new experience in football via entertainment; and a strategy to create links between community and football teams undertaken earlier in the year and t which is currently underway.
He explained that the FCB Cup was a testing ground to prove the worthiness of their marketing scheme.
"One of the problems that we face is that the public didn't believe it (that the Pro League was a good product)." Romany told the audience, "So we used a combination of strategic advertising as well as entertainment and giveaways, food etc,..things that make Trinidadians interested in an event."
He continued: "The whole intention was we wanted to give patrons value for money.... bring entertainment to football, so that people who view football will be excited by it then come back again. From all that we have seen especially from the semifinal and final of the FCB Cup, everything worked beautifully."
Upwards of 5,000 patrons watched the W Connection/Defence Force final while crowds averaged 1,500 for the remained of the play-off tournament.
All in all, Romany said there is reason to be optimistic.
"The future looks very, very bright," concluded Romany, "What we are looking for is that the T&T PRO league football will always be synonymous with quality entertainment."