It is now 3:38 am on Easter Sunday, March 27.
As the kettle begins to hiss, I am totally unaware of the score in this country’s crucial World Cup qualifier,m away from home versus Guatemala. Like everyone else, I assumed that our only national television station with the capacity, marketing ability and expertise would certainly televise the match.
Boy, was I wrong!
Little did I know that some supremely intelligent people at TV6 had decided that I would prefer to view a show titled: “Dead Man’s Gun,” followed by the intellectually stimulating Saturday movie double — “Lost World, The Jurassic Park’” and “Mermaid,” instead of allowing my two young children, who happen to be involved in sport, to stay up late to see their countrymen try and acquire this country’s first points on the road to qualification for Germany 2006.
Win, lose or draw, it is important for us to see ourselves on the world stage as often as possible. Putting it simply, seeing is believing. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Zinnedine Zidane, Annemika Sorenstam or Mia Hamm are mere actors in a world sporting theatre. We admire their performances from afar. They are as real to us as the resurrected dinosaurs on “Jurassic Park.”
The vast majority of us have not been privileged enough to lay our eyes on these superstars in the flesh. Consequently, their achievements on the field of play, while brilliant, do not enable us to fully believe that we, too, can achieve the same levels of greatness. There is always that lingering feeling that they are superhuman and possess a little extra that we will never attain.
Conversely, we have seen, touched, felt and listened to Brian Charles Lara, Ato Boldon, George Bovell III and Hasely Crawford. These great athletes are here. They are us; we are them.
Our children are now able to fully comprehend the possibilities for greatness in these sports. We have beaten the world and if it happened once it can happen again. Young athletes will now be more willing to take risks and sacrifice everything to become a world champion.
Yet, someone at CCN TV6 decided that fiction is more important than reality. That showing us “Dead Man’s Gun” in this day and age, when the murder rate is spiralling out of control and when the headlines in the daily newspapers read “Bloody Friday — 3 die on the road” was a more viable option than showing us our national football team attempting to qualify for the biggest single sporting event in the world.
This led me to peruse the TV guide under “Local TV Schedule,’” focusing specifically on CCN TV6 at prime time between 8 pm and 10 pm nightly.
On Sunday we saw “Spartacus Part 1” followed by “Blue Murder.” At first glance, I thought this could have been a local reality TV show. Luckily for us who love local television, the new season of SPALK began Sunday at 7 30 pm on Gayelle, the Channel.
Normally I would have told readers that this is a shameless plug. Unfortunately, this time it is not.
The TV 6 schedule continued on Easter Monday with “Spartacus Part 2” and “Black Adder,” a British comedy with Rowan Atkinson, based in medieval times, unfortunately a sound knowledge of British Culture is required to understand most of the jokes.
On Tuesday, the day before our clash with Costa Rica at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, we watched a movie named “Ratz” on TV 6, followed by another foreign episode of “Black Adder.”
Just in case you were anxious and could not sleep ahead of the big match, TV 6 will repeat Jurassic Park,” today — the day of the big match.
We are very lucky that we will be out celebrating T&T’s 1-0 victory over Costa Rica, so we would not be forced to torture ourselves by viewing TV 6, who have a Disney Movie “The Kid” all lined up and ready to go, just for us, locals; to be followed by more “Black Adder” and a repeat of “Spartacus.”
That’s enough!
I will stop there, I must not get carried away. I can hear the brilliant strategists, programme managers and marketing experts saying: “Don’t worry with Anil, he does not realise that any type of publicity, even negative, is still publicity.”
Well, if that is true, then take some more. It appears that the only thing local on TV 6 is its location.
Some people may be thinking that the cost of showing the match live from Guatemala was prohibitive. From a reliable source, I have learnt that it would only have cost US $15,000.
That is roughly TT $93,000 to see our national senior football team play in a World Cup qualifier.
More than half the population would have wanted to see the match. With a modicum of effort, sponsors could have been sourced to advertise during the pre-match, half-time and post-match shows, as well as with small billboards during the 90 minutes of uninterrupted coverage.
My source further advised that Jack Warner offered TV 6 to pay half of the cost, yet they declined. On a more personal note, in making and receiving at least 55 calls yesterday — attempting to find a station from which to see the match on satellite TV — I stumbled across three sponsors who were willing to foot the entire bill. One of the companies was Blue Waters, a company that has become synonymous with local sponsorship.
From truly local television stations like Synergy TV and Gayelle The Channel to psuedo local stations like TV 6, Blue Waters is a sponsor of local sport across the board. Yet, my information is that this major sponsor was not even approached to finance the showing of the match. If this is, in fact. true — shame on you, TV 6.
A few people enquired about the possibility of NCC Channel 4 beaming the match. I called their offices, but maybe they have not yet hired a receptionist. I am not even aware if they have the capacity to beam an international event live to the entire country.
If they don’t, Government must accept some responsibility for the debacle.
US$15,000 is small change to allow your people to view their “Warriors.” However, I must note here that Minister of Sport Roger Boynes, like myself and so many others, simply believed that we could have depended on TV 6.
After all, they have been bombarding us with live events from across the globe in which we only have fleeting interests, compared with matches featuring our Warriors. Events like the Champions League, Test cricket between South Africa and Pakistan are beamed live into our homes, but no national football team.
Every other country in the final group of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying saw their team. Mexico played USA, Costa Rica vs Panama and Guatemala played T&T.
Yet our Warriors were sent out on a mission by themselves, playing in a hostile environment in a stadium filled to capacity and bereft of T&T supporters. Our players could not even console themselves with the fact that 1.4 million people were watching, cheering, screaming and fighting with them, because CCN TV 6 operating under a Government licence, decided that the cost was prohibitive and it would be more frugal to show us “The Lost World.”
They must have lost their minds!!
What an absolute disgrace. Ah gone; ah haf tah fine out de score now!
GO WARRIORS — mash them up today!
Oh no!
I just got the score and we were hammered 5- 1.
Goodbye Bertie!!