The Davis Cup tie is upon us as our National Men Tennis players seek to elevate the country to Zone II in host country El Salvador. As of this writing, two national basketball teams are in Kingston, Jamaica competing in the Caribbean Basketball Confederation Championships.
Those disciplines and a goodly number of others including the Bahamian international leader, athletics, are preparing also for the XX Central American and Caribbean Games next month in Cartagena, Colombia. And so, more and more in these times, activities abound for our sports representatives.
They are traveling all over the globe, all of the time.
Money is required for this large-scale representation of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, lots of money.
The Ministry of Sports through its limited coffers cannot begin to fund it all. Corporate Bahamas can do only so much. Accordingly, a lot more representation can be done and much more quality performances could well go on record if there was enough money to go around, to cover the cost of travel and the like.
If ever a situation begged for mass funding like that which would come from a sports lottery, we are confronted with one.
More and more now, Bahamians are stepping up and voicing their views, professional persons with integrity like banker Michael Lightbourne and others like one Frederick Bowen, somewhat of a scribe.
Bowen for instance advocates a strategy of selecting core sports organizations to prioritize. He says, "start somewhere and add other sporting categories as time, facilities and funding permit. At the outset, only the selected core sports will receive funding and promotion from the national purse. You cannot be all things to all men at this initial juncture."
He speaks further to the $30 million gift made to The Bahamas by China. In that regard, he would use the $30 million "to build on our notion of The Bahamas becoming a Sports Power. It is not a lot to invest but it needs to be invested wisely so that it will sustain itself…and grow further."
Well, the Chinese Government made the gesture particularly to build a national stadium. I don’t know that The Bahamas Government would be in order to shift those funds.
As for selecting core sports to promote, to a great degree, the Government through the Ministry of Sports does that now. There are special grants to those core sports and also on numerous occasions those very same disciplines go back to the well for more funding. The Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations is the best example. The Government again through its sports ministry vehicle, almost always delivers.
The big problem though is that not enough is in the bucket to serve the full purpose and enable this little country, blessed abundantly by God, to come near to maximizing its sports potential.
The answer is certainly a national sports lottery.
It ought to be established, but whether we have the collective temerity to do so is another matter.
A lottery would solve all of our sports funding problems, for sure.
- Austin DWI - New York DWI