The owners of the Red Steel are looking beyond their team and has a long term plan to improve cricket in this country and as a result, they have decided that not a single cent of the profits made by their franchise will leave these shores.
This is the word from co-owner of the team Jon Talarico the CEO and chairman of Empire Marketing Company out of New York. Talarico is part owner of the team with the other owner being Sri Lankan businessman and owner of Lycamobile, Subash Allirajah.
In an exclusive interview with the T&T Guardian, Talarico said : “We are not going to take the profits out of Trinidad and Tobago. We have decided that we are in this to assist in the development of the game in T&T and we are going to re-invest every cent into the development of the young people you have here playing the sport.
“We will continue to make the Red Steel stronger and stronger and we will be putting things in place to assist the players and management, in order that we have the best chance in any tournament we play.
“Mr Subash through his company has assisted with cricket development in Sri Lanka, England and even in the Indian Premier League (IPL), so the story is the same here.” Lycamobile is the biggest pre-paid Sim distribution company in the world and investments in many countries. Empire Marketing Company manages entertainers and deals in the lucrative entertainment industry.”
Talarico said the reason they decided to invest in the Red Steel was because of the fact that this country produced the best T20 team in the Caribbean. “Trinidad has the best T20 team in the Caribbean and for this reason we decided to invest in this team. Also we find that the people in this country are very passionate about the sport and also very knowledgeable. With all this in mind and given the great talent you have on the Red Steel team, we decided to get on board and we have decided to stay the course and assist not only this team but cricket in this country. We want to get down into the communities and assist as well. If we want to make a great contribution then we need to get down into the communities and get to the youths and this is what we are going to do.
“We like our captain Dwayne Bravo very much and we also like the foreign players and the others who have been assembled on this team. The young talent on this team is amazing and we are to be involved with people like Nicholas Pooran, who had an amazing game against the Guyana Amazon Warriors. What a talent he is and with players like these we are going to come back from our first two losses and go on and win this tournament.”