CAS­TRIES – In a ma­jor move set to rev­o­lu­tionise the busi­ness of sports in Saint Lu­cia, the World In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WIPO) is part­ner­ing with the gov­ern­ment to host a land­mark con­fer­ence aimed at em­pow­er­ing lo­cal ath­letes, sports fed­er­a­tions, and en­tre­pre­neurs.

The two-day event, ti­tled “Be­yond the Game: In­no­va­tion, IP and Sports,” is sched­uled for Au­gust 27 and 28 at the Bay Gar­dens Ho­tel in Rod­ney Bay.

Its mis­sion is clear, and that is to equip the na­tion’s sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty with the knowl­edge to lever­age in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (IP) rights for greater fi­nan­cial gain and long-term se­cu­ri­ty.

The con­fer­ence sig­nals a recog­ni­tion that ath­let­ic ex­cel­lence is on­ly one part of the equa­tion for suc­cess.

For too long, lo­cal ath­letes and sport­ing bod­ies may have missed out on the full eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial of their brands, lega­cy, and in­no­va­tions. This ini­tia­tive aims to change that, ac­cord­ing to the or­gan­is­ers.

“Our is­land boasts im­mense sport­ing tal­ent,” said a gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in­volved in the plan­ning. “In­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty pro­vides a vi­tal path­way for our ath­letes and our sport­ing in­sti­tu­tions to se­cure last­ing val­ue from that tal­ent, long af­ter the fi­nal whis­tle has blown.”

The event, a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween WIPO, the Reg­istry of Com­pa­nies and In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty, the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Sports, and the Min­istry of Tourism, In­for­ma­tion, Broad­cast­ing, Cul­ture and Cre­ative In­dus­tries, will bring to­geth­er a pow­er­ful mix of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts.

Par­tic­i­pants will in­clude pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes, sports of­fi­cials, busi­ness en­tre­pre­neurs, and le­gal pro­fes­sion­als. They will re­ceive cru­cial train­ing in key com­mer­cial ar­eas, in­clud­ing Brand­ing, Build­ing and pro­tect­ing a pow­er­ful per­son­al or team brand.

Li­cens­ing & mer­chan­dis­ing, con­trol­ling and prof­it­ing from the use of lo­gos, names, and im­ages on mer­chan­dise, as well as Me­dia Rights, un­der­stand­ing the val­ue of broad­cast and con­tent rights.

CMC