JNA drafting marketing plan

Robert Bailey, Gleaner Writer

In a bid to improve efficiency and effectiveness, the Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) is currently undergoing a restructuring process aimed at making the organisation more competitive in the sports business market.

Marva Bernard, president of the JNA, told a specially organised Gleaner Editors' Forum on the role of sports in national development, at the company's offices yesterday, that her association will be embarking on a new thrust to bring netball closer to the forefront of national consciousness.

"We are going through a period of restructuring now and we are going to be moving the thing of a council to a board," said Bernard.

"Our current council is very hands-on and so we really have only four paid staff members and 11 volunteers," she said.

"But the board now is going to have to be directing policy, it has to be hybrid until we have enough resources to pay the staff that we need to complete the chart that we have," Bernard said.

The JNA is currently without a main sponsor, as long-time partners Digicel did not renew its sponsorship to the netball programme.

Marketing strategies

The JNA boss also added that her administration will be rolling out a number of new marketing strategies, which are aimed at attracting corporate sponsors to the netball association.

"We are going to rebrand the package and make it attractive for other investors to come," said Bernard. "It means that we are going to introduce some new products and then take it to the market."

The JNA has been struggling to finance the various national teams for overseas assignments, despite receiving a monthly stipend from the Government through the Sports Develop-ment Foundation.

Sending the national team to last year's World Netball Championships in Singapore, where the team finished fourth, cost the JNA in the region of $24 million.

For the JNA to bring top teams here, it costs about $6 million. It costs significantly more if the national team is to travel abroad to play those matches as airfare and hotel accommodation would have to be factored in.

Major netball sponsors include Supreme Ventures, Scotiabank (the under-13 squad), Jamaica National Building Society (league matches), Berger Paints (Super League), and Best Dressed Chicken. Still, the JNA is in need of more help financially.

That is why the introduction of this new marketing strategy is so essential.

"We have been a sleeping giant because we have not marketed ourselves, and to market yourself, you have to have staff," said the JNA boss.

"We're trying to find a marketing officer and we don't have the benefit, and so you can't get who you want to get because you don't have any benefits," Bernard reasoned.