WICB Acquires CaribbeanCricket.com

Mon, Apr 1, '02

ST JOHN'S, Antigua, April 1st - As we continue to expand our Internet outreach to cricket fans worldwide, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is pleased to announce the acquisition of the CaribbeanCricket.com website. Financial terms of the purchase remains confidential.

This is a strategic deal for us as we look ahead to the World Cup tournament in 2007. In the long term, we plan to merge the CaribbeanCricket.com and WindiesCricket.com web sites to give fans worldwide the ultimate destination for the inside story on West Indies cricket. We are proud to announce it on April 1st.

The acquisition, approved April 1 by the directors of the WICB, includes trademarks, copyrights, domain names, a database of e-mail addresses, the CC Sporadic newsletter. The management of CaribbeanCricket.com remains on board as paid employees of the WICB.

The West Indies Cricket Board will assume full control of the CaribbeanCricket site but each site will maintain independent staff and brand. "We have had an up-and-down history with the CaribbeanCricket.com Website but, once we got down to identifying the strengths and upside, this deal was a no-brainer," said WICB chief executive officer Gregory Shillingford.

"This will improve our relationship with the fans, giving them a voice in the operations of the board. The combined Web sites will belong to all West Indies fans and we would urge continued participations and communications to ensure two-way communications between the WICB and cricket fans throughout the Caribbean and around the world," Shillingford added.

This is truly an amazing acquisition for us. Strategically, it give us credibility with the fans and it allows us another new avenue to market our great game," commented Chris Dehring, the WICB's Chief Marketing Officer.

Both websites will be hosted by Sky Sports (Sky) as part of a previously-announced agreement negotiated by the WICB. "These are state-of-the-art web sites and, because we target an international audience, we want to ensure the web sites are always using the very latest in internet technology," Dehring said.

WICB president Wes Hall, who was part of the extended acquisition negotiations, added: "West Indies cricket is more than just a sport. It is more of a Caribbean lifestyle, admired all over the world. We will make this the ultimate web network for our fans by adding interactivity through polls, games, music, chat forums and quizzes."

EDITOR'S POST APRIL 1ST NOTEWORTHY NOTE: Well, it appears that quite a few people got fooled, including my friends at the Guyana Chronicle, who posted this verbatim report on the obviously fake news. So, in a nutshell, thanks for the congratulatory emails but we haven't completely sold out. yet :)