Rethinking How Trinidad and Tobago Funds Sport and Culture
By Nigel Gittens
For more than five decades, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has played a central role in financing sport and culture. Through the Ministry of Sport and Community Development and the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, successive administrations have provided grants, subsidies, and direct interventions intended to nurture athletes, artists, and cultural organisations.
These programmes have remained active over the last five years and continue to expand as Carnival 2026 approaches. Yet a fundamental question persists: have these investments delivered the level of excellence, professionalism, and sustainability that the country’s immense talent deserves?
On the sporting side, public funding is structured and extensive. National Governing Bodies, community organisations, and individual athletes can access grants to support development programmes, acquire equipment, rent facilities, host events, and represent the country internationally.
Elite performers benefit from targeted assistance programmes that cover training, coaching, medical support, and travel, with some awards reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sport-for-development initiatives also aim to harness athletics as a tool for social inclusion, community upliftment, and public health.
Culture and Carnival receive similar attention. Annual allocations to the National Carnival Commission fund major events and provide subventions to bands, cultural bodies, and regional organisations.
Additional grants are available to community-based and faith-based groups involved in the creative sector, while Tobago has introduced targeted funding to support Carnival entrepreneurs and tourism stakeholders. In raw fiscal terms, the State’s commitment is substantial and visible.
However, as the annual Carnival cycle repeats and funding requests once again dominate public discourse, it is reasonable to ask what lasting benefits have accrued. Have our artists become more professional, more innovative, and more economically secure?
Have our athletes reached closer to their full competitive potential and achieved sustainable careers? Or has a culture of dependency quietly replaced the pursuit of excellence?
Despite popular belief that Trinidad and Tobago “punches above its weight” in sport, the reality is that performance levels remain far below what our talent base could support. In culture, progress has been even more uneven. Over the past two decades, artistic development has been largely stagnant, with many practitioners forced to seek training, exposure, and income abroad.
Government handouts, while well intentioned, have not consistently incentivised professionalism, entrepreneurship, or world-class output. In many cases, they have merely sustained participation rather than driven advancement.
A core weakness of the current model is that it treats sport and culture primarily as social activities to be subsidised, rather than as industries to be built. Prize money and grants, by their nature, are finite and subject to fiscal pressures.
They rarely create the conditions for long-term financial independence. International experience shows that the real economic engine in sport and entertainment is not state subvention, but private-sector sponsorship, endorsements, and commercially viable platforms.
This is where a broader economic reform, such as site value taxation, could fundamentally alter the landscape. By encouraging more productive use of land and stimulating business activity, such a system would expand the private sector’s need for effective advertising and brand representation.
Globally, there is no more powerful marketing tool than successful athletes and cultural icons. Companies like Nike and Adidas have built empires by aligning their brands with elite performers, paying them not for winning prize money but for embodying excellence, discipline, and aspiration.
If similar dynamics could be cultivated locally, the implications would be transformative. Instead of competing annually for limited state grants, athletes and artists could earn income through endorsements, appearances, and long-term sponsorship contracts.
Funding would no longer be capped by government budgets but linked to performance, professionalism, and public appeal. The incentive structure would shift decisively toward excellence.
At present, the dependency created by public handouts has had unintended consequences. When funding falls short, there is often public outcry and political pressure, which benefits neither the artist nor the art form.
Sustainable industries cannot be built on annual uncertainty. True resilience comes from self-reliance—earning revenue from performances, merchandise, intellectual property, and sponsorship, rather than expecting the State to fill every gap.
A reformed system would also address a long-standing structural challenge: access to space and facilities. Many cultural groups struggle with insecure tenure and inadequate venues, leading to legal disputes and underutilised assets. Under a more rational land-use regime, groups could establish permanent headquarters, rehearsal spaces, and performance venues.
Purpose-built amphitheatres, theatres, and cultural centres could host year-round programming, transforming entertainment into a continuous economic activity rather than a seasonal one.
The private sector vs the State
For sport, the benefits would be similar. Private sponsors could own or lease facilities used by their endorsed teams or athletes, as is common in professional leagues abroad.
National competitions could be underwritten by corporate partnerships, reducing the financial burden on the State while improving organisation, transparency, and professionalism.
In such an environment, indiscipline and underperformance would carry real consequences, as sponsorships depend on behaviour and results.
The private sector, in turn, would gain tangible value. Brands associated with successful teams or cultural icons would enjoy authentic exposure and loyalty.
Sponsors could also remain involved after athletes and artists retire, leveraging their enduring public appeal while ensuring that a portion of endorsement income supports long-term financial security.
This is not to suggest that the State has no role. On the contrary, its role should be redefined. Currently, government bears almost the entire cost of funding activities, maintaining facilities, and attempting to foster self-reliance through grant criteria.
Despite detailed eligibility requirements—ranging from audited accounts to strategic plans—few organisations have evolved into viable economic entities with international reach.
A more effective role for the State is that of facilitator rather than financier of last resort. Two areas stand out: education and infrastructure. Sport and culture remain marginal in the formal education system, despite being areas of national strength.
There are no dedicated secondary or tertiary institutions focused primarily on athletic or artistic development. Establishing sport schools, academies, and arts institutions on both islands would provide structured pathways for talent, combining core academics with specialised training.
Such institutions could be managed by professional education organisations, staffed by locally and internationally recruited experts. They would also serve as training grounds for coaches, managers, and mentors—roles that are critically underdeveloped but essential to elite performance. The performance gap between developed and developing countries is largely a gap in systems, coaching quality, and facilities, not raw talent.
Infrastructure is the second pillar. Trinidad and Tobago has hundreds of recreation grounds, stadia, and community centres, many in poor condition and costly to maintain.
Over time, the State should transfer management responsibility to the private sector through medium- and long-term leases that include refurbishment obligations.
Sponsored venues tied to viable teams or cultural groups would become active community hubs, fostering loyalty, patronage, and economic sustainability.
In this facilitative role, the State would still organise national and regional competitions across age groups and disciplines. These events would showcase talent, attract sponsors, raise performance standards, and generate economic activity.
As quality improves, regional and international success would follow naturally, opening the door to lucrative contracts for local stars.
The challenge facing Trinidad and Tobago is not a lack of talent, nor even a lack of public spending. It is the absence of an economically viable structure within which sport and culture can thrive. Handouts alone cannot solve this.
A shift toward professionalism, private-sector engagement, and strategic state facilitation offers a more credible path to excellence—and to ensuring that our athletes and artists can finally make a world-class living from world-class talent.
Nigel Gittens is an author of four books on socio-economic philosophy. He has been an avid reader and student on the subject for the past forty three years. He is a graduate of both University of the West Indies (BSc. Hons. Civil Engineering) and Henley Management College, UK (MBA). He can be reached at nigelgittens@gmail.com.
