November 29, 2024 • 11 mins
Todd Bryant has recently begun his new role as Cricket Wellington CEO, following a long tenure at Capital Football.
He joined Adam Cooper to discuss his move across codes, and what his focuses will be early on.
They also discussed the club game, high performance expectations for the Blaze and Firebirds, and how the Basin Reserve can continue to be one of the country's top cricket venues.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great Toby company here on Wellington's News Talk ZB and
well with the home international summer of cricket underway, wanted
to chat a little bit more cricket now on a
local level, especially as we count down to the Basin
Reserve Black Caps England Test starting this coming Friday Test
too in the series. Of course, Day one of a
Test at the Basin for me is probably even more
exciting than Christmas Day. It's such a good occasion, especially
(00:24):
when we have England in town. Well there's been a
bit of a changing of the guard at Cricket Wellington
through the off season. Todd Bryant has been appointed the
new CEO. He joins Cricket Wellington after a long tenure
at Capital Football. It's included acting CEO and general manager
through his time. Todd joins us now this morning to
have a bit of a chat about his new role
(00:44):
and what is happening at Cricket Wellington heading into another
summer morning. To Todd, thanks for your time. Can you
firstly just let us know how the code switch came
to be, why you decided to make the move from
football to cricket.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, I think yeah, Week seven this week it's really
quickly ten years in football, which where I looked after
really well, a lot of good mentors Richard read at
Capital Football and an opportunity came up with cricket Wellington
and having a cricket background growing up, I was a
week keeper batsman.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Having an opportunity to come back into a.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Sport that I loved, I couldn't couldn't not do it
and I played.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
For the role and was successful. So yeah, cricket Wellington
is a lot different. It's got you know, the community, the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
High performance arm and the Pathway's arm and you know,
a young ambitious man I am going into a roll
out there.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I couldn't not take the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, I mean, how how daunting is it seeing your
emails signature and saying CEO next to it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, you pinched yourself right. You work in sport. It's
a job at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's actually a passion in being out of service for community,
look after players, you know, work within the network.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
You know, it's a dream.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
If I look back when I was seventeen years betting
on the base and reserve in a school game and
I thought I was going to the CEO one day.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I would have probably laughed at myself. But here we are.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
You mentioned, you know, a cricketing background, but a decade
working in football. How important is it from what you've
gathered in your time working in the professional sports industry
that someone from a different code with a bit of
experience elsewhere comes in to the environment to offer maybe
some some different thoughts and things.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, sport in New Zealanders, I think we're unique compared
to you know, potentially the rest of the world, and
there's a lot of similarities between the codes, but also
a lot of differences.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I think I do bring a probably a fresh thought process,
you know, a background another sport that's got some really
good systems as part of it. How can I apply
them to the cricket network is probably a strength and
football is growing. It's a massive sport internationally, but when
you look at cricket from an international point of view,
(02:55):
New Zealand's really successful and the community game.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Is also a massive part of the game. So yeah,
I'm learning on the job.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I don't have all the answers at the moment, Adam,
which I'm not going to try and tell you I do,
but yeah, I'm looking forward to what's to come.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
What were you most proud of through your time at
Capital Football, where of course most recently you're wrapped up
as the general manager there.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, the highlight of my time in football was a
Women's World Cup last year.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
That was a pretty special.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Moment and I think women's sport in New Zealand is
such a good opportunity and that's something I'm really keen
to bring in with my energy into cricket.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
How do we elevate the women's game.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
More because I just think, yes, there's so much opportunity there.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I guess you've had almost two months in the role now,
as you mentioned before, and I'm sure you were given
some direction from the board as to what some of
the priorities of cricket Wellington are, both both long term
and short term. Whereas those priorities now, is there anything
that you're immediately addressing or looking to work on at
this early stage of your tenure.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Again, I don't think it's unique to cricket, but financially
it's pretty pretty tough at the moment, particularly in Wellington,
so I put a big focus on trying to set
the direction from a financial point of view for cricket
Wellings and moving forward, and we've made some pretty good
steps in a short time that I've been in the
role from a participation point of view, where we're not
growing like football. But how do we how do we
(04:20):
lock to diverse by the game? How do we how
do we look to look after our existing network and
make sure the game stribes in Wellington. We're unique, We're
quite nimble for a small region compared to some of
the others around the around the country, and I think
that's an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
We've got a great board.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I feel very privileged to be able to work
with them and I've got their full support.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We see a lot of different sports organizations have similar sponsors.
I think of a range of companies that you see
pop up, like you know, Rutherford and Bond or Gazely,
just to think of a few that spring to mind.
Does it always going to have to be all the
different sports bodies saying a city like Wellington compete for
that dollar or is there a way you can kind
of join forces together and have a collective kind of
(05:04):
way of funding each other.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I think yeah, I think nothing's off off the page.
I think as we sort of move forwards, we need
to be innovative. We need to look at how we
do things differently, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
We're very fortunate we've got a good range of of
sponsors that look after us. But I understand, you know,
times are tough at the moment, So how do we
(05:28):
how do we collectively work together to you know, make
sure that sport in general continues to be a big
part of the New Zealand febric.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Do your two flagship teams are the Blaze and the
Firebirds At a domestic level, obviously the big focus in
terms of getting crowds and engagement is that the Super
Smash T twenty competition, which is a few weeks away.
Both of these teams have been successful for a number
of years now, so what kind of high performance expectations
have been set on the Blaze and Firebirds this summer
(05:57):
Across the formats.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Wellington's had a pretty good run recently with both the
Five Beers and Blaze. We've got seven black cats in
our environment and five white fins, which is fantastic. The
Blaze won the Super Smash last year and the Five
Birds won the Flunket Shield, So I think there's a
little bit of pressure on us. We can continue and
Jugo and Lance leading those teams respectively is important and they're.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Going to do a great job.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It's you know, the season's well underway and it's you know,
having them play at the base in reserve is fantastic.
How do we how do we get more people to
the game? I think people will come. Obviously we've got
England here next week playing against the black Cats, which
is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
So I'm I guess being new.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Into the rolling and a look and observe and I
think the high performance team will look after themselves. But
I think the game we've got a I'm going to
have a really good look at it and how do
I support them to perform?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And I guess similarly to Capital all that you know,
part of the role of cricket Wellington is looking after
the club game across the region here. How have you
found in your time, particularly in football from a management level,
just just to know you make sure that everyone involved
in the club game volunteers, all those at the grassroots
level do feel loved and do feel valued.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Well. One of the first things I did when I
got my feet under the desk is. I actually reached
out to all the clubs and met them on their
turf to understand how they're tracking, what their challenges are.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
How can Cricket well into and support them better. That
was quite a refreshing process.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
And you know the club network is doing well, but
as you know, you know volunteer base, you know the
time commitment they've all got, you know, pretty pretty general
challenges that they're incredibly passionate about what they do. So
how do I support them and channel their energy to
get good outcomes for Club cricket Because at the end
of the day, you know, club cricket is sort of
the bread and butter of what we do and with
(07:52):
out at the cricket will't exist.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
And just to wrap up Todd, what a starts the
Attenure the first big event of the summer as is
the biggest, the Black Camps England test at the Base
in Reserve starting Friday. I know you've spent a couple
of days down at to Hagle Oval seeing things, checking
it out before it heads here to Wellington next weekend.
How exciting is this for for cricket Wellington to have
tests two of this big series in town next week.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
International cricket at the Base in Reserve is the pinnacle
of cricket in my opinion. It's a great, great ground
and having England tour who always tour really well here
with good supporters is a great opportunity to showcase the game.
I'm Brenda McCallum been the head coach of England. He
(08:38):
was one of my childhood sort of favorites growing up
and a week keeper myself, and he also scored three
hundred runs at the Base in Reserve many years ago.
So I think it's there's so much opportunity there and
I'm hoping the weather plays its part and you know
we can put on a good spectacle for the Wellington community.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And also also the rest of the nation.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And I'm hoping we can continue to host you know,
big fixtures like that moving forward. We've got India coming
in a couple of years and we've got the West
Indies next year.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's pretty special.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And you mentioned right at the start, told as someone
that's played cricket at the Base and Reserve, being being
very heavily involved in cricket, how important to you is
the basin and everything that comes with it. Preserving I
guess the history, but making sure it's also I guess,
meeting worldwide standards when you've got a ground that that
is centuries old.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, well yeah, the history at the Basement is second
to none. And we've spent a lot of time in
the off season actually putting some new developments into the
facility to make sure it does continue to meet the
standards of intentional cricket. We've got a new screen that's
just gone and we've got new size screens that have
just gone. And Ryan Holland, our venue manager, has done
a fantastic job along with Lisa Jones. So where the
(09:50):
Basemin is going to continue to be a facility in
my opinion that will host international cricket and we've just
got to continue to develop it because you can't not
have cricket in New Zealand the played at the Basin
in my opinion, Is there any going to.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Be a time do you think when you know, the
likes of football could play some bigger games that may
be too small for sky Stadium at the Basin or
even other sports rugby.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
It depends who you ask.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The traditionalists might say no that I think you know,
nothing's off off the cards. There is a lot of
in the off season in the winter, football and rugby
does play on the basin, so you know potentially you know,
football got played there years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I think Merma Rangers might have won to shut them
up there, so maybe, but at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It is, in my opinion you know the cricket ground
and you've got to respect that too well.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So I'd great to have you on board. I know
a lot of people around the cricketing scene are excited
to see what you're going to bring to the role
based on a very successful time it's at Capital Football.
So thanks for chatting mate, and all the best for
that the busy week ahead but also the summer ahead
as well as you sort of firm up being in
the role. So thanks for your time.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Cheers that I really appreciate it. For more from News
Talks B listen live on air or online and
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Keep our shows you wherever you go with our podcasts
on iHeartRadio.
Great Toby company here on Wellington's News Talk ZB and
well with the home international summer of cricket underway, wanted
to chat a little bit more cricket now on a
local level, especially as we count down to the Basin
Reserve Black Caps England Test starting this coming Friday Test
too in the series. Of course, Day one of a
Test at the Basin for me is probably even more
exciting than Christmas Day. It's such a good occasion, especially
(00:24):
when we have England in town. Well there's been a
bit of a changing of the guard at Cricket Wellington
through the off season. Todd Bryant has been appointed the
new CEO. He joins Cricket Wellington after a long tenure
at Capital Football. It's included acting CEO and general manager
through his time. Todd joins us now this morning to
have a bit of a chat about his new role
(00:44):
and what is happening at Cricket Wellington heading into another
summer morning. To Todd, thanks for your time. Can you
firstly just let us know how the code switch came
to be, why you decided to make the move from
football to cricket.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, I think yeah, Week seven this week it's really
quickly ten years in football, which where I looked after
really well, a lot of good mentors Richard read at
Capital Football and an opportunity came up with cricket Wellington
and having a cricket background growing up, I was a
week keeper batsman.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Having an opportunity to come back into a.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Sport that I loved, I couldn't couldn't not do it
and I played.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
For the role and was successful. So yeah, cricket Wellington
is a lot different. It's got you know, the community, the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
High performance arm and the Pathway's arm and you know,
a young ambitious man I am going into a roll
out there.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I couldn't not take the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, I mean, how how daunting is it seeing your
emails signature and saying CEO next to it.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, you pinched yourself right. You work in sport. It's
a job at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's actually a passion in being out of service for community,
look after players, you know, work within the network.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
You know, it's a dream.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
If I look back when I was seventeen years betting
on the base and reserve in a school game and
I thought I was going to the CEO one day.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I would have probably laughed at myself. But here we are.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
You mentioned, you know, a cricketing background, but a decade
working in football. How important is it from what you've
gathered in your time working in the professional sports industry
that someone from a different code with a bit of
experience elsewhere comes in to the environment to offer maybe
some some different thoughts and things.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, sport in New Zealanders, I think we're unique compared
to you know, potentially the rest of the world, and
there's a lot of similarities between the codes, but also
a lot of differences.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I think I do bring a probably a fresh thought process,
you know, a background another sport that's got some really
good systems as part of it. How can I apply
them to the cricket network is probably a strength and
football is growing. It's a massive sport internationally, but when
you look at cricket from an international point of view,
(02:55):
New Zealand's really successful and the community game.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Is also a massive part of the game. So yeah,
I'm learning on the job.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I don't have all the answers at the moment, Adam,
which I'm not going to try and tell you I do,
but yeah, I'm looking forward to what's to come.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
What were you most proud of through your time at
Capital Football, where of course most recently you're wrapped up
as the general manager there.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, the highlight of my time in football was a
Women's World Cup last year.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
That was a pretty special.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Moment and I think women's sport in New Zealand is
such a good opportunity and that's something I'm really keen
to bring in with my energy into cricket.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
How do we elevate the women's game.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
More because I just think, yes, there's so much opportunity there.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I guess you've had almost two months in the role now,
as you mentioned before, and I'm sure you were given
some direction from the board as to what some of
the priorities of cricket Wellington are, both both long term
and short term. Whereas those priorities now, is there anything
that you're immediately addressing or looking to work on at
this early stage of your tenure.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Again, I don't think it's unique to cricket, but financially
it's pretty pretty tough at the moment, particularly in Wellington,
so I put a big focus on trying to set
the direction from a financial point of view for cricket
Wellings and moving forward, and we've made some pretty good
steps in a short time that I've been in the
role from a participation point of view, where we're not
growing like football. But how do we how do we
(04:20):
lock to diverse by the game? How do we how
do we look to look after our existing network and
make sure the game stribes in Wellington. We're unique, We're
quite nimble for a small region compared to some of
the others around the around the country, and I think
that's an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
We've got a great board.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, I feel very privileged to be able to work
with them and I've got their full support.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
We see a lot of different sports organizations have similar sponsors.
I think of a range of companies that you see
pop up, like you know, Rutherford and Bond or Gazely,
just to think of a few that spring to mind.
Does it always going to have to be all the
different sports bodies saying a city like Wellington compete for
that dollar or is there a way you can kind
of join forces together and have a collective kind of
(05:04):
way of funding each other.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
I think yeah, I think nothing's off off the page.
I think as we sort of move forwards, we need
to be innovative. We need to look at how we
do things differently, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.
We're very fortunate we've got a good range of of
sponsors that look after us. But I understand, you know,
times are tough at the moment, So how do we
(05:28):
how do we collectively work together to you know, make
sure that sport in general continues to be a big
part of the New Zealand febric.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Do your two flagship teams are the Blaze and the
Firebirds At a domestic level, obviously the big focus in
terms of getting crowds and engagement is that the Super
Smash T twenty competition, which is a few weeks away.
Both of these teams have been successful for a number
of years now, so what kind of high performance expectations
have been set on the Blaze and Firebirds this summer
(05:57):
Across the formats.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Wellington's had a pretty good run recently with both the
Five Beers and Blaze. We've got seven black cats in
our environment and five white fins, which is fantastic. The
Blaze won the Super Smash last year and the Five
Birds won the Flunket Shield, So I think there's a
little bit of pressure on us. We can continue and
Jugo and Lance leading those teams respectively is important and they're.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Going to do a great job.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
It's you know, the season's well underway and it's you know,
having them play at the base in reserve is fantastic.
How do we how do we get more people to
the game? I think people will come. Obviously we've got
England here next week playing against the black Cats, which
is fantastic.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
So I'm I guess being new.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Into the rolling and a look and observe and I
think the high performance team will look after themselves. But
I think the game we've got a I'm going to
have a really good look at it and how do
I support them to perform?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
And I guess similarly to Capital all that you know,
part of the role of cricket Wellington is looking after
the club game across the region here. How have you
found in your time, particularly in football from a management level,
just just to know you make sure that everyone involved
in the club game volunteers, all those at the grassroots
level do feel loved and do feel valued.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Well. One of the first things I did when I
got my feet under the desk is. I actually reached
out to all the clubs and met them on their
turf to understand how they're tracking, what their challenges are.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
How can Cricket well into and support them better. That
was quite a refreshing process.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
And you know the club network is doing well, but
as you know, you know volunteer base, you know the
time commitment they've all got, you know, pretty pretty general
challenges that they're incredibly passionate about what they do. So
how do I support them and channel their energy to
get good outcomes for Club cricket Because at the end
of the day, you know, club cricket is sort of
the bread and butter of what we do and with
(07:52):
out at the cricket will't exist.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
And just to wrap up Todd, what a starts the
Attenure the first big event of the summer as is
the biggest, the Black Camps England test at the Base
in Reserve starting Friday. I know you've spent a couple
of days down at to Hagle Oval seeing things, checking
it out before it heads here to Wellington next weekend.
How exciting is this for for cricket Wellington to have
tests two of this big series in town next week.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
International cricket at the Base in Reserve is the pinnacle
of cricket in my opinion. It's a great, great ground
and having England tour who always tour really well here
with good supporters is a great opportunity to showcase the game.
I'm Brenda McCallum been the head coach of England. He
(08:38):
was one of my childhood sort of favorites growing up
and a week keeper myself, and he also scored three
hundred runs at the Base in Reserve many years ago.
So I think it's there's so much opportunity there and
I'm hoping the weather plays its part and you know
we can put on a good spectacle for the Wellington community.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And also also the rest of the nation.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And I'm hoping we can continue to host you know,
big fixtures like that moving forward. We've got India coming
in a couple of years and we've got the West
Indies next year.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's pretty special.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
And you mentioned right at the start, told as someone
that's played cricket at the Base and Reserve, being being
very heavily involved in cricket, how important to you is
the basin and everything that comes with it. Preserving I
guess the history, but making sure it's also I guess,
meeting worldwide standards when you've got a ground that that
is centuries old.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah, well yeah, the history at the Basement is second
to none. And we've spent a lot of time in
the off season actually putting some new developments into the
facility to make sure it does continue to meet the
standards of intentional cricket. We've got a new screen that's
just gone and we've got new size screens that have
just gone. And Ryan Holland, our venue manager, has done
a fantastic job along with Lisa Jones. So where the
(09:50):
Basemin is going to continue to be a facility in
my opinion that will host international cricket and we've just
got to continue to develop it because you can't not
have cricket in New Zealand the played at the Basin
in my opinion, Is there any going to.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Be a time do you think when you know, the
likes of football could play some bigger games that may
be too small for sky Stadium at the Basin or
even other sports rugby.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
It depends who you ask.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The traditionalists might say no that I think you know,
nothing's off off the cards. There is a lot of
in the off season in the winter, football and rugby
does play on the basin, so you know potentially you know,
football got played there years ago.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
I think Merma Rangers might have won to shut them
up there, so maybe, but at the end of the day.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
It is, in my opinion you know the cricket ground
and you've got to respect that too well.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So I'd great to have you on board. I know
a lot of people around the cricketing scene are excited
to see what you're going to bring to the role
based on a very successful time it's at Capital Football.
So thanks for chatting mate, and all the best for
that the busy week ahead but also the summer ahead
as well as you sort of firm up being in
the role. So thanks for your time.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Cheers that I really appreciate it. For more from News
Talks B listen live on air or online and
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Keep our shows you wherever you go with our podcasts
on iHeartRadio.
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