May 7, 2026 • 10 mins
New Zealand Rugby's global search for a new chief executive has led them back to their own offices.
Steve Lancaster has been confirmed as the new boss of NZR.
The former Crusader has been serving as the interim CEO for the last six months, having stepped up from his role as general manager of community rugby.
Chairman David Kirk told Mike Hosking that originally they didn’t have a strong understanding of the executive talent, so they thought they had to go global to find a new CEO.
However, he says, when Lancaster was executing the interim role, it became more obvious to them that he was highly capable in a broader role than they had suspected.
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Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So a big day for the national game yesterday, as
(00:01):
the Rugby Union announced a president, a CEO, and a
loss to the bottom line, although we'll explain that in
just a couple of moments. David Kirk is the union chair,
of course, and he's back. Well, it's good to see you.
Good morning night politics. First, without getting too controversial, first
woman president. There's your headline, first woman president. Why do
we still fixate on gender when the best person should
have the job and I'm assuming she's the best person
(00:22):
for the job, she happens to be a woman.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Correct, Yes, I'm not sure if I god to that.
I mean, we just do. And that's a general societal thing.
It's a transition. We're making. Progress, we're making and we're
delighted to in a way contribute to it. But you're right.
We didn't choose Erin because she was a woman. We
chose her because she's an excellent candidate and she was
nominated by the Wellington Union. We moved between Northern, Central
(00:45):
and Southern for our presidents and the Central region nominated
Aaron which was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Explain the Steve Lancaster thing. You tried very well, I
thought yesterday, but Steve's in the job, and you go,
tell you what, Steve will look around the whole world,
and then having looked at the whole planet, you go, hey, Steve,
guess what.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, Well, things change. I suppose that's the best way
to think about it. We definitely started off and it's
it's it's true that we I think I and I
was underestimated Steve. But we'll come back to that. Things
change when we went into the when the third board
was appointed, and to some extent it was a disadvantage
of completely changing the board last year. We didn't have
a strong understanding of the executive talent. So we thought
(01:27):
we needed to go global for a new chief executive,
and we did that and Steve went into the interim role.
And as Steve started to execute his interrom role, you
a month after month, it became obvious to us, more
obvious to us that he was highly capable in a
broader role than we had suspected. We knew he'd be
great in the community game and around New Zealand, but
(01:48):
he's also you know, completely across the.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Major fundation acually a compromise candidate.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
No, he's not in any you could think he would be,
but not because we've given him an opportunity to demonstrate
that he is absolutely up there.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Because I'm more worried not about him, but I'm worried
about the union. So you do because when you go
to the world, I mean, that's quite the thing to
be able to do. Is if you could take your pick.
Are you still of an attraction that you could get
the best if you wanted it, if they were out
there for your needs?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, I think yes, I definitely think New Zealand Rugby
is a highly sought after sports leadership organization and many
people from a world like would like to do it.
There are challenges with getting be able to come to live
in New Zealand, a long way away from where anyone
international comes from. There are challenges with getting people from
outside New Zealand to really understand our rugby community and
where we have it, the role of our as our
(02:42):
joint role as a national sporting organization, you know, the
community game as well as a global and the leading
global rugby brands and the leading global rugby business is
not common, so it's not you know others out from
people from outside New Zealand will genuinely have to get
to NAAS.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So is that a problem. Is it one of those
things that's been going to change or it is what
it is.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
No, I don't think it's going to change, but that
doesn't mean to say that we won't in the future
continue to have options outside New Zealand because you know,
highly capable executives can make the choke and make the transition.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Explain the headline loss of seven point five versus the
operating profit of seven hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, when you run a business, you start by
getting your revenue and at the top, and then you
have costs associated with driving that revenue and other things
that you need to do in the future. So there's
revenue minus costs and that's just you're operating on a
day to day basis, and accounting laws are always you know,
things that have to be adjusted to get to that,
and we had some we had an additional payment from
(03:45):
any offs at the top that gave us a higher
revenue than we would normally expect in a year, but
we also had some things that were taken out of
the revenue that were one offs as well. So net
network about break even is the best.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Which is where you want to be, which is where
we want to.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Be still sporting organization. We should be reinvesting in the
game and it need to hold the money in the center.
But we also have undertaken this growth strategy over multiple years,
and that was why we introduced Silverlake, which we sold
some forward revenue net revenue, and we've now got a
lot of reserves and so we are prepared to invest
(04:21):
some of those reserves to drive future growth. And that's
where the seven point five comes from. We invested seven
point five of our reserves into growth, and in accounting
rules that seven five has to go through the P
and L.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
We'll explain. So the reason I'm asking that is because
of the cost. So two seven six million and twenty
three three oh three to three eleven, you're spending more,
you would argue, I'm spending more to grow the game. Yes,
are you just spending more for the sake of it?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
That is absolutely the right question. And and the sort
of the subsidiary question is what return are you getting
on that additional spend And it's hard to say in business.
You know people everyone who understands business, WI know you
spend the money now, and you don't know what REI
and you're going to get into a few years play out,
but it's crucial for us to keep an eye on
that and be very clear that what money we're spending
(05:07):
is going to be driving revenue for us in the future.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
See what makes it interesting from your other life a
KMD and stuff. I know you're left in everything, but
I mean it's at the bottom line, you either made
money or you didn't, and you're there to make money.
Here you're trying to do something different because what is
growth and so the World Cup is success. So you
spend to win the World Cup, but all the other
aspects of what you're doing, how do you judge whether
(05:30):
that's actually working or not, whether I perceive it to
be working.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Well, we've got real KPIs across all of those key
performance indicators they're called in the jargon KPIs, and so
that it's very clear what's expected. So for we have
four strategic priorities, winning teams and Blacks and winning World
Cups and other series. A thriving community game where's a
range of different targets we've got there, including participation and
(05:53):
retention targets more than anything else, and in the financial
health of the community game for instance. And then we've
got more generally a growing, profitable and successful business and
that that is, you know, definitely just a normal business
bunch of kris there. And then we've got engagement in
alignment because as you're known as everyone would know that
(06:15):
being a national sporting organization and a major global business,
we need to all be aligned because there are trade
offs all the time we need to make and we
need to understand the issues that we asked to make
trade offs on. So that was, you know, we made
I think, you know, good solid progress on that at
the AGM yesterday.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
How much of your fixed costs, as they say in business,
are a problem? Fixed costs being the players and the unions.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
These are all very good questions. These are these are
these are exactly the things where we're wrestling with the
fixed costs of the players, which is thirty six point
something two or something like that, of the commercially generated revenue,
which is which comes to a round thirty percent of
(07:00):
the total revenue. That's pretty much standard for global sports teams.
I mean some of them. The English Premier League play
out seventies and eighty percent of their revenue to the
players because of the extreme competition for them. But you
know it's about thirty percent, is about right. So that's fixed.
We have to pay out thirty percent of our revenue
(07:21):
about but it's not unreasonable at all. And it's important
for us to keep our best players in the country.
So A they've they've got a pathway to become all
blacks that trains them well enough. And b we've got
competitions in New Zealand that have our best players in them.
So if you'll go along to those competitions for rugby
in particularly.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
How's the revenue stream in terms of take out the
one offs you mentioned in THEOS for example, take take
it and there's a bit of silver l like money
in there, I think as well in terms of one offs,
take out your one offs. And as a revenue stream
as a business, given you've got these fairly high fixed costs,
is it easy to make money or not? Or bring
money into the business or not.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Nothing's easy in business, and nothing's easy in the current
global climate because people are not prepared to make decisions
because they're just waiting to see how things pan out
a bit. But but you know, we've got great brands
and we've got great opportunity to monetize those brands through
new competitions like Runby's greatest rivalry, like the nation's championship,
(08:24):
like the World Cup every four years. So I'm definitely
not saying to you or to New Zealanders, oh this
is all too hard. It's not too hard. We've got
great brands, We've got the opportunity to monetize them well.
And as you and as would say, you know, managing
of cost is in our hands.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Sure, we either do it or we don't. You can
sell the All Blacks these days as much for as
much as you've ever been able to sell the All
Blex for. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Absolutely, Yeah. Your media media rights, we've locked in the
next media cycle. We've got new sponsorships coming up. Certainly
at the moment, we have the we have you know,
record media, commercial media coming from sponsorships and uh and
our media is also kind of up there with you.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
I've got to ask you about Mowana because I know
you're already in the news this morning commenting on it.
Is it valuable to have a an invented side for
unsporting reasons? And has the result of what's happened here
had been you could see it coming a mile away.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It's valuable to have pathways for PACIFICA players rugby players.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Well, why isn't the Hurricanes a pathway?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That there are? They are pathway. All of our all
of our franchises are pathways. And that's exactly right. So
we have those have those pathways and many PACIFICA players,
as you would know, play pay for all of our
five zeb rugby teams. Uh, there is a there's more
of a cultural specific cultural connection for for someone and
and Tommon and Cork Island and Fijian players through Winna Pacifica.
(09:56):
But beyond that, it certainly it and an and an
extra team which provides which has provided actually very few
players who have crossed over to the other franchises and
become all black, so it hasn't produced it. It's not
really for producing all blacks. So you're right, that's a
big question, markam have a fully.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Do you want to die in the ditch over or
if someone's grade, if they don't, that's life.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's the latter, because it's not our job to invest
in an invest in a sixth super rugby team. We've
got five, which are the foundation teams which provide us
with good pathways for the all Blacks, and if someone
else steps up and has prepared fun mine in Pacifica,
that's great. We will be very supportive. We're certainly not
withdrawing any of our support. We're maintaining that, but we're
(10:41):
not going to go any further.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Always a pleasure. You have a good WEEKNDKS mate, Nice
to see you, David Kirk, cheer of the board. For
more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.
It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
So a big day for the national game yesterday, as
(00:01):
the Rugby Union announced a president, a CEO, and a
loss to the bottom line, although we'll explain that in
just a couple of moments. David Kirk is the union chair,
of course, and he's back. Well, it's good to see you.
Good morning night politics. First, without getting too controversial, first
woman president. There's your headline, first woman president. Why do
we still fixate on gender when the best person should
have the job and I'm assuming she's the best person
(00:22):
for the job, she happens to be a woman.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Correct, Yes, I'm not sure if I god to that.
I mean, we just do. And that's a general societal thing.
It's a transition. We're making. Progress, we're making and we're
delighted to in a way contribute to it. But you're right.
We didn't choose Erin because she was a woman. We
chose her because she's an excellent candidate and she was
nominated by the Wellington Union. We moved between Northern, Central
(00:45):
and Southern for our presidents and the Central region nominated
Aaron which was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Explain the Steve Lancaster thing. You tried very well, I
thought yesterday, but Steve's in the job, and you go,
tell you what, Steve will look around the whole world,
and then having looked at the whole planet, you go, hey, Steve,
guess what.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, Well, things change. I suppose that's the best way
to think about it. We definitely started off and it's
it's it's true that we I think I and I
was underestimated Steve. But we'll come back to that. Things
change when we went into the when the third board
was appointed, and to some extent it was a disadvantage
of completely changing the board last year. We didn't have
a strong understanding of the executive talent. So we thought
(01:27):
we needed to go global for a new chief executive,
and we did that and Steve went into the interim role.
And as Steve started to execute his interrom role, you
a month after month, it became obvious to us, more
obvious to us that he was highly capable in a
broader role than we had suspected. We knew he'd be
great in the community game and around New Zealand, but
(01:48):
he's also you know, completely across the.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Major fundation acually a compromise candidate.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
No, he's not in any you could think he would be,
but not because we've given him an opportunity to demonstrate
that he is absolutely up there.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Because I'm more worried not about him, but I'm worried
about the union. So you do because when you go
to the world, I mean, that's quite the thing to
be able to do. Is if you could take your pick.
Are you still of an attraction that you could get
the best if you wanted it, if they were out
there for your needs?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, I think yes, I definitely think New Zealand Rugby
is a highly sought after sports leadership organization and many
people from a world like would like to do it.
There are challenges with getting be able to come to live
in New Zealand, a long way away from where anyone
international comes from. There are challenges with getting people from
outside New Zealand to really understand our rugby community and
where we have it, the role of our as our
(02:42):
joint role as a national sporting organization, you know, the
community game as well as a global and the leading
global rugby brands and the leading global rugby business is
not common, so it's not you know others out from
people from outside New Zealand will genuinely have to get
to NAAS.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
So is that a problem. Is it one of those
things that's been going to change or it is what
it is.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
No, I don't think it's going to change, but that
doesn't mean to say that we won't in the future
continue to have options outside New Zealand because you know,
highly capable executives can make the choke and make the transition.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Explain the headline loss of seven point five versus the
operating profit of seven hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, when you run a business, you start by
getting your revenue and at the top, and then you
have costs associated with driving that revenue and other things
that you need to do in the future. So there's
revenue minus costs and that's just you're operating on a
day to day basis, and accounting laws are always you know,
things that have to be adjusted to get to that,
and we had some we had an additional payment from
(03:45):
any offs at the top that gave us a higher
revenue than we would normally expect in a year, but
we also had some things that were taken out of
the revenue that were one offs as well. So net
network about break even is the best.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Which is where you want to be, which is where
we want to.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Be still sporting organization. We should be reinvesting in the
game and it need to hold the money in the center.
But we also have undertaken this growth strategy over multiple years,
and that was why we introduced Silverlake, which we sold
some forward revenue net revenue, and we've now got a
lot of reserves and so we are prepared to invest
(04:21):
some of those reserves to drive future growth. And that's
where the seven point five comes from. We invested seven
point five of our reserves into growth, and in accounting
rules that seven five has to go through the P
and L.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
We'll explain. So the reason I'm asking that is because
of the cost. So two seven six million and twenty
three three oh three to three eleven, you're spending more,
you would argue, I'm spending more to grow the game. Yes,
are you just spending more for the sake of it?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
That is absolutely the right question. And and the sort
of the subsidiary question is what return are you getting
on that additional spend And it's hard to say in business.
You know people everyone who understands business, WI know you
spend the money now, and you don't know what REI
and you're going to get into a few years play out,
but it's crucial for us to keep an eye on
that and be very clear that what money we're spending
(05:07):
is going to be driving revenue for us in the future.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
See what makes it interesting from your other life a
KMD and stuff. I know you're left in everything, but
I mean it's at the bottom line, you either made
money or you didn't, and you're there to make money.
Here you're trying to do something different because what is
growth and so the World Cup is success. So you
spend to win the World Cup, but all the other
aspects of what you're doing, how do you judge whether
(05:30):
that's actually working or not, whether I perceive it to
be working.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Well, we've got real KPIs across all of those key
performance indicators they're called in the jargon KPIs, and so
that it's very clear what's expected. So for we have
four strategic priorities, winning teams and Blacks and winning World
Cups and other series. A thriving community game where's a
range of different targets we've got there, including participation and
(05:53):
retention targets more than anything else, and in the financial
health of the community game for instance. And then we've
got more generally a growing, profitable and successful business and
that that is, you know, definitely just a normal business
bunch of kris there. And then we've got engagement in
alignment because as you're known as everyone would know that
(06:15):
being a national sporting organization and a major global business,
we need to all be aligned because there are trade
offs all the time we need to make and we
need to understand the issues that we asked to make
trade offs on. So that was, you know, we made
I think, you know, good solid progress on that at
the AGM yesterday.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
How much of your fixed costs, as they say in business,
are a problem? Fixed costs being the players and the unions.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
These are all very good questions. These are these are
these are exactly the things where we're wrestling with the
fixed costs of the players, which is thirty six point
something two or something like that, of the commercially generated revenue,
which is which comes to a round thirty percent of
(07:00):
the total revenue. That's pretty much standard for global sports teams.
I mean some of them. The English Premier League play
out seventies and eighty percent of their revenue to the
players because of the extreme competition for them. But you
know it's about thirty percent, is about right. So that's fixed.
We have to pay out thirty percent of our revenue
(07:21):
about but it's not unreasonable at all. And it's important
for us to keep our best players in the country.
So A they've they've got a pathway to become all
blacks that trains them well enough. And b we've got
competitions in New Zealand that have our best players in them.
So if you'll go along to those competitions for rugby
in particularly.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
How's the revenue stream in terms of take out the
one offs you mentioned in THEOS for example, take take
it and there's a bit of silver l like money
in there, I think as well in terms of one offs,
take out your one offs. And as a revenue stream
as a business, given you've got these fairly high fixed costs,
is it easy to make money or not? Or bring
money into the business or not.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Nothing's easy in business, and nothing's easy in the current
global climate because people are not prepared to make decisions
because they're just waiting to see how things pan out
a bit. But but you know, we've got great brands
and we've got great opportunity to monetize those brands through
new competitions like Runby's greatest rivalry, like the nation's championship,
(08:24):
like the World Cup every four years. So I'm definitely
not saying to you or to New Zealanders, oh this
is all too hard. It's not too hard. We've got
great brands, We've got the opportunity to monetize them well.
And as you and as would say, you know, managing
of cost is in our hands.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Sure, we either do it or we don't. You can
sell the All Blacks these days as much for as
much as you've ever been able to sell the All
Blex for. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Absolutely, Yeah. Your media media rights, we've locked in the
next media cycle. We've got new sponsorships coming up. Certainly
at the moment, we have the we have you know,
record media, commercial media coming from sponsorships and uh and
our media is also kind of up there with you.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
I've got to ask you about Mowana because I know
you're already in the news this morning commenting on it.
Is it valuable to have a an invented side for
unsporting reasons? And has the result of what's happened here
had been you could see it coming a mile away.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It's valuable to have pathways for PACIFICA players rugby players.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Well, why isn't the Hurricanes a pathway?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That there are? They are pathway. All of our all
of our franchises are pathways. And that's exactly right. So
we have those have those pathways and many PACIFICA players,
as you would know, play pay for all of our
five zeb rugby teams. Uh, there is a there's more
of a cultural specific cultural connection for for someone and
and Tommon and Cork Island and Fijian players through Winna Pacifica.
(09:56):
But beyond that, it certainly it and an and an
extra team which provides which has provided actually very few
players who have crossed over to the other franchises and
become all black, so it hasn't produced it. It's not
really for producing all blacks. So you're right, that's a
big question, markam have a fully.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Do you want to die in the ditch over or
if someone's grade, if they don't, that's life.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
That's the latter, because it's not our job to invest
in an invest in a sixth super rugby team. We've
got five, which are the foundation teams which provide us
with good pathways for the all Blacks, and if someone
else steps up and has prepared fun mine in Pacifica,
that's great. We will be very supportive. We're certainly not
withdrawing any of our support. We're maintaining that, but we're
(10:41):
not going to go any further.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Always a pleasure. You have a good WEEKNDKS mate, Nice
to see you, David Kirk, cheer of the board. For
more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.
It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
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