Malcolm Gillies: Hurricanes new board chair on purchasing a 50% stake in the club

The new Hurricanes board chair is determined to turn around the books of the struggling Super Rugby franchise. 

Developer Malcolm Gillies has acquired the 50% stake in the club, offloaded by the Wellington Rugby Union to balance its own books. 

The franchise has collectively lost $4 million in the past three seasons. 

Gillies told Heather du Plessis Allan it's a good investment. 

He says there’s a lot of untapped potential, but there’s certainly a lot of things to do. 

Tony Philp, who recently departed as the club's general manager of rugby, will assume the interim CEO role. 

LISTEN ABOVE  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we have a significant development in the ownership of rugby.
The Wellington RFU Rugby Football Union has sold its fifty
percent stake in the Hurricanes to private owners basically as
a result of running out of money. The buyers are
New Zealand Sport Investment Limited. Malcolm Gillies is part of
it and he's with us now.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Him Malcolm, Gooday, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm very well? Thank you mate, thanks for talking to us.
I understand your in Fiji, is that right?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah? Oh you're a good lovely weather.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, thank you for doing it.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Did you go to the Hurricanes or Wellington Football and
offer this deal or did they come to you?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, we deal started with Wellington Rugby. They came to
us and said that they were thinking of so in
this years and so we took it from there.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Okay. Do you think it's a good investment given what's
going on with rugby.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I think it's a challenging one. I think it's got
a great future. There's a lot of untapped potential, but
there's certainly a lot of things to do. So I
think if you just do it the same way as
it's been done, then this is going to be very difficult,
but we did it for a lot of reasons. My
partner John Bellen and Peter, we both all of us

(01:09):
decided that well, we've got a passion for rugby and
we certainly got a passion for Wellington rugby. So it
wasn't all necessarily about making money. Was about trying to
help help the union sort itself out and at the
same time obviously help the Hurricanes.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, but they need to make money. I mean, it
does need to make money to continue, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes, it does. It's got to pay its way. And
we're we're reasonably happy that we can with our business
skills that we can do that.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
So what are you going to change? Would you change
where you host the games? Get out of sky Stadium?

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Look, that's always an option. But then once again, if
you know, the easiest thing is to blame sky Stadium,
it's too big, it's this, and it's that. The reality
is the Hurricanes also have a responsibility to re engage
with their fans. I mean, we had an average crowd
size of seven thousand, and I think, you know, realistically,

(02:07):
we've got to look at ourselves. How do we get
that When we had the pacifica game we had nearly
twenty thousand. So the reality is that we've got a
lot of work to do. We've got to re engage
with our fans, their past players and our communities. We've
got to get people in behind us again and we've
got to have a product that they want to go
and watch.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
So we're going to turn up so big. Why the
fans turn up for that, Malcolm, apart from obviously being
really ardent fans, Is it not because it's a rare
thing on the calendar. It's an event.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
No, you've got to make You've got to make an
event out of the day. And you know, we don't
have a lot of money to spend massive things on marketing,
but there's a lot of things we could do to
re engage to make them. We can set up club
competitions where they wear their jerseys. We can do a
lot of things.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Are you committing You've got five fixtures that you have
to play next year apparently at Skystadium. Are you definitely
going to play all five of them there?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Well? This year we've got one in christ Church and
we've got one in Napier. It depends, It depends what
we can do. We also think we have a responsibility
to take the game out into the regions as well.
This year we've got one in Napier and I think,
you know, we've got six pus right stretching right up
to Gisbon. So I think it's important that we get
at least one of those games each year out into

(03:23):
the PUS. So if we've got five home games next year,
we'll just have to look at how we're going. I mean,
the fact of the matter is it might not be.
You know, we've got to make sure we can pay
what it costs to play at the stadium, and that's
my job.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
If the women's team doesn't make money, do you have
to continue with it?

Speaker 2 (03:42):
We probably will have one of the best women's teams
looking at the roster or with the coaching roster at
the stage that we've ever had, So we're not contemplating
that losing money. I mean, the women's team is supported
well to start with. Why the NZAU anyway really up
to us just to to you know, to play a

(04:03):
reasonable game of rugby, and it's a growing attraction the
woman's game all across the world.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
I feel kind of sorry for you, Malcolm, because I
think you're pushing it up here with this because part
of your problem, and you can only fix so many things.
Part of the problem is rugby is boring, isn't it.
Like you look at what is going on in the field.
It's so fast on rugby league, it's so fast. Now
in the football you can really enjoy it. Rugby they're
getting together and slowing down the ball the whole time.
You can't fix that.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, Look, firstly, I don't want you to feel sorry
for me, you know, really, I totally agree, and I
think anyone with half a brain can look to see.
But that's a bigger thing than what I can fix.
I still believe people that are passionate about rugby will
give the people that have the opportunity to change the

(04:51):
rules the time to do it. I mean, rugby has
been a part of our culture. It's a part of
who we are in New Zealand as this league. But yes,
definitely league is a better spectacle right now. You need
to be honest. We all know that. But I think
surely we're not the only ones that can see that.
And the people that have the power to change that

(05:11):
given time, I think we'll do that. They'll address it.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
The time Malcolm, they take so long. Listen, good luck
with it and thanks for stepping and mate and talking
to us from Fiji, Malcolm Gilly's Hurricanes chair.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
For more from The Mike Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio