July 12, 2024 • 15 mins
With England in town for the All Blacks tests, RFU CEO Bill Sweeney stopped by for a chat with Piney.
They talked the state of the Northern Hemisphere game and the relationship between NZR and the RFU.
He told Piney that they’re a lot closer now in terms of where they want to get with the shape of the game.
But, Sweeney said, the biggest challenge the sport faces on a global scale is attracting a younger audience.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Fyne
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
An enormous pleasure to welcome into Weekends Sport across New Zealand.
RF you CEO Bill Sweeney, who's here with the England
rugby team on their tour of New Zealand. Bill, great
to have the chance to chat to you on News Talks,
he'd be, how are you enjoying your time in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
It's been fantastic. It's great to see you the other
day in Dunedin down there as well, so obviously the
lead up in the build up to that test was good.
You're a mad rugby loving nation, so I've had the
chance to drop into a few rugby clubs during the
trip as well. It's been a really, really good tour.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I want to get an indication from you about, you know,
the landscape that you work within in the Northern Hemisphere
rugby wise, in broad terms, how would you describe the
current state of rugby in the Northern Hemisphere and the
big challenges that you're facing.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, I'd say we're in a bit of a sort
of recovery mode coming out of COVID. I mean, COVID
hit all of us and you guys know that down
here as well, but it hit our premiership club's pretty
hard and we went through a really painful period where
three of them became insolvent with Wass, Worcester and London
Irish and that was a really painful period. And those
three had particular stresses in their business models, so they're
(01:16):
a bit more vulnerable perhaps than some of the others.
But that was a major shakeup in terms of how
do we govern the game. So we're probably, i'd say
on the professional league side, we're probably in a bit
of a recovery period. It's been a great season so
attendance as are backup. We had an amazing final with
Northampton and Bath. Twickenham was full eighty two thousand for
a final there was incredible. So we're seeing some real
(01:37):
sort of signs of recovery. And then also i think
from the community side, because you can't, you know, you've
got to link the two as well. It's really gratifying
now to see our community participation numbers getting back up
to where they were pre COVID and we've actually had
our best year i think in ten years in terms
of kids coming into the game. So on balance for
that then I'd say it is difficult time, tough times,
but we feel run our way back.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
How did you deal with the challenges of the COVID period,
the fallout afterwards, that sort of thing that there must
have been a very challenging time well for the whole
Rugby ecosystem. So what were the main strategies for dealing
with there.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I think the period post COVID was the hardest because
when you're in a crisis like that, everybody pulls together.
So government were pretty good to us and we work
really closely with them, and you go into crisis mode
and you have all sorts of little sort of working
groups set up to get yourselves through it, and everyone
pulls together. But then coming out of COVID, people's people's
memories go quickly and they just think we're back to normal.
But we've had massive cost increases coming out of that.
(02:33):
Inflation is really high in the North, so we have
all the pressures and challenges of coming out of COVID,
still trying to get the revenue side up to speed,
but you've got these increased costs, so we've just had
to really knuckle down and focus and get it done.
But I think we're through the worst of it now in.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Terms of how you judge your performance. So you know,
here in New Zealand, obviously we love it when the
All Blacks were and often New Zealand rugby are quite
too the All Blacks. Is it similar in England? How
key a metric are is the success of your elite sides?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, it's really important. You know, winning matters and the
world's a different place when you're winning. You know, we
went through we went through a couple of difficult years
at the end of Eddie's tenure there and we had
a couple of tough Six Nations championships, coming in fourth
and fifth, and it definitely it changes the mood and everything.
It changes the conversation you're having with your business partners,
(03:22):
it changes the conversations you're having with the community game.
Nobody likes to see you struggling. They all expect you
to do much better. And then Steve's come in and
we had we had a soso start to the last
Six Nations but finished really strongly and then to get
onto this tour and see us playing a really exciting
brand of rugby which is maybe different than people normally
expect from us. There's a real buzz around the country
(03:43):
now about this squad and Steve and the coaching team with.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Sport is obviously you know, I guess historically you're going
to win fifty percent and lose fifty percent or thereabouts
when you're dealing with commercial partners, you know, how do
you make sure that that your commercial partnerships are not
entirely dictated by whether the team's wunning or not.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think we're quite fortunate, you know that the partners
we've gone and mean, look at O two, they've been
with us for over thirty years. Yeah, that's a really
long standing relationship. And I'd say all the commercial partners
that we work with, they understand the game, and they
understand the pressures of high performance sport, and they know
you're not going to have you know, can be winninge
hundred percent of the time. So if you're winning seventy
seventy five percent, that's a pretty pretty good win ratio.
(04:22):
I think from their perspective, they just want to they
want to be comfortable you're doing all the right things
to head in the right direction, whether it's the women's
game or the men's game, and so we're pretty transparent
and telling them about our plans and where we're heading towards.
I think as long as they feel you've got things
under control, they're pretty supportive.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
In terms of selection for the England rugby team, it's
identical to here in New Zealand. You must be playing
in Super Rugby to be eligible for the All Blacks
for England. Got to be playing in England to play
for England. What's the main rationale for that? Is it
similar to what we head down here.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, it's a controversial one with a lot of people.
A lot of people feel that we should be just
have a completely open system and you slip players from
ever they are. I think there's really two main reasons
why we feel that's important. When the game went prefer
specially ninety five, all of the different unions chose to
go a different way in terms of how they structure
the game, and every model is slightly different. So the
(05:13):
Irish have probably got the most extreme in terms of
central control. Four provinces. They employ all the players, employ
all the coaches, one hundred percent control there and ourselves
in the French should be quite similar in the sense
that entrepreneurs came in, owned the clubs, they own the
player contracts, and we kind of leased them back and
we've found to be competitive in international rugby, you've got
to have a greater degree of control. So we're on
(05:34):
the verge of signing a thing at the moment called
a Professional Game Partnership, and that will give Steve a
lot more direct control over a core group of twenty
five players, so he'll have to say, in control over
things like strength and conditioning, reci periods, individual development programs
for the players, a much higher level of control and
he'll have that taking us through the age grade as well,
so under eighteens, under twenties into the A team and
(05:54):
then the senior team. Aligned to that, we just feel
that you want those players, you want your best players
based in your home country because you just got greater accessibility.
If you're playing in France, you don't have that quite
same relationship perhaps with directors of rugby, and what Steve's
really good at having been head coach of Leicester, he
knows all the directors of rugby. He's got good relationships
there and it's really a two way partnership in terms
(06:16):
of what's best for the players best for the club
and also of the country, So having them based domestically,
we think from a pure performance point of view is
a major advantage. And then you've got the commercial one,
which is we want our Premiership League. We want our
clubs to be successful and it's tough if your best
players have gone abroad. So we're pretty fixed on that
policy of only selecting players that are playing in England.
(06:37):
We think that's the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Is there a constant discussion though? I know down here there,
as you've probably there won't be a surprise to you.
You're right, there are people who think just open it up,
doesn't matter where you're playing, you should still be eligible
for the All Blacks. Richie Morgan is up in Japan.
We'd love to have them playing at teen. But now
that you injured, are are pretty firm on their stance
and have been on record as saying we're not anywhere
close to even tweaking it a litt alone changing it.
Is that your mindset as well?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, it is, And I think if you look around,
look around the world and look around the unions, the
Irish do it, you do it, we do it, The
French do it now there's always the exception to the rule,
and of course whenever I say that, I'll get it.
We'll look at South Africa. You know, they pick players
from all over the place. I think they're a bit
of an outlier. I mean they've got such a conveyor
belt of players and they've got such depth of selection.
(07:23):
I think they can afford to do that. So if
that works for them, that's fine. But we believe it's
the right model for us and will stick to that.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Tucking a great place to watch a game of rugby.
It's undergoing some renovation at the moment, I understand. Can
you tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, it's not going under renovation yet. We're looking at
twenty seven. So you know, we've got different models north
and South. So you don't own your stadium down here.
I've heard this talk about possibly that happening in Auckland,
but you don't own the stadium. Now, for us, the
ownership of the stadiums of a core pillar of our
commercial strategy. So we generate eighty five percent of our
revenue comes from the commercial side of the men's senior team.
(08:01):
Of that, fifty percent is match day revenue and the
rest is sponsorship and broader US rights. So if we're
going to do that, you've got to have a stadium
that's fit for purpose. And if you look at if
you look at England at the moment, you'll see stadiums
like Tottenhotspur Stadium at Whitehat Lane, major major renovation. I
think they spent one point two billion or something. Old
Trafford's going to be renovated fairly soon. I know we're
(08:21):
talking about football, not rugby, but you've got to keep
up in terms of the product you're offering your fans.
And Twickenham's a great place, loads are history and loads
of legacy, but she needs a bit of a facelift.
So it's not gonna be it's not gonna be cheap.
And we're going through that whole process now in terms
of design concepts, what will it look like?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
What do we do?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Prior to that, we went through a whole range of options.
Do you knock it down and start from scratch, do
you move it to the center of the country more
geographically accessible to the rest of the country, or do
you renovate Twickenham? And all of the financial analysis we
did said that the best thing to do was really
stay in Twickenham and build the and build three of
the stands there up to match the stand and that
still allows you to access that commercial center of London.
(09:00):
So that's the route we're going down. We've got a
big meeting in January for the next phase of the program,
but hopefully we'll kick off in twenty seven and kick
it off in a year when you've got no autumn internationals,
so we do when you've got your warm up matches,
which is which commercial point of view is a better
thing for us. Were you ever close to relocating, Yeah,
we took it seriously, We looked at it. There were
there were a couple of things. There was talk about
(09:21):
a possible joint venture with Wembley. Government were quite keen
on that, the idea of one national stadium, but it
didn't work for us. Again from from from the point
of view hospitality and capacity to do that there, so
that didn't quite work. And Wembley's not that easy to
get to. And you're always also thinking about the tradition
of the game and you know, the home of English
rugby and all of that history and whatever, so you
(09:41):
don't move away from that lightheartedly. You've got to take
that really seriously, but no, we did look at it.
We looked at Birmingham, great location, easier for fans to
get to from around the country, but on balance we
ended up with stay where we are.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
A couple of other issues. I want to get your
views on talk that the soon to begin Nations Championship
might have its finals weekend in Kata. Can you tell
us where those discussions are at.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, we started off the com stations on the Nations
Cup in March of twenty twenty. I remember them kicking
off and it was just pre COVID. I thought, oh yeah,
and I was relatively new, so I came in twenty nineteen,
so I thought we'll polish this off in probably about
six months. So in typical rugby fashion, things sometimes to
take a long time to get done. So here we
are still talking about it. But great progress on the
Nation's Cup as a competition as a format, really good
(10:28):
alignment with North and South, and we work really well
together actually in Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. And then
out of the blue a couple of months ago we
had none solicited bid came in from the Middle East.
We're all under NDA, so we can't talk too openly.
There's a lot of confidentiality around it. But I think,
as you'd expect us to do, we need to take
every proposal seriously. We're all under massive financial pressure the
(10:50):
game as a whole globally worldwide. We need to generate
more revenue and that needs to be invested back into
the game. But it's got to be the right decision
as well, So the obvious questions come up, will fans
travel there? Is it the right place to go to?
Are there other options to do? So we're in that
situation just really evaluating all the different as possible aspects
to it, and then we'll make a joint decision.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
What do you think the main things that will inform
that decision will be.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I think fan interest is really important, so we need
to we need to understand what the fans want and
really have a good sense of how they feel about that.
I don't know how much coverage you got down here,
but we had the situation in European football with the
Super League where they were going for and that they
were sort of sort of went off in that direction
pretty quickly, and then things unfolded quite quickly as well.
(11:37):
So I think taking the fans on that journey and
really understanding how they'll react to it and what's the
right product for them as well is important. And then
the financials of the financials. You know, you'll do all
your normal financial analysis and say is that you know?
Is that worth move?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Interested about the challenges facing or not the challenges? Sorry,
the the frame of mind around the Northern hemisphere rugby
compared to Southern hemisphere rugby. We often hear you know,
you know northeast south? Is there a northeast? Are they
actually more areas of alignment than we realize?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I think it's probably more alignment. I think on things
like competition formats and how do you drive greater value
through because the challenge you face with the rugby it's
not like cricket where you can just throw up a
new format of the sport and you can have players
playing three hundred and twenty days a year. You just
can't do that in rugby. Your best players are limited
the number of games they can play, so we've got
an obligation to drive as much value as possible through
(12:31):
the same volume. Ideally less you're never going to get
more matches in place, so we work together really well
in terms of that commercial aspect of things. I think
we're a lot closer now in terms of where we
want to get to the shape of the game. Personally,
I think the biggest challenge we face as a sport
globally is attracting a younger audience. And I think sometimes
we're a little bit too traditional. And you guys down here,
(12:54):
particularly New Zealand, you're very outspoken about speed of game,
style of play, regulation and law changes to facilitate that,
and we're a lot closer than people might imagine on that. Personally,
I'm in favor of in favor of a revision to
the red card situation, but I'm speaking that in this case.
I'm talking about that personal of course, not the shared
(13:15):
view of a lot of people in the RF. You
i'd say we're probably split fifty to fifty, and you
get that player welfare conversation versus the product you've got on.
But I just think at the moment, you know, God forbid,
you know tonight, you get a red card nearly stage
of the game, it just it changes the atmosphere in
the crowd and it changes expectation there. So I think
we need to really seriously look at that, and we're
very much aligned from an exec point of view with
(13:37):
New Zealand. I think the other piece where we're very
aligned is how we market the game. Yeah, I just
think we've got up our game there in terms of
use of information, explaining why decisions happen on the pitch,
communicate with the crowd, a more contemporary, more youth focused
way of building the game, and we're pretty much aligned
on that.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
How does Mark Robinson go in global you know Rugby
conversation you see before that. You know, is he a
bit outspoken as he is? He he banged the table
a bit, does he or he does?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Yeah, he's very He does a good job protecting your interests.
So he's not slow in coming forward with his views,
which is great and I'd say ninety percent of the
time we're probably probably in agreement, so that's fine. But no, No,
he's passionate about the game. He's played the game at
the highest level. He wants to see a good game
in place, and most of the things he talks about
(14:23):
are really in the best interest of the game. So
I think he does a great job for you.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Do you feel optimistic about the future of the game
of Rugby.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, I really do.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I really do.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I think I think COVID hit us a lot more
than people realize, you know, and we got through it
and we're still in that sort of kind of recovery phase. Now.
We saw a great World Cup in France. We've just
come off for an outstanding six Nations. I think if
we can get this Nation's Cup done and in the
right format, I think that's really really important. We do
(14:51):
need to address the marketing and the communication of the game,
but it's I personally, I still think it's the best
game in the world, and I'm really optimistic that we'll
get these things right and we'll drive it forward. And
it's time for rugby to reestablish itself.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And most importantly, the thirty year droughted Eden par Is
that going to fall tonight.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I hope tonight's a brilliant game. I hope it's an
entertaining product for the fans and they love it in
the reg of their seats. I'd like us to square
the series up tonight and then we can see you
again on the second of November and twicken and when
we call that the decider. Yep, but no injuries, no
red cards, stunning event, people loving it, walking away feeling
they've really enjoyed the evening. Then that's the main objective me.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Look, I think we can all agree on that. Bill.
It's been great to get the chance to chat. Thanks
for taking the time pleasure. Always good to see you now.
Good to see you too, Bill, Thanks Tonday, Bill Sweeney.
There are if you CEO very open on a number
of topics.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
There for more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine. Listen
live to news Talks it'd be weekends from midday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Fyne
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
An enormous pleasure to welcome into Weekends Sport across New Zealand.
RF you CEO Bill Sweeney, who's here with the England
rugby team on their tour of New Zealand. Bill, great
to have the chance to chat to you on News Talks,
he'd be, how are you enjoying your time in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
It's been fantastic. It's great to see you the other
day in Dunedin down there as well, so obviously the
lead up in the build up to that test was good.
You're a mad rugby loving nation, so I've had the
chance to drop into a few rugby clubs during the
trip as well. It's been a really, really good tour.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I want to get an indication from you about, you know,
the landscape that you work within in the Northern Hemisphere
rugby wise, in broad terms, how would you describe the
current state of rugby in the Northern Hemisphere and the
big challenges that you're facing.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, I'd say we're in a bit of a sort
of recovery mode coming out of COVID. I mean, COVID
hit all of us and you guys know that down
here as well, but it hit our premiership club's pretty
hard and we went through a really painful period where
three of them became insolvent with Wass, Worcester and London
Irish and that was a really painful period. And those
three had particular stresses in their business models, so they're
(01:16):
a bit more vulnerable perhaps than some of the others.
But that was a major shakeup in terms of how
do we govern the game. So we're probably, i'd say
on the professional league side, we're probably in a bit
of a recovery period. It's been a great season so
attendance as are backup. We had an amazing final with
Northampton and Bath. Twickenham was full eighty two thousand for
a final there was incredible. So we're seeing some real
(01:37):
sort of signs of recovery. And then also i think
from the community side, because you can't, you know, you've
got to link the two as well. It's really gratifying
now to see our community participation numbers getting back up
to where they were pre COVID and we've actually had
our best year i think in ten years in terms
of kids coming into the game. So on balance for
that then I'd say it is difficult time, tough times,
but we feel run our way back.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
How did you deal with the challenges of the COVID period,
the fallout afterwards, that sort of thing that there must
have been a very challenging time well for the whole
Rugby ecosystem. So what were the main strategies for dealing
with there.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I think the period post COVID was the hardest because
when you're in a crisis like that, everybody pulls together.
So government were pretty good to us and we work
really closely with them, and you go into crisis mode
and you have all sorts of little sort of working
groups set up to get yourselves through it, and everyone
pulls together. But then coming out of COVID, people's people's
memories go quickly and they just think we're back to normal.
But we've had massive cost increases coming out of that.
(02:33):
Inflation is really high in the North, so we have
all the pressures and challenges of coming out of COVID,
still trying to get the revenue side up to speed,
but you've got these increased costs, so we've just had
to really knuckle down and focus and get it done.
But I think we're through the worst of it now in.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Terms of how you judge your performance. So you know,
here in New Zealand, obviously we love it when the
All Blacks were and often New Zealand rugby are quite
too the All Blacks. Is it similar in England? How
key a metric are is the success of your elite sides?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, it's really important. You know, winning matters and the
world's a different place when you're winning. You know, we
went through we went through a couple of difficult years
at the end of Eddie's tenure there and we had
a couple of tough Six Nations championships, coming in fourth
and fifth, and it definitely it changes the mood and everything.
It changes the conversation you're having with your business partners,
(03:22):
it changes the conversations you're having with the community game.
Nobody likes to see you struggling. They all expect you
to do much better. And then Steve's come in and
we had we had a soso start to the last
Six Nations but finished really strongly and then to get
onto this tour and see us playing a really exciting
brand of rugby which is maybe different than people normally
expect from us. There's a real buzz around the country
(03:43):
now about this squad and Steve and the coaching team with.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Sport is obviously you know, I guess historically you're going
to win fifty percent and lose fifty percent or thereabouts
when you're dealing with commercial partners, you know, how do
you make sure that that your commercial partnerships are not
entirely dictated by whether the team's wunning or not.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
I think we're quite fortunate, you know that the partners
we've gone and mean, look at O two, they've been
with us for over thirty years. Yeah, that's a really
long standing relationship. And I'd say all the commercial partners
that we work with, they understand the game, and they
understand the pressures of high performance sport, and they know
you're not going to have you know, can be winninge
hundred percent of the time. So if you're winning seventy
seventy five percent, that's a pretty pretty good win ratio.
(04:22):
I think from their perspective, they just want to they
want to be comfortable you're doing all the right things
to head in the right direction, whether it's the women's
game or the men's game, and so we're pretty transparent
and telling them about our plans and where we're heading towards.
I think as long as they feel you've got things
under control, they're pretty supportive.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
In terms of selection for the England rugby team, it's
identical to here in New Zealand. You must be playing
in Super Rugby to be eligible for the All Blacks
for England. Got to be playing in England to play
for England. What's the main rationale for that? Is it
similar to what we head down here.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, it's a controversial one with a lot of people.
A lot of people feel that we should be just
have a completely open system and you slip players from
ever they are. I think there's really two main reasons
why we feel that's important. When the game went prefer
specially ninety five, all of the different unions chose to
go a different way in terms of how they structure
the game, and every model is slightly different. So the
(05:13):
Irish have probably got the most extreme in terms of
central control. Four provinces. They employ all the players, employ
all the coaches, one hundred percent control there and ourselves
in the French should be quite similar in the sense
that entrepreneurs came in, owned the clubs, they own the
player contracts, and we kind of leased them back and
we've found to be competitive in international rugby, you've got
to have a greater degree of control. So we're on
(05:34):
the verge of signing a thing at the moment called
a Professional Game Partnership, and that will give Steve a
lot more direct control over a core group of twenty
five players, so he'll have to say, in control over
things like strength and conditioning, reci periods, individual development programs
for the players, a much higher level of control and
he'll have that taking us through the age grade as well,
so under eighteens, under twenties into the A team and
(05:54):
then the senior team. Aligned to that, we just feel
that you want those players, you want your best players
based in your home country because you just got greater accessibility.
If you're playing in France, you don't have that quite
same relationship perhaps with directors of rugby, and what Steve's
really good at having been head coach of Leicester, he
knows all the directors of rugby. He's got good relationships
there and it's really a two way partnership in terms
(06:16):
of what's best for the players best for the club
and also of the country, So having them based domestically,
we think from a pure performance point of view is
a major advantage. And then you've got the commercial one,
which is we want our Premiership League. We want our
clubs to be successful and it's tough if your best
players have gone abroad. So we're pretty fixed on that
policy of only selecting players that are playing in England.
(06:37):
We think that's the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Is there a constant discussion though? I know down here there,
as you've probably there won't be a surprise to you.
You're right, there are people who think just open it up,
doesn't matter where you're playing, you should still be eligible
for the All Blacks. Richie Morgan is up in Japan.
We'd love to have them playing at teen. But now
that you injured, are are pretty firm on their stance
and have been on record as saying we're not anywhere
close to even tweaking it a litt alone changing it.
Is that your mindset as well?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, it is, And I think if you look around,
look around the world and look around the unions, the
Irish do it, you do it, we do it, The
French do it now there's always the exception to the rule,
and of course whenever I say that, I'll get it.
We'll look at South Africa. You know, they pick players
from all over the place. I think they're a bit
of an outlier. I mean they've got such a conveyor
belt of players and they've got such depth of selection.
(07:23):
I think they can afford to do that. So if
that works for them, that's fine. But we believe it's
the right model for us and will stick to that.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Tucking a great place to watch a game of rugby.
It's undergoing some renovation at the moment, I understand. Can
you tell us a bit about that.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah, it's not going under renovation yet. We're looking at
twenty seven. So you know, we've got different models north
and South. So you don't own your stadium down here.
I've heard this talk about possibly that happening in Auckland,
but you don't own the stadium. Now, for us, the
ownership of the stadiums of a core pillar of our
commercial strategy. So we generate eighty five percent of our
revenue comes from the commercial side of the men's senior team.
(08:01):
Of that, fifty percent is match day revenue and the
rest is sponsorship and broader US rights. So if we're
going to do that, you've got to have a stadium
that's fit for purpose. And if you look at if
you look at England at the moment, you'll see stadiums
like Tottenhotspur Stadium at Whitehat Lane, major major renovation. I
think they spent one point two billion or something. Old
Trafford's going to be renovated fairly soon. I know we're
(08:21):
talking about football, not rugby, but you've got to keep
up in terms of the product you're offering your fans.
And Twickenham's a great place, loads are history and loads
of legacy, but she needs a bit of a facelift.
So it's not gonna be it's not gonna be cheap.
And we're going through that whole process now in terms
of design concepts, what will it look like?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
What do we do?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Prior to that, we went through a whole range of options.
Do you knock it down and start from scratch, do
you move it to the center of the country more
geographically accessible to the rest of the country, or do
you renovate Twickenham? And all of the financial analysis we
did said that the best thing to do was really
stay in Twickenham and build the and build three of
the stands there up to match the stand and that
still allows you to access that commercial center of London.
(09:00):
So that's the route we're going down. We've got a
big meeting in January for the next phase of the program,
but hopefully we'll kick off in twenty seven and kick
it off in a year when you've got no autumn internationals,
so we do when you've got your warm up matches,
which is which commercial point of view is a better
thing for us. Were you ever close to relocating, Yeah,
we took it seriously, We looked at it. There were
there were a couple of things. There was talk about
(09:21):
a possible joint venture with Wembley. Government were quite keen
on that, the idea of one national stadium, but it
didn't work for us. Again from from from the point
of view hospitality and capacity to do that there, so
that didn't quite work. And Wembley's not that easy to
get to. And you're always also thinking about the tradition
of the game and you know, the home of English
rugby and all of that history and whatever, so you
(09:41):
don't move away from that lightheartedly. You've got to take
that really seriously, but no, we did look at it.
We looked at Birmingham, great location, easier for fans to
get to from around the country, but on balance we
ended up with stay where we are.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
A couple of other issues. I want to get your
views on talk that the soon to begin Nations Championship
might have its finals weekend in Kata. Can you tell
us where those discussions are at.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Yeah, we started off the com stations on the Nations
Cup in March of twenty twenty. I remember them kicking
off and it was just pre COVID. I thought, oh yeah,
and I was relatively new, so I came in twenty nineteen,
so I thought we'll polish this off in probably about
six months. So in typical rugby fashion, things sometimes to
take a long time to get done. So here we
are still talking about it. But great progress on the
Nation's Cup as a competition as a format, really good
(10:28):
alignment with North and South, and we work really well
together actually in Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. And then
out of the blue a couple of months ago we
had none solicited bid came in from the Middle East.
We're all under NDA, so we can't talk too openly.
There's a lot of confidentiality around it. But I think,
as you'd expect us to do, we need to take
every proposal seriously. We're all under massive financial pressure the
(10:50):
game as a whole globally worldwide. We need to generate
more revenue and that needs to be invested back into
the game. But it's got to be the right decision
as well, So the obvious questions come up, will fans
travel there? Is it the right place to go to?
Are there other options to do? So we're in that
situation just really evaluating all the different as possible aspects
to it, and then we'll make a joint decision.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
What do you think the main things that will inform
that decision will be.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I think fan interest is really important, so we need
to we need to understand what the fans want and
really have a good sense of how they feel about that.
I don't know how much coverage you got down here,
but we had the situation in European football with the
Super League where they were going for and that they
were sort of sort of went off in that direction
pretty quickly, and then things unfolded quite quickly as well.
(11:37):
So I think taking the fans on that journey and
really understanding how they'll react to it and what's the
right product for them as well is important. And then
the financials of the financials. You know, you'll do all
your normal financial analysis and say is that you know?
Is that worth move?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Interested about the challenges facing or not the challenges? Sorry,
the the frame of mind around the Northern hemisphere rugby
compared to Southern hemisphere rugby. We often hear you know,
you know northeast south? Is there a northeast? Are they
actually more areas of alignment than we realize?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
I think it's probably more alignment. I think on things
like competition formats and how do you drive greater value
through because the challenge you face with the rugby it's
not like cricket where you can just throw up a
new format of the sport and you can have players
playing three hundred and twenty days a year. You just
can't do that in rugby. Your best players are limited
the number of games they can play, so we've got
an obligation to drive as much value as possible through
(12:31):
the same volume. Ideally less you're never going to get
more matches in place, so we work together really well
in terms of that commercial aspect of things. I think
we're a lot closer now in terms of where we
want to get to the shape of the game. Personally,
I think the biggest challenge we face as a sport
globally is attracting a younger audience. And I think sometimes
we're a little bit too traditional. And you guys down here,
(12:54):
particularly New Zealand, you're very outspoken about speed of game,
style of play, regulation and law changes to facilitate that,
and we're a lot closer than people might imagine on that. Personally,
I'm in favor of in favor of a revision to
the red card situation, but I'm speaking that in this case.
I'm talking about that personal of course, not the shared
(13:15):
view of a lot of people in the RF. You
i'd say we're probably split fifty to fifty, and you
get that player welfare conversation versus the product you've got on.
But I just think at the moment, you know, God forbid,
you know tonight, you get a red card nearly stage
of the game, it just it changes the atmosphere in
the crowd and it changes expectation there. So I think
we need to really seriously look at that, and we're
very much aligned from an exec point of view with
(13:37):
New Zealand. I think the other piece where we're very
aligned is how we market the game. Yeah, I just
think we've got up our game there in terms of
use of information, explaining why decisions happen on the pitch,
communicate with the crowd, a more contemporary, more youth focused
way of building the game, and we're pretty much aligned
on that.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
How does Mark Robinson go in global you know Rugby
conversation you see before that. You know, is he a
bit outspoken as he is? He he banged the table
a bit, does he or he does?
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Yeah, he's very He does a good job protecting your interests.
So he's not slow in coming forward with his views,
which is great and I'd say ninety percent of the
time we're probably probably in agreement, so that's fine. But no, No,
he's passionate about the game. He's played the game at
the highest level. He wants to see a good game
in place, and most of the things he talks about
(14:23):
are really in the best interest of the game. So
I think he does a great job for you.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Do you feel optimistic about the future of the game
of Rugby.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, I really do.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I really do.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
I think I think COVID hit us a lot more
than people realize, you know, and we got through it
and we're still in that sort of kind of recovery phase. Now.
We saw a great World Cup in France. We've just
come off for an outstanding six Nations. I think if
we can get this Nation's Cup done and in the
right format, I think that's really really important. We do
(14:51):
need to address the marketing and the communication of the game,
but it's I personally, I still think it's the best
game in the world, and I'm really optimistic that we'll
get these things right and we'll drive it forward. And
it's time for rugby to reestablish itself.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And most importantly, the thirty year droughted Eden par Is
that going to fall tonight.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I hope tonight's a brilliant game. I hope it's an
entertaining product for the fans and they love it in
the reg of their seats. I'd like us to square
the series up tonight and then we can see you
again on the second of November and twicken and when
we call that the decider. Yep, but no injuries, no
red cards, stunning event, people loving it, walking away feeling
they've really enjoyed the evening. Then that's the main objective me.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Look, I think we can all agree on that. Bill.
It's been great to get the chance to chat. Thanks
for taking the time pleasure. Always good to see you now.
Good to see you too, Bill, Thanks Tonday, Bill Sweeney.
There are if you CEO very open on a number
of topics.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
There for more from Weekend Sport with Jason Fine. Listen
live to news Talks it'd be weekends from midday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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