February 14, 2025 • 16 mins
Good news for Sky TV and their rugby fan subscribers.
The New Zealand broadcaster will be showing one live American Major League Rugby game a week, when the eighth season kicks off this weekend.
The other games each round will be available to watch online but not shown live.
MLR chief executive Nick Benson says they're excited about the partnership.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildegrave
from News Talks It be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We go to American Rugby. Now we're joined by the
CEO of Major League Rugby, Nick Beanson. Good evening, Nick,
Good evening. Your competition starts this weekend as well.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Just like superar this weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, just like Super Rugby PACIFICA. It's all on at
the same time. It starts off with a game the
Sharks and the Old Glory. Then you got five more games.
Your competition is nearly as big as Super Rugby. How
did that happen?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
You know, we're people don't understand often how big of
a country it is. We've got three hundred million people.
It's almost like, you know, five different countries within you know,
within one. So we're hyper regional, you know, we're hyper
focused on growth. So for us, what's really important is
being having teams in markets and having teams that are
in market doing the work to grow the sport that
(01:03):
we play. Right, there's no better advocate for a sport
that a team owner who is making an investment in
a team and trying to grow the sport, building grassroots programs,
getting players and staff into schools trying to get more
and more boys and girls playing the game. The long
term pathway to rugby being successful in the United States
runs through grassroots, and it runs through getting kids playing
(01:25):
the game, which starts with getting them exposed to the game.
And whether it's the school program, a PE class, an
MLR game, you know, whatever it is, so.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It doesn't change wherever you are in the world. It
has to always come from those new shoots from grassroots.
Without that, your future is doomed. It's great to see
that that's what you're focusing on as well.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Now that's absolutely one of our it's absolutely one of
our primary focuses. There's there's marketing, and there's there's work
that you can do to convert sort of older existing
sports fans to rugby, But your long term trajectory, the
real passion for a sport. The reason I work in
the sport is because I played the game when I
was nine years old, right. The passion for the sport
comes from playing the game and understanding what it means.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It's always being talked about as a sleeping giant, but
it's not really roused from its doze at the moment.
How close do you think United States of America is
to standing up and roaring, because what you got the
World Cup coming in our twenty thirty one. Plainly, everything
you're doing right now must point to that. Because if
that doesn't wake you guys up or the public, more's
(02:28):
the point. I don't think anything will.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So much of what we're doing right now is built
around twenty thirty one, and it goes, you know, right
down to the grassroots programs are building a fan base
and building exposure and building awareness for the sports that
we have. You know, we want to have a massive Yeah,
we're gonna have visitors from overseas, but we want to
have American fans sitting in the stands. We want to
have American fans sitting in the stands cheering on an
(02:52):
American team. You know, there's a lot that's happening to
build that. You know. One of the big programs that
I would point to when we're trying to build an
American team is what we've done in with Anthem as
a North Carolina team. They play out of Charlotte. That's
actually a joint venture between MLR and World Rugby, and
the purpose of that team is to get young American
(03:12):
talent getting high level professional minutes. So you know those
are all or almost all American players, with a few
strategic foreigners who come in for experience and to kind
of help anchor and and you know, to coach up
their their teammates. But it's an American focused team. It's
getting those young men minutes on the field. There's no
substitute for professional minutes when it comes to developing an
(03:34):
international rugby player. It's helping them build cohesion and playing
time playing together. You saw you saw much better performance
by the Eagles this last summer in their last summer
tour they want. They won a few key games going
in and more importantly, more than the results, you saw
much more cohesive and connected side. Scott Lawrence has done
(03:56):
a great job building that out over the last over
the last couple of years. He deserves a ton of credit.
And that's just one part of it. You know, there's
U twenties programs that that he's fund right now through
USA Rugby, taking tours to South Africa and other places
where you know that you're playing with young men of
similar age who have a higher sort of rugby age
(04:17):
because they've just been playing for longer that's our biggest challenge.
We have talent. There's an abundance of talent in this country,
where you're a passive country, there's an abundance of talent,
but most of the talent is picking up the game
when they're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and it's very hard to
develop an international player at a key skill position who's
(04:37):
picking up the game at that age. Rights it's hard
to develop the.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Instincts pathway wise. When you look at the pre eminent
sports the United States of America, we're talking at the
highest level, serious amount of income. You can see why
young men specifically move toward those sports, especially the contact sports.
Is that holding back? Do you think the development of
rugby union lack of a pathway that may result in
(05:05):
fame and fortune?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, I mean it's not just it's not just an
MLR issue. I mean I think you know, you're you're
a benchwarmer in the NFL makes more than the highest
paid rugby player probably in the world. It's it's dark. Yes,
I think it does. I don't think we necessarily need
to be in a position where we're competing, you know,
dollar for dollar with those salaries, but we do need
(05:29):
to be in a position where you know more and more,
you know, in the United States and across the world,
there's a credible career path through rugby for these young
men and and and hopefully in the future young women
as well who want to make rugby a career. And
that's that's about It's about the dollars, but it's also
about creating a pathway to speak, that starts that is predictable,
(05:50):
that starts at you know, starts at the at the
you know, U nine level, and goes through high school
to a cohesive university system and on into MLR, but
also into the club game outside of m l R.
So to that end, a lot of the work that
we do when we're thinking about beyond twenty thirty one
and what the sport looks like after that, it's about, Okay,
(06:11):
how are we building up you know, varsity programs at
the high school level that are now funded by the
high schools and the athletic associations and sort of the
municipal level education systems and funded by the universities. And
so a big part of the work that we do
is work with the existing collegiate conferences and working with
high schools and high school systems to get more kids
(06:33):
playing rugby. I'll give you an example. We did a
program last week in Houston, Houston's ten million city of
ten million, where we trained representatives from every public public
elementary school on how to teach rugby and p classes. Right,
So we're now going to deploy that and if we
can start deploying that in five, six, seven, eight more cities,
(06:55):
you know, the spillover is massive. It takes time to
build and it takes time to pay off. But that's
that's the long term play. That's why soccer has been successful.
Soccer football, if they're successful in the United States, is
really about grassroots and the number of people who have
a touch point with the game.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
When you look at the format, the structure of the
system for in l how was what is that based upon?
Is it a franchise system where you mentioned before you've
got various owners of various clubs. How do you determine
the best place for those franchise Just give us a
rough idea about what the structure is like for Major
(07:32):
League Rugby.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, so we're a private league. I think it's put
it in rugby terms, the Premiership. It is similar. So
the teams are independently owned. They each have sort of
investor operators, with the exception obviously of the anthem in
Carolina which we talked about, and those those teams own
the league. That those teams own the league collectively. So
as much as they're competing with each other, they're competing
(07:55):
with each other on the pitch, in the boardroom, they're
very much aligned sort of on that mission of growing
rugby from a grassroots perspective, but also from a commercial
perspective and trying to build you know called net new fans,
bringing new fans into the sport because ultimately that's what's
going to feed this and help this grow. So it's
it's a privately owned league, but we're owned. We're owned
by the teams, and we obviously have your very close
(08:18):
ties to USA Rugby and and to World Rugby as well.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Major Leage Rugby CEO Nick Benson joins the program. So
determining where these franchises are going to sit or have
set is that based entirely on where the owner is
going to be. How do you spread that around?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
We're quite strategy when we look at new markets. There's
two or three things that we look at. We want
to have a market We look at market size and
media at Footprint is one piece. We look at the
building and the venue that the teams are going to
play in. I think more and more as we go forward,
the venue that you play in plays a critical role.
(08:57):
You want to have. Obviously there's good economics, and you
have good economics in your venue. You also need to
be in a venue that plays well on TV and
that has like checks all the boxes in terms of
the player safety, TMO connections, you know, media connectivity, et cetera,
et cetera. We we look at we want to see
a grassroots community development plan. So we want to understand
(09:18):
what is the team in place, What is the plan
that you're going to deploy from a grassroots community development perspective,
but also from a business planning, marketing but since seats perspective,
So what is the plan? And the final piece or
maybe the first piece is the owner capitalization. Right, you
want to make sure that the owners that we're bringing in,
the new owners that we're bringing in, have your ability
to fund their operation in perpetuity.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Stick around. That's important. Consistency, so the league stays, it
just doesn't sit for one two years and people lose interest.
Is that something you're concerned about or something if ring
fence and you realize that these teams will stick around
and they will last because you've got to look forward.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, we have to look forward. I mean, we'll listen,
we're going into our eighth year. We've we've survived COVID.
Growing up. Growing a professional sport in the United States,
which is the most competitive sports media market on earth,
is incredibly difficult. It's incredibly challenging. It takes a lot
of eligable weeks, a lot of fick skin, and and
(10:17):
you know, you know, there's no secret that we've lost
a couple of teams along the way for for for
for reasons, and that that that's happened in every professional
sport that's developed in the United States. I think the
strength of our system is that, you know, when that's happened,
you know, the league has gone on, gone on and
gotten stronger and continued to get stronger. You know. Yeah,
(10:38):
it's it's it's not easy. It's a labor of love
for the people who are doing it. You know. I
think the people who we have behind these teams and
behind you know us in the league office are passionate
about rugby. They see a big vision for what the
sport can be in the United States. They think it's
important for it to grow. There's a lot about the
game that I think differentiates it from American football, from
(10:58):
from basketball and from others. There's, you know, sort of
an underpinning of values that I think is incredibly important
and that I personally think is incredibly import and that's
the reason that we do it. But but it's it's
a difficult road, but we're making great progress. You know,
we're going to have our best year coming in next year.
And last year was our best before that. Attendance was up,
(11:19):
you know, thirteen percent. Our own media platform saw a
fifty five percent increase subscribers. We more than doubled are
sort of commercial revenue numbers going into last year. Uh,
and we're hoping to continue on that trajectory. So it's hard,
but the game is growing. Uh and we're starting to
see the benefits of our labor.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
We know, not is playing San Diego. What other involvement
have New Zealand has had, Okay, it is to tap
into that ipay players, administrators in the lock as well
as the much of a connection and arrangement there, Nick, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
There's there's actually a pretty significant Uh, there's a lot
of crossover with New Zealand. You know, we have a
ton of players who actually play at NPC during our
off season and go back and forth. That's continuing to evolve.
Those are team relationships. We have a ton of KIWI coaches.
I used to be with the Utah Warriors before I
came back to the league office. You know, we have
(12:16):
Greg Cooper coaching there, so he's he's a He's a
great dude and a fantastic coach. You are. Our twenty
twenty three Player of the Year was Jason Petrose, obviously
a Kiwi. Are twenty twenty four Back of the Year
was Reese McDonald. So we haven't yeah, I think sorry.
I actually had someone pull this stat for me before
(12:37):
we can. We have about sixty sixty KIWI players playing
in the league. So so for us, it's it's it's
a really important market.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You've signed a deal with ESPN. How relevant is that?
How important is that? And does this mean New Zealand
audiences are going to be carrying on or be able
to carry on watching the email?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
OL So interesting that you should ask that question because
I've got a piece of news I'm going to break
here for you in a second. ESPN is hugely important.
It's the talents Square for sports in the United States.
It's got twenty eight odd million subs. You know, we
love TRN and we'll continue to operate TRN as a
platform for rugby fans, but if we're going to grow
and get outside of our ecosystem and bring new fans
(13:19):
to the sport, we have to go to where the
sports fans are. That's why we're going to ESPN for
New Zealand. We're actually finalizing a deal today with Sky
New Zealand, so Sky New Zealand will be carrying our
games coming into this year. They gave me permission about
ten minutes before I got on this interview to make
that announcement. So we're actually really really excited about that.
(13:40):
So they'll carry one game, we expect them to carry
one game live on Linear and the rest will be
us streamed by Sky New Zealand. So we're really excited
about that partnership because we know that's where that's where
rugby lives in New Zealand, so we want to be there.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Fantastic news, And I suppose whinnying up, what does success,
what shape? What form does success take for yourself? In
Major League rugby and rugby as a whole, what are
you looking at? What are you Marcus?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I think when we look at rugby in the United States,
I think, you know, we have a clear sort of
a top five echelon in sports in the US. Right,
you have your Big four, you have you know, American football, basketball, baseball,
ice hockey, and soccer. Now, I think you know we're
successful when when we're challenging, when we're challenging those five,
(14:33):
when we're challenging those five for attention, and when we're
challenging those times for media time, those five for media time,
and challenging the way they perform commercially in terms of
in terms of sort of attendance, in terms of audience,
in terms of all of the metrics that make in
American sports league. I think I personally, you know, believe
(14:54):
that in a ten year, in a five to ten
year time horizon, MLR needs to be challenging the best
leagues on earth in terms of the quality of play
on the field. Right. If we don't have big ambitions,
there's no point in containing right, So you know, we
need to be challenging the best, and we need to
measure ourselves against the best, and that has to be
our target.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
That's very American and I do like the sound of that.
You guys gonna set up a super rugby franchise because
you know you are on the Pacific, on the West
coast anyway, and steam one over here over OURWI. Is
it a possibility?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
You know, we're focused on building MLR and making MLR
and making m l R the highest the highest level
of rugby that we can make it and making it
as good or better. But I do look forward to
some crossovers. Actually, our our l A team played played
the DRUA in the preseason fixture two or three weeks ago.
It was a pretty competitive match and we hope to
(15:51):
have more of that, you know, with with the rest
of the rugby world, because if we're not measuring ourselves
against the best rugby out there, we can't hope, we
can't hope to match it.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Love what I've heard, I'm sure the listeners have as well.
The m l R CEO, Nickans, we thank you very
much for your time, your readiness to share all of
your information and the positive stories around the future of
our national sport in the USA Neck look after yourself,
have a great weekend, and I hope the opening round
goes as well as our opening rounds too. I love
(16:23):
the way it combines.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
It's a wonderful thing. Thanks Nick, Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Hey, that's one.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildegrave
from News Talks It be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We go to American Rugby. Now we're joined by the
CEO of Major League Rugby, Nick Beanson. Good evening, Nick,
Good evening. Your competition starts this weekend as well.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Just like superar this weekend.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, just like Super Rugby PACIFICA. It's all on at
the same time. It starts off with a game the
Sharks and the Old Glory. Then you got five more games.
Your competition is nearly as big as Super Rugby. How
did that happen?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
You know, we're people don't understand often how big of
a country it is. We've got three hundred million people.
It's almost like, you know, five different countries within you know,
within one. So we're hyper regional, you know, we're hyper
focused on growth. So for us, what's really important is
being having teams in markets and having teams that are
in market doing the work to grow the sport that
(01:03):
we play. Right, there's no better advocate for a sport
that a team owner who is making an investment in
a team and trying to grow the sport, building grassroots programs,
getting players and staff into schools trying to get more
and more boys and girls playing the game. The long
term pathway to rugby being successful in the United States
runs through grassroots, and it runs through getting kids playing
(01:25):
the game, which starts with getting them exposed to the game.
And whether it's the school program, a PE class, an
MLR game, you know, whatever it is, so.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
It doesn't change wherever you are in the world. It
has to always come from those new shoots from grassroots.
Without that, your future is doomed. It's great to see
that that's what you're focusing on as well.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Now that's absolutely one of our it's absolutely one of
our primary focuses. There's there's marketing, and there's there's work
that you can do to convert sort of older existing
sports fans to rugby, But your long term trajectory, the
real passion for a sport. The reason I work in
the sport is because I played the game when I
was nine years old, right. The passion for the sport
comes from playing the game and understanding what it means.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
It's always being talked about as a sleeping giant, but
it's not really roused from its doze at the moment.
How close do you think United States of America is
to standing up and roaring, because what you got the
World Cup coming in our twenty thirty one. Plainly, everything
you're doing right now must point to that. Because if
that doesn't wake you guys up or the public, more's
(02:28):
the point. I don't think anything will.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
So much of what we're doing right now is built
around twenty thirty one, and it goes, you know, right
down to the grassroots programs are building a fan base
and building exposure and building awareness for the sports that
we have. You know, we want to have a massive Yeah,
we're gonna have visitors from overseas, but we want to
have American fans sitting in the stands. We want to
have American fans sitting in the stands cheering on an
(02:52):
American team. You know, there's a lot that's happening to
build that. You know. One of the big programs that
I would point to when we're trying to build an
American team is what we've done in with Anthem as
a North Carolina team. They play out of Charlotte. That's
actually a joint venture between MLR and World Rugby, and
the purpose of that team is to get young American
(03:12):
talent getting high level professional minutes. So you know those
are all or almost all American players, with a few
strategic foreigners who come in for experience and to kind
of help anchor and and you know, to coach up
their their teammates. But it's an American focused team. It's
getting those young men minutes on the field. There's no
substitute for professional minutes when it comes to developing an
(03:34):
international rugby player. It's helping them build cohesion and playing
time playing together. You saw you saw much better performance
by the Eagles this last summer in their last summer
tour they want. They won a few key games going
in and more importantly, more than the results, you saw
much more cohesive and connected side. Scott Lawrence has done
(03:56):
a great job building that out over the last over
the last couple of years. He deserves a ton of credit.
And that's just one part of it. You know, there's
U twenties programs that that he's fund right now through
USA Rugby, taking tours to South Africa and other places
where you know that you're playing with young men of
similar age who have a higher sort of rugby age
(04:17):
because they've just been playing for longer that's our biggest challenge.
We have talent. There's an abundance of talent in this country,
where you're a passive country, there's an abundance of talent,
but most of the talent is picking up the game
when they're fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and it's very hard to
develop an international player at a key skill position who's
(04:37):
picking up the game at that age. Rights it's hard
to develop the.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Instincts pathway wise. When you look at the pre eminent
sports the United States of America, we're talking at the
highest level, serious amount of income. You can see why
young men specifically move toward those sports, especially the contact sports.
Is that holding back? Do you think the development of
rugby union lack of a pathway that may result in
(05:05):
fame and fortune?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, I mean it's not just it's not just an
MLR issue. I mean I think you know, you're you're
a benchwarmer in the NFL makes more than the highest
paid rugby player probably in the world. It's it's dark. Yes,
I think it does. I don't think we necessarily need
to be in a position where we're competing, you know,
dollar for dollar with those salaries, but we do need
(05:29):
to be in a position where you know more and more,
you know, in the United States and across the world,
there's a credible career path through rugby for these young
men and and and hopefully in the future young women
as well who want to make rugby a career. And
that's that's about It's about the dollars, but it's also
about creating a pathway to speak, that starts that is predictable,
(05:50):
that starts at you know, starts at the at the
you know, U nine level, and goes through high school
to a cohesive university system and on into MLR, but
also into the club game outside of m l R.
So to that end, a lot of the work that
we do when we're thinking about beyond twenty thirty one
and what the sport looks like after that, it's about, Okay,
(06:11):
how are we building up you know, varsity programs at
the high school level that are now funded by the
high schools and the athletic associations and sort of the
municipal level education systems and funded by the universities. And
so a big part of the work that we do
is work with the existing collegiate conferences and working with
high schools and high school systems to get more kids
(06:33):
playing rugby. I'll give you an example. We did a
program last week in Houston, Houston's ten million city of
ten million, where we trained representatives from every public public
elementary school on how to teach rugby and p classes. Right,
So we're now going to deploy that and if we
can start deploying that in five, six, seven, eight more cities,
(06:55):
you know, the spillover is massive. It takes time to
build and it takes time to pay off. But that's
that's the long term play. That's why soccer has been successful.
Soccer football, if they're successful in the United States, is
really about grassroots and the number of people who have
a touch point with the game.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
When you look at the format, the structure of the
system for in l how was what is that based upon?
Is it a franchise system where you mentioned before you've
got various owners of various clubs. How do you determine
the best place for those franchise Just give us a
rough idea about what the structure is like for Major
(07:32):
League Rugby.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah, so we're a private league. I think it's put
it in rugby terms, the Premiership. It is similar. So
the teams are independently owned. They each have sort of
investor operators, with the exception obviously of the anthem in
Carolina which we talked about, and those those teams own
the league. That those teams own the league collectively. So
as much as they're competing with each other, they're competing
(07:55):
with each other on the pitch, in the boardroom, they're
very much aligned sort of on that mission of growing
rugby from a grassroots perspective, but also from a commercial
perspective and trying to build you know called net new fans,
bringing new fans into the sport because ultimately that's what's
going to feed this and help this grow. So it's
it's a privately owned league, but we're owned. We're owned
by the teams, and we obviously have your very close
(08:18):
ties to USA Rugby and and to World Rugby as well.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Major Leage Rugby CEO Nick Benson joins the program. So
determining where these franchises are going to sit or have
set is that based entirely on where the owner is
going to be. How do you spread that around?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
We're quite strategy when we look at new markets. There's
two or three things that we look at. We want
to have a market We look at market size and
media at Footprint is one piece. We look at the
building and the venue that the teams are going to
play in. I think more and more as we go forward,
the venue that you play in plays a critical role.
(08:57):
You want to have. Obviously there's good economics, and you
have good economics in your venue. You also need to
be in a venue that plays well on TV and
that has like checks all the boxes in terms of
the player safety, TMO connections, you know, media connectivity, et cetera,
et cetera. We we look at we want to see
a grassroots community development plan. So we want to understand
(09:18):
what is the team in place, What is the plan
that you're going to deploy from a grassroots community development perspective,
but also from a business planning, marketing but since seats perspective,
So what is the plan? And the final piece or
maybe the first piece is the owner capitalization. Right, you
want to make sure that the owners that we're bringing in,
the new owners that we're bringing in, have your ability
to fund their operation in perpetuity.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Stick around. That's important. Consistency, so the league stays, it
just doesn't sit for one two years and people lose interest.
Is that something you're concerned about or something if ring
fence and you realize that these teams will stick around
and they will last because you've got to look forward.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, we have to look forward. I mean, we'll listen,
we're going into our eighth year. We've we've survived COVID.
Growing up. Growing a professional sport in the United States,
which is the most competitive sports media market on earth,
is incredibly difficult. It's incredibly challenging. It takes a lot
of eligable weeks, a lot of fick skin, and and
(10:17):
you know, you know, there's no secret that we've lost
a couple of teams along the way for for for
for reasons, and that that that's happened in every professional
sport that's developed in the United States. I think the
strength of our system is that, you know, when that's happened,
you know, the league has gone on, gone on and
gotten stronger and continued to get stronger. You know. Yeah,
(10:38):
it's it's it's not easy. It's a labor of love
for the people who are doing it. You know. I
think the people who we have behind these teams and
behind you know us in the league office are passionate
about rugby. They see a big vision for what the
sport can be in the United States. They think it's
important for it to grow. There's a lot about the
game that I think differentiates it from American football, from
(10:58):
from basketball and from others. There's, you know, sort of
an underpinning of values that I think is incredibly important
and that I personally think is incredibly import and that's
the reason that we do it. But but it's it's
a difficult road, but we're making great progress. You know,
we're going to have our best year coming in next year.
And last year was our best before that. Attendance was up,
(11:19):
you know, thirteen percent. Our own media platform saw a
fifty five percent increase subscribers. We more than doubled are
sort of commercial revenue numbers going into last year. Uh,
and we're hoping to continue on that trajectory. So it's hard,
but the game is growing. Uh and we're starting to
see the benefits of our labor.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
We know, not is playing San Diego. What other involvement
have New Zealand has had, Okay, it is to tap
into that ipay players, administrators in the lock as well
as the much of a connection and arrangement there, Nick, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
There's there's actually a pretty significant Uh, there's a lot
of crossover with New Zealand. You know, we have a
ton of players who actually play at NPC during our
off season and go back and forth. That's continuing to evolve.
Those are team relationships. We have a ton of KIWI coaches.
I used to be with the Utah Warriors before I
came back to the league office. You know, we have
(12:16):
Greg Cooper coaching there, so he's he's a He's a
great dude and a fantastic coach. You are. Our twenty
twenty three Player of the Year was Jason Petrose, obviously
a Kiwi. Are twenty twenty four Back of the Year
was Reese McDonald. So we haven't yeah, I think sorry.
I actually had someone pull this stat for me before
(12:37):
we can. We have about sixty sixty KIWI players playing
in the league. So so for us, it's it's it's
a really important market.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
You've signed a deal with ESPN. How relevant is that?
How important is that? And does this mean New Zealand
audiences are going to be carrying on or be able
to carry on watching the email?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
OL So interesting that you should ask that question because
I've got a piece of news I'm going to break
here for you in a second. ESPN is hugely important.
It's the talents Square for sports in the United States.
It's got twenty eight odd million subs. You know, we
love TRN and we'll continue to operate TRN as a
platform for rugby fans, but if we're going to grow
and get outside of our ecosystem and bring new fans
(13:19):
to the sport, we have to go to where the
sports fans are. That's why we're going to ESPN for
New Zealand. We're actually finalizing a deal today with Sky
New Zealand, so Sky New Zealand will be carrying our
games coming into this year. They gave me permission about
ten minutes before I got on this interview to make
that announcement. So we're actually really really excited about that.
(13:40):
So they'll carry one game, we expect them to carry
one game live on Linear and the rest will be
us streamed by Sky New Zealand. So we're really excited
about that partnership because we know that's where that's where
rugby lives in New Zealand, so we want to be there.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Fantastic news, And I suppose whinnying up, what does success,
what shape? What form does success take for yourself? In
Major League rugby and rugby as a whole, what are
you looking at? What are you Marcus?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I think when we look at rugby in the United States,
I think, you know, we have a clear sort of
a top five echelon in sports in the US. Right,
you have your Big four, you have you know, American football, basketball, baseball,
ice hockey, and soccer. Now, I think you know we're
successful when when we're challenging, when we're challenging those five,
(14:33):
when we're challenging those five for attention, and when we're
challenging those times for media time, those five for media time,
and challenging the way they perform commercially in terms of
in terms of sort of attendance, in terms of audience,
in terms of all of the metrics that make in
American sports league. I think I personally, you know, believe
(14:54):
that in a ten year, in a five to ten
year time horizon, MLR needs to be challenging the best
leagues on earth in terms of the quality of play
on the field. Right. If we don't have big ambitions,
there's no point in containing right, So you know, we
need to be challenging the best, and we need to
measure ourselves against the best, and that has to be
our target.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
That's very American and I do like the sound of that.
You guys gonna set up a super rugby franchise because
you know you are on the Pacific, on the West
coast anyway, and steam one over here over OURWI. Is
it a possibility?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
You know, we're focused on building MLR and making MLR
and making m l R the highest the highest level
of rugby that we can make it and making it
as good or better. But I do look forward to
some crossovers. Actually, our our l A team played played
the DRUA in the preseason fixture two or three weeks ago.
It was a pretty competitive match and we hope to
(15:51):
have more of that, you know, with with the rest
of the rugby world, because if we're not measuring ourselves
against the best rugby out there, we can't hope, we
can't hope to match it.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Love what I've heard, I'm sure the listeners have as well.
The m l R CEO, Nickans, we thank you very
much for your time, your readiness to share all of
your information and the positive stories around the future of
our national sport in the USA Neck look after yourself,
have a great weekend, and I hope the opening round
goes as well as our opening rounds too. I love
(16:23):
the way it combines.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
It's a wonderful thing. Thanks Nick, Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Hey, that's one.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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