Ben Calveley, The British & Irish Lions CEO: “We Need Some Wins; This Is A High Performance Team!” (Ep68)

25:15Well, if you look at the way things have worked historically, so we go back to that pre-2018 model, then whatever profit was made was all paid out in a distribution to the shareholders. There was a relatively small amount that was held back to fund the next cycle. You didn't have a situation where there was much money that was retained for investment into future growth. That's one of the decisions that we took since I came in is that we would now start to build up more of a war chest, if you like, that you can use to invest in these sorts of areas. So our trajectory is growing significantly. So our marketing budget now would be double what it was in sort of previous cycles, but I think we're still under-indexed.

25:52And we haven't done it yet, but there's a piece of work that needs to be done comparing the amount that we spend on marketing relative to other sporting properties and relative to other organizations outside of sport. And I think that will show that we're under-invested. How big is the marketing? Well, it's in the low millions, right? And an interesting story. I remember going through these numbers with somebody and our marketing director was taking him through the budgets and he must have referred, showed him the numbers and must have referred to something like the quad or something like that, right?

26:21And so for us, the quad obviously is the four-year cycle that makes up the lines. The person we were talking to, I think understood that to mean Q1. And so he says, oh, that budget's okay, right? That seems about right. That's a good budget for the first three months of the year. It's not the budget for the first three months of the year. It's the budget for the full four-year cycle, right? And so we are definitely under-indexed. And I go back to the point that if we get it right on this tour and all the indications are that it will be more profitable than it's been in the past, that means we can retain more of that revenue and we can invest that in future cycles in things like marketing, digital, et cetera.

26:57What would you like to do with more marketing budget that you do not do today? Well, there's a piece which is around content, right? And if you think about the Lions, we play matches once every four years. And now that we've got Lions women, it will be matches once every two years. But that's still infrequent, isn't it, in terms of the amount of content. So we are reliant on churning out content from the archive. We need to do much, much more of that. And that takes time. It takes resource. It takes people. We also need to invest even further in our CRM capabilities. So although we've grown this area significantly and the database has doubled and a little bit more by the time of the 25 tour compared to the 21 tour, and we used to know about four information points for every person on our database, that's now up to about 16.

27:43So it's grown and it's got richer, but we need to invest even more in converting people from fans to members of our database because that community, I think, has got real value. and that's what we want to help our commercial partners have a direct conversation with. You mentioned distributions in terms of profits. Who are the shareholders? The shareholders are the four unions that make up the line. So England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland each have a 25 % shareholding. What about the business model, I guess, on that cycle? And I'm just interested on the relatability of this to the conversation we had with Bill Sweeney.

28:18He was talking about the six cool challenges that he has. One year, significant injection of money, another year, complete drop-off, World Cup cycle, chaos, but then another year with loads of autumn internationals, fantastic. You are so heavily weighted, I'd imagine, in a lot of that income on one particular year as a particularly profitable one. What happens in the other three years? I know there's lots of planning, but just from a business perspective, when it comes down to running the company, what does that look like? Yeah, you're right. So again, when I started, this is one of the points that we looked at and decided we wanted to address because that financial cycle was way too high risk, right?

28:52You've got one high point every four years and that's wonderful in a tour year when it's successful. Revenue generation, engagement from fans, so on and so forth. Relative calm, let's say, in the shoulder year, so the years outside of that tour. Now it only takes something like a pandemic and you soon realize that that risk profile is completely out of whack. That spike that you have in tour year is slashed in half, cost base remains where it was, and you're looking at a very difficult financial position. So there's a couple of things that we try to do to address that. Number one, I don't really like the phrase always on, but you'll know what I mean by that.

29:29We try to extend the life of the Lions Tour. So the Lions Tour, although it lasts for six weeks in Australia, the deals that we do with our commercial partners are typically two years in length, and we're trying to commercialize that relationship for the full two-year period. And we do that in a number of different ways. But if you look at, let's say, the last 18 months or so, slightly more. So we start with the announcement of the head coach, Andy Farrell, which happened in January of last year. We then, about a year to go, you've got fixture list announcements, ticket sales. You then, after that, have the unveiling of your jersey.

29:59You're then announcing your assistant coaches. So there's lots of these different set pieces that we put in place. You want to create these moments. Absolutely. Set pieces, moments of magic for an extended period of time. and then you make sure that the deals that you do recognize that there is value for the brands that you're partnering with in those periods outside of the six weeks. So that's number one. Number two though was the introduction of the Lions Women's Tour. Now we did this for a whole host of different reasons, principally driven by the fact that we thought it was the right thing to do to give these wonderful female athletes the opportunity to pull on the red jersey.

30:32But at the same time, we're trying to create a second high point in our four-year cycle, a second revenue generating opportunity. So we're not just reliant on this once every four year situation. You have more of a suspension bridge. And look, of course, we - I mean, for you, this is magic. You've just doubled exposure. We've doubled exposure. And look, the reality is, will the Lions Women's Tour be profitable? Yes, it will, even in its first iteration, which is something we're pretty encouraged by. Will it be as big as the men's in terms of financial return? Not in iteration one, but the job for us is to invest over a period of time and grow it so that we become reliant on two peaks and not one.

31:06Tell us a little bit about the implementation of that women's tour and the business model. You just mentioned before we came on some incredible statistics around the success even before it started. This is a business. When we sit in these chairs, quite often, the business of women's sport is the challenge for a lot of the people running organizations. They are supported by the men's team and they have to require investment, taking money away from the bottom line of the men's organizations to get them off the ground. But I'm interested here, I think it could be slightly different. Can you tell us a little bit about this?

31:36So yes, it will be different. The first Lions Women's Tour will be profitable, which is a great position to be in. If I go back over the process that we've run, so it's about a four-year process to go from starting to think about the Lions Women's Tour to actually announcing it also in January of last year. We did a feasibility study that looked at the economics of the tour and made predictions about the revenue that we would generate that also looked at, is there space in the calendar and so on? Can you actually make it happen without cannibalizing other events that happen in the rugby space or overlapping with other set piece events in different sports and so on.

32:10Feasibility study concluded that yes, it could at least wash its face if not make a profit. Good news is the deals that we've done since then have all been much higher than was anticipated at feasibility stage. So it's more profitable than we first envisaged, which is excellent. Next stage for us was then to go to effectively to world rugby and try to get access to some calendar real estate because you need to have a slot in the calendar that is carved out specifically for you. So that was a big piece of work that involved us liaising with every different union and league and club and so on. Good news is they are all very supportive.

32:42So we were able to get that calendar real estate. Calendar, I love that. A calendar real estate. Calendar real estate. And then we ran a bid process, I guess, to try and find out who is the right host. And our view for the Lions women's team is that it doesn't have to follow the same model as the men. This is really important, right? So there are certain things that have to be the same as the men, and they are things like it's the best of the best. So it's merit-based selection. There's no quota system that says you need 10 from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, or anything like this. We have to play against the best in the world from elsewhere, and again, in countries that are really interesting and exciting for the traveling fans.

33:17Beyond that, though, you can go wherever you want. So it could be the countries that we play on the men's side, so New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, or it could be somewhere else. It could be France, could be North America, could be Japan, could be South America, who knows. It just so happens that this time around, the successful bidder was New Zealand rugby. So we'll be over there playing against the Black Ferns and other sides. And I think that makes perfect sense. Right now, they are back-to-back world champions. It's another Women's World Cup later this year. So who knows what the situation will be by the time that is finished, but it's the best against the best.

33:50And I think that's part of the reason why we are seeing the deals that we're doing are coming in at values, like I said, that are higher than was anticipated at feasibility stage. You said that the shirt sponsor for the women's this time was as much as the men's in 21. More than, more than. So it's a significant price point. That's unbelievable. It's a very good outcome. And that's because of our fantastic partner, Royal London. So Royal London will be on the front of the jersey. They're the founding partner of the Lions women's team and they are investing heavily. And look, they would consider themselves, so they're an assurance, they're a mutual life assurance company.

34:24So they're owned by their customers. They see themselves as very socially responsible and they want to make an investment in what they call leveling the playing field. So what we're using that money to do is yes, it goes into the lion central coffers because tours are expensive and you have to pay to put them on. But there's also an amount of that money that is invested into each of the unions that make up the lines, to fund player pathways, coach development and so on, trying to level up the playing field so there are more people capable from each of the different countries of being selected for the Lions Tour come 27.

34:54Do players get paid? Yes, of course. Yes, they do. Absolutely, they do, yes. How much does a player get paid? So it depends. Actually, again, this is a change that we've made recently. So number one, every player gets paid exactly the same. It doesn't matter whether you play all games on tour or no games on tour. If you're on the tour, you get paid the same, whoever you are. No different whether you play a test match or you don't, right? In the past, it was a flat fee. So there was just a sort of an amount that went from the Lions to the player. We also paid an amount to the club who owns the contract to the player for player release.

35:29Now, again, go back to how we've changed the model. My view was that was a little bit transactional, certainly in relation to our relationship with the club, slightly less so the players. We were trying to secure player release, but we'd often be in an arm wrestle with the clubs about how long we can get the players for. And I think we may be lost sight, this is in the past, of the importance of the clubs, given that they have invested significant sums, time, energy, resource into developing the players. So we've completely changed the model and it's now all based on partnership. So we have a partnership with our four shareholder unions, clearly, and they get paid a dividend post-tour.

36:05We also now have a very similar relationship with the leagues and the clubs who own the contracts to the players and the players themselves. So everybody gets paid according to profit share, right? And the idea is that every part of the professional ecosystem is now incentivized to support the Lions Tour. And I think an example of how that's been useful is number one, we are now in partnership. We're all in partnership and we're all working together, I think more effectively than has been the case in the past. Let's use the game in Dublin as the example, the one I keep referring to as being 65 days away, that's a great example of our partnership with the clubs in particular bearing fruit.

36:44That's on the 20th of June, right, which is a Friday night. Originally, the premiership and the URC finals were due to take place on the 21st of June. Very difficult to have those two matches basically going head-to-head against each other. Because of our partnership, the clubs and the leagues agreed to move the date of their final by a week, so they happen on the 14th. We've now got two high points in the rugby calendar, both with room to breathe and we've got players that can play in both not competing on the same day so the model that we've changed around profit share back to your question and that also plays out for the players i think just means that everybody now has skin in the game so player if we call them salaries for for lions tours is that rising incrementally based on the success of the tours correct how much do you get paid depends how well we do so it's a percent so it's a percentage of percentage is it a percentage of profit correct but it's a privilege as well isn't I think the thing I always, I found interesting recently was with the Ryder Cup.

37:39And, you know, I think the last Ryder Cup, you had the whole Patrick Cantley waving the hat. His piece was that he believed that the players with the Ryder Cup being such a huge event, generating significant money, should see something. Ryder Cup players don't get paid. It's a pure privilege play. And it's an interesting thing in sport, isn't it? When you have these things that are so prestigious and hallowed. How does the balance fit between we're just lucky to be here versus we're still playing the part in creating products? There's a difference, I think, between a Lions Tour and a Ryder Cup.

38:10So the sort of more philosophical standpoint is the same. So it's the absolute privilege to be selected. It's the high point. It's the pinnacle. I get that. That's consistent across the two. The Ryder Cup lasts for three days, right? A Lions Tour, you're away for eight weeks. And so it is very, very different what you're asking the players and the athletes to do one versus the other. I do also think like the quantum of cash that they get outside of that. I mean, I'm sorry, golfers, if they're playing in the Ryder Cup, they are the top of the top of the top. They earn millions and millions and millions.

38:42They're doing all right. A hundred grand actually to a lot of rugby players is a lot of money. A couple of hundred K to a golfer. To be clear, though, I haven't had this conversation with them directly, but would the players do it for nothing? I mean it's an interesting question. I suspect they would you know. We had Sam Warburton on this show literally for all of his success as Wales captain and everything. You know he's written about it in his books. That to him the Lions jersey that he had when he was a kid that is the absolute pinnacle. He would have played for free. Yes. No doubt about that.

39:10But also because that enterprise value as a player would go up if they played because the exposure because the game time the sponsors that come from it personally. But just because he would it doesn't mean he should. It doesn't mean he should absolutely. And that's the view that we take is we want to make sure that everybody is incentivized to get behind the Lions financially as well as for the other reasons that we've discussed. And particularly at Harry's point, you know, you look at the broader economics of the sport. You know, it's a really important opportunity and earning opportunity for players that aren't on the lucrative contract scene in other sports.

39:39I think this is a really great time to talk about that kind of business of performance of the Lions, which is what makes it also so incredible, such an incredible entity. Can we start with the coach? You mentioned Andy Farrell's selection. How do you select the coach for a Lions tour? So let's talk about the process that we went through this time around. So we brought together a group of people. So I chaired a panel and on that panel was Yian Evans. So he's our chairman, three-time tourist with the Lions, twice successful. In fact, we had Nigel Redmond from England who toured with the Lions in 97.

40:08Lots of experience of appointing head coaches in different sports. We had Brian O'Driscoll, four-time Lions tourist, and we had Sir Ian McGeacon, who has been on, I think, most tours, right, since a long time, a long time past. It was a big feature of the Living with the Lions documentary, wasn't it? It was a big feature of Living with the Lions, yeah. So there's like 15 plus worth of Lions tours worth of experience in that room. So we brought that panel together and over about a six-month period, so this started probably summer-ish 23 and ran through until just beyond the World Cup had finished.

40:39We spent a lot of time talking about what is it that makes for a great Lions coach. And there were two things that we thought about. One is, of course, you need the technical and the sort of tactical acumen. to be the head coach but more importantly than that you needed to have this ability to unify this group of people in a really short period of time get them to coalesce around a common purpose and we had funnily enough we had all sorts of you know flip charts with graphs and you can imagine one axis has got technical competence the other has got ability to unify and you've got all sorts of names and i won't share who those names are that are being plotted on this graph but i guess in to relate to football it's something like do you have the gareth southgate or do you have the Jose Mourinho.

41:17100 % because there's also a point, right, which is around, if you think about what the Lions is trying to do, it's a short, sharp, eight-week project in performance terms where you're trying to win. That is quite different to trying to develop a team that can win over and over again in six nations, in World Cups, and so forth. And some people excel at one, but maybe not the other. So these are all the different conversations that we had. We came up with who we thought the right sort of shortlist of people were. And then, of course, we wanted to see how those coaches performed in things like the World Cup and so on.

41:51And then we came together after the World Cup and made the decision. Warren Gatland, Andy Farrell, how important is it you think that the coaches that you pick have actually had the experiences with one of the home nations for a significant amount of time to build some understanding of the player group they'll be working with? Yeah, I think it's important. It doesn't mean you can't do it without having had that, But having a knowledge of the UK and Irish ecosystem and the players within it is obviously important because you haven't got long once you've been appointed to decide who are the right players and who can play with whom and so on.

42:21So I think that's important. It's also important you've had experience on a Lions tour. I think potentially quite difficult for somebody to come in as a head coach who hasn't been on a Lions tour in any capacity historically. So if you look at Andy, although he hadn't been head coach of the Lions, he had been on two Lions tours as part of the assistant coach ticket. and that means he's got a real understanding of what goes into this. The cadence of Lions matches, two a week for a number of weeks, is very, very different to anything else you experience in the rugby world. So the planning that you put in place is very different and you don't want to be learning that when you're in Australia.

42:53You need to know that before so that you can get your preparation. What's the balance there of you having to approach and convince? You've got a great case right now, Andy Farrell, coach of one of, if not the best team in the world, when you probably made the call to get him in and then what he maybe has to sacrifice on his side. Is it a, I could never turn down coaching the Lions no matter what I'm doing right now? Or is there a little bit of a negotiation? I think everybody would consider themselves to be honoured to be the Lions head coach. That was absolutely the case this time around. So Andy was thrilled to be invited and he said this publicly himself, thrilled to be asked.

43:32It was a short conversation. it wasn't about persuasion and and so forth because as it is for the player for the coach as well it's the pinnacle now some people might think there's a challenge there because this guy is the head coach of an individual side so he's the head coach of the irish union and if we're going to appoint him as our head coach that means he has to give up the reins for the irish national side for a period of time and what do the irish think about that well i spend a lot of time talking to kevin potts who's the chief executive of the irfu he's on our board and he also would consider it an honour.

44:04So they would say it's a reflection of our system that we have a head coach who is considered good enough to take the reins on a Lions tour. So I go back to this point about the whole of the ecosystem being supportive of the Lions, you see that at every single level. So you're involved as the executive in this decision, a key performance decision. Once the head coach is appointed, as an executive, is it then on that coaching staff to go and take on the selection, everything that goes into building that 18-month piece up to the tour? Yeah, so as the chief exec, you're involved in that decision and you ultimately make the recommendation to the board on who the head coach should be.

44:40But let's be very clear, I go back to my point earlier, that's based on the advice and the guidance of people who have been there and done it, right? It's not the chief executive rocking up and just deciding, I like the look of this guy, I'm going to recommend him. So there are lots of people that know far more than I do about the performance elements of the sport that would have a significant input into that decision. Once you've appointed the head coach, am I going to tell him who he should select at inside centre? Absolutely not, right? We've appointed the best head coach in the world. We're going to give him the tools that he needs to be successful.

45:10So he and I would speak regularly. We meet up every couple of weeks or so. We probably speak every week, sometimes a couple of times a week, and he will talk to me about what he wants to do. The key for me is to support him and give him the tools that he needs, but I'm not interfering and telling him, you must have, back to the example from earlier 10 players from each of the four countries that makes up the lines or anything like that you select who you think are the right people to win on the field and off by the way so that's backroom team as well as players does performance on the pitch correlate to financial performance off it it's a great question so we've had two wins in like i said earlier in the professional era but the financial performance has gone up up and up every tour.

45:53So even when you've suffered a defeat, you will still see financial performance rise. Now, what I think you need over a period of time is to have some wins, right? You do need some wins. That doesn't mean you need to win every single game on every single tour, but this is a high performance team. The aspiration is to win and we need to do that. We haven't done that since 2013. So we do need to get another one. So since then we've had 17 against New Zealand, which we drew and then 21 against South Africa, which we lost in a decider. Third test, 78th minute, they scored a penalty and won it. You talked about bringing players together.

46:32Generally, the people that are making up the Lions tours are leathering each other for the majority of the year and not just in club size, but in the most competitive international environment. Why does it work when you bring the fiercest of competitors together and stick them in not just kind of a room together, but then in a team to be able to deliver. Some of it that I don't think you can describe, you can't break it down and say, well, these are the components that make for something that is so special. Because part of what makes it special is the mystique, the unknown, the somewhat intangibles.

47:03But it does work. Now, if we try and do what I don't think you can do and break it down, there's a part about the players absolutely wanting to be there, right? They are desperate to be there. They have been playing since they were little kids, honing their craft, and this is the absolute pinnacle for them. So being selected to be on the Lions tour, as I've said, is an honor. Becoming a starter in a test match for a Lions is a level above. Being a winning Lion, or maybe something like a captain, you're now on Mount Rushmore as a rugby player. So there is something about the players absolutely wanting to be there.

47:39When they're there, I think the experience that they get is like little else. partly because of the quality of the player that they're playing with. These guys are the best of the best. So you can imagine whatever environment they're in outside of the Lions, they're playing with some players who are maybe not at the standard that they are. When you're at the Lions, everybody is at that extraordinary standard. So there's something about the coachability, the level of improvement, the swiftness of the bonding that you see that is probably unlike anything that you've experienced before. I remember Courtney Laws, who's a two-time Lions tourist at 17 and 21.

48:15He talked about when he first got selected in 17 and he went to his very first training session and he realized at that point, this is a level above and he loved it. He absolutely loved it. And so I think that's probably the key component is the fact that the players absolutely love being there. But there is something else, right? And it's around, I think the relationship between the players and the fans. Like a Lions tour wouldn't be a Lions tour without the fans, not in the same way that we know it. And 21 is a perfect example of this when we played behind closed doors because of COVID. You are surrounded by tens of thousands of supporters, but on the other side of the world.

48:54And that in itself is quite interesting. Like what else in the world takes tens of thousands of people from one side of the globe to the other? so it's like a home environment but you're away from home and I ask the players and I've said to them in the past what difference do the fans make like do they really make a difference and they will absolutely say yes they do particularly in the biggest of games with the finest of margins and that's what you have on Lions tours the biggest games with the finest margins so being surrounded by that sea of red and the the atmosphere the color the passion the vibrancy that they bring, there is a relationship between that energy and what happens on the field of play.

49:33So as a fan, I actually don't look at our fans as spectators who are sat there passively consuming the action. I look at them as participants in the action. And so whether you're a player or a fan, there is something about that. There is something about that that makes you feel that you're a part of something very special and it just works. I was there in the last win in that Sydney Stadium in 2013 and you looked around and there was more red than there was gold for Australia. Well, I mean, mostly because half of them were in their Welsh tops as well because it was, as we said, so much Wales. But it was incredible.

50:10It felt like a home fixture for a team that doesn't have a home. Yes. And this time around, on our official travel program at least, we're taking more than double the numbers that we took in 2013. How many people is this? Well, so the total number of people that go on a Lions tour is unknown. So you'll hear all sorts of numbers quoted, right up to sort of 35 ,000, 40 ,000. A number of them will travel on their own means, right? We'd love them all to come through our official program so we know exactly who they are. But everybody's got friends and mates in Australia who you can stay with and they can get tickets for you and so on.

50:42We will take on the official travel program like way more than 10 ,000, way more than 10 ,000. And it's interesting, right? So 20 % of all hotel space in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne is booked in our name right now, right? And these are big international cities, right? Sydney, you know, big international city. 20 % of every single hotel room in the whole of that city and the surrounding area is booked in the name of the lines. It's absolutely huge. In fact, there are only a certain number of cities. And this is an interesting challenge to have that can host us now. So take Perth, right, on the west of Australia, of course, they have something, forgive me Perth if I've got the wrong number, but it's something like 16 ,000 hotel beds available in Perth.

51:23That's not enough to accommodate the lines for a test match. They don't have a deep water harbour, so you can't get cruise ships in to accommodate people. So in Australia, the only places that have enough infrastructure and hotel stock to accommodate us for a test match at least are Brisbane. And even then, because you've got Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, Melbourne and Sydney, where they have about 40 ,000 hotel beds. So they can accommodate us. There aren't that many cities in the countries that we've historically toured that can continue to host the Lions, given the number of people that we take with us.

51:53Can New Zealand do that? The infrastructure that they have around their major cities, can they support it? Yeah, so they will be able to. You have to find different ways. For example, cruise line is one option that you would think about. Plus, back in 2017, before my time, there was loads of motor homes and things like this with traveling around the country. So you have to find creative ways. But the hotel stock is obviously lower there than it would be in Sydney and Melbourne. So we talked about what the historic side of the lines is, where the values lie. Now we are building up to this big tour in the summer.

52:23Everything that you do, everything that you're planning and putting into practice, Can you take us to the actual moments on tour for you? What happens when you're there? So you mean as the chief executive, what do you do day by day? The tour coming up now, once you're on tour, everything's gone into it. What happens when you actually go on tour? That's really, it's an interesting point to reflect on that. And I would liken it to what a head coach does in test week. So you will hear head coaches talking about at the start of a test week, it's very much coach led. right so they're leading the debriefs with the players they're talking about the game plan for the opposition that's coming at the weekend they're leading the training sessions as you go through the week it becomes more player led and when you get to the Friday if the game's on a Saturday you'll have the captain's run which is led completely by the players and I remember hearing Stuart Lancaster who was the England rugby head coach way back when talking about on the day before the match or it might have been on the day of the match he'd go to one of the executive boxes at Twickenham and he'd be reading his book because at that point he can't influence matters as much as he can earlier in the week.

53:29It's similar actually for the chief executive but over the four-year cycle. So for the first three and a half years of that four-year cycle you are absolutely across everything that happens sort of day by day, minute by minute. For the final six months or so and of course including the tour you've appointed a bunch of people like Andy and all of his assistant coaches and the backroom team on the performance side and we have similar people working on the commercial side and the corporate side and they are there to do their jobs. Like we said before, I'm not selecting anyone for inside center or anything like this.

54:00You leave that to the people you've appointed. So what I would do on a typical tour, of course you're around and you're showing support for everyone and there will be people that you need to speak to and there will be issues that you need to unblock and you try to make sure that the overall unit is aligned and operating effectively together. There's a piece which is about, I guess you might call it incident management. So lots of major events have situations that occur, whether it's we've seen in the past or things like pandemics, obviously an extreme example, you know, typhoons, hurricanes, matches get postponed.

54:33And as the person who is ultimately accountable for the tour, then I need to be on the ground and dealing with those situations as they emerge. You hope there are none of them. Touch wood, there won't be, but there may be. And of course, in South Africa, four years ago, the whole thing was about incident management, crisis management, in fact, from minute one right through to the final whistle of the third test. Beyond that, there's a lot of stakeholder engagement. So we have a huge portfolio of commercial partners and other supporters, whether they're rugby ecosystem partners, government supporters, local and international, who will be on tour trying to make sure that they're getting out of that tour what they want.

55:09And I will be spending a lot of time engaging with that stakeholder group. And there is a piece which is about cracking on with the day job. So although there's a tour happening in Australia, there is Alliance Women's Tour happening two years down the track, and then there's another men's tour happening two years beyond that. So given proximity to New Zealand, we'll also spend a period of time with New Zealand rugby when we're down in Australia, focusing our plans for those next two tours. Can I ask you, what would you most like to change that you are unable to change because of commercial partnerships, broadcasting partnerships, board?

55:40What would you most like to change that you're unable to? Rugby is an interesting point now, isn't it? Where there are some financial challenges that the game has faced. They're well documented. I think they're understood by everybody. What that means is that if the Lions makes a profit, of course, we want to be paying out dividends to our shareholders that they can then invest in the growth of the game in their territories and they can help them deal with the financial situations that they're facing. There's a slight tension between that and my ambition to invest more for the future growth of the game, sorry, the future growth of the Lions.

56:12For example, in digital and marketing, which I think would be an area we would like to increase our capacity in. So that tension has to be managed. Do the stakeholders understand? They do. Look, it's not - But then they want the cash, I guess. Yeah, they do. And it's always a very, very sensible conversation. Tough. Yeah, tough, but sensible, right? It's not as if nobody's at loggerheads here. The shareholders are on our board. We have very sensible conversations with them. And yes, whilst they, of course, would like to get the biggest dividend they could possibly receive, they also understand that retaining more of that addresses the risk imbalance that we talked about earlier when it comes to our balance sheet, but it also enables us to grow in the future, which means we'll be paying out more in dividends after subsequent tours.

56:52So these are people that understand that long-term dynamic, but there is always a slight tension between those two objectives. Is there a way to build a continuous revenue stream in terms of subscriber revenue? Is there a way to build that continuous revenue stream across the four years in membership that is actually really meaningful. Yeah. So membership's a good example. We have a membership program. I think the key is whether you can provide something that is genuinely meaningful to the people that are engaging. Throughout that period. Throughout that four year period. You look at most membership programs, right?

57:21And they're still based around tickets principally. Why do people sign up for membership programs? It's because they can get access to tickets, right? And we don't have many of those because we're playing once every four years. So you focus on digital content, etc but there's a limit to the amount of digital content that you can produce again because we're playing once every four years so we are thinking about these sorts of things we haven't cracked it yet so there's definitely more work to be done there okay playing on that we've you just touched on the wider problems in rugby and then we're just talking about the incredible success of alliance tour is there a way you can partner create value with let's say premiership rugby clubs some of whom are struggling with maybe attendance or demographics etc where you create a program linked to the Lions where a participation and an affiliation continuously with a premiership rugby club gives you access to an opportunity to tour a particular piece of merch or whatever it may be.

58:15Lions associated things that you know once every four years fans are engaging with but to get access to that what do you have to do? Well you have to support the game in the three and a half years the Lions isn't the feature. I think that's really important and so we do it. Right so I talk about this partnership that we now have. I was like I just cracked it. It was a great idea. So I talked earlier about the partnership that we have with the leagues and the clubs and the players and so on. It wasn't the case necessarily historically, but now we're putting on joint marketing initiatives. We have a group that we'll meet every couple of weeks or so that looks at what can we do together.

58:48So for example, we will promote sales of tickets for the Premiership final. we will give premiership an opportunity to have a prize for their fans which might be the trip of a lifetime on a Lions tour they can use that to generate data etc all of the fans on our database have the opportunity to opt in to become a member of the premiership rugby database if we understand that somebody is a follower of for example Northampton Saints we will try to sign post them to a relationship with the Saints directly so more and more that is now happening and actually we see that what is it that drives our database numbers up and up and up.

59:27Partly it's just the love that people have for the Lions, but it's also those collaborations. So building a relationship with the clubs and the leagues and other events is really successful, but we do it broader than those clubs. Of course, we do it with our shareholder unions and with Six Nations and with World Rugby, but we're also doing things with NFL, with Wimbledon and various others besides. And those collaborations are really meaningful. Would the Lions ever do North America? So we did a piece of work relatively recently where we were asking, what does the future look like for the Lions, right?

59:58In other words, will we continue to do the same thing forevermore? And our conclusion was that the Lions is what it is because of what it's done over 137 years. You've got to be very careful about changes that you make. You can't just rip up the blueprint and say a week on Tuesday, we're off to North America because we all love the idea of the revenue that we could generate in the States. In the way of out of York. Yeah, right? Exactly, right? Maybe you love the idea. So we decided, we decided that what is it that we want to do? Number one, we want to protect everything that's made the lines wonderful over our history.

1:00:29So we've got to be the best of the best. We've got to be playing against the best, by the way, in these countries that are wonderful for the fans, full of adventure and so forth. And that means touring places like New Zealand, like South Africa, continue to make perfect sense for us. However, there is a bit of us that thinks we should be innovative and we should start to develop relationships with new countries, right? Because if you look at our footprint now, of course, it's very strong in the countries that make up the Lions and in the countries that have hosted the Lions over many years. Outside of that, the relationships aren't significant.

1:01:04Can you do like a Lions mini tour? Well, so the way that we look at it is you have, there's three components to a Lions tour. You've got pre-tour piece. So, for example, the game that we're playing in Dublin against Argentina. You've then got the section on tour where you will play non-test matches, so typically against clubs or provincial sides. So in Australia, that's against the Waratahs, it's against the Brumbies, it's against the Reds and so on. And then you've got the test matches. Now, you have to leave the test matches, I think, where they are, continue to play three tests against the Wallabies or the All Blacks or whoever the host is.

1:01:34The pre-tour element, though, gives us an opportunity to think about building relationships with new countries. That's why we're playing Argentina. That's why four years ago we played against Japan. Could we see a situation where we're playing against different countries in the future? Absolutely. There was speculation a couple of weeks ago around us playing a pre-tour fixture against the French. Really mature commercial market in rugby. We don't have much of a relationship there. Would that be interesting? Yes. And then on tour, do we have to play all of our non-test matches against clubs or could you substitute in countries like Japan instead of, I don't know, a President's 15 or something like that?

1:02:10Absolutely, you could. You could. So we're trying to think innovatively about how we can get into new territories, but without compromising what it is that has made the line successful. And to be really clear, that doesn't mean just deciding we're going to go and tour the States a week on Tuesday. Because I think if you wanted to do something like that, you need to spend a period of time, long period of time, building a relationship with that market so that it can accommodate you when you do go. It's a bit like you look at the NFL now, how long have they been investing in their European fixtures.

1:02:41Well, it's a considerable period of time. They don't just drop the Super Bowl here and just sort of let it fly. They invest year after year after year. And that's what we would need to do with territories that we think are important to us is invest over time. Which territory do you think is most exciting? Yeah. So for us, we are interested in the French market. We're interested in the Japanese market. We're playing against Argentina. Everybody is interested in North America. My view would be that for the game to really get foothold in North America, the whole of the game needs to be part of one consolidated strategy.

1:03:15We could go to Vegas, right? And it'd be very successful outcome for us. And, you know, there's no doubt there. But for it to be successful for the game, the whole of the game has to work behind one consolidated piece and make sure we're all operating together. I think for us, the lines, it's really important that you don't ignore mature markets, right? Yes, there are potential markets out there in the world that we could go and build relationships with. But right now, there are really mature markets that we don't have relationships with. So let's start by building relationships there before you go to the next stage.

1:03:44Sorry, the only bit I was going to... Competition, again, drives your value, right? If the team you're playing against isn't at the level where you... The Lions is like such a strong entity. You're putting four world-class teams together. If you go out to the US and, you know, with all due respect, their test team is not competitive against a Lions team, an individual's team, let's say, if they're playing a series, let let alone Alliance team, then the product suffers. And so you can't compromise that product. No, you can't. And that's why we have to be best of best versus the best from elsewhere in the world.

1:04:13It's got to be competitive. It has to be competitive. Yeah, I get that. Can I ask you, we've seen quite a few people not take betting sponsors. Do you take that stance? So we don't have a policy position actually on any partners. We would consider all partners on a case-by-case basis. We don't currently have a betting partner, by the way, But there's not a policy position that says we would refuse to do that. We would take a view if a deal is put to us. My view would be that you've got to be a little bit careful where you kind of draw that ethical line because it's a bit arbitrary sometimes, isn't it?

1:04:45One person's judgment is very different to another. And that's why we don't have these policy positions that just say that's a Rubicon we're not going to cross because that's a difficult judgment. So we take a choice deal by deal, brand by brand, organization by organization. Should we do a quick fire? Go for it. Okay, I want to start with what sponsor do you not have that you'd love to have? I'm really impressed with the England Rugby Apple deal. That's really interesting. Why? Well, because I think a technology partner like that would be a great one for the Lions. I think if you look at us, whether it's content, whether it's analysis on performance front and so forth, I think there's lots of value that you can get in that sort of a partnership.

1:05:25Non-Rugby, what's the best part of being on tour? Look, it is an incredible experience. You think about, I mean, we're all fans at heart, right? And it's a real privilege to be running this from a business standpoint. But I would be supporting this Lions team, whether I was the chief executive or not. And being in the center and being able to enjoy the highs and experience the lows, it gets under the skin. And being evolved in something that you are passionate about is a privilege. I don't know how to quite phrase this. It's like a finance investor for a living. and like god the shame private equity doesn't come in and pump you with money and build like a much much broader product set here and really put you on supercharge how do you feel about that is this a quick fire round that's that's quite a good big question yeah yeah so how do i feel about the quick yeah so my my view would be just because if i if you really got cvc pump you with cash your marketing budgets go through the roof you can hire amazing digital data ai teams the key for me is if you want to build a relationship with some sort of equity provider, whether it's PE or VC or you could go for debt finance or whatever it might be, you want a patient long-term partner who is in it for the right length of time, right?

1:06:45Because exit is always going to be interesting for those organizations that have taken PE investment. We are not against those sorts of relationships because as you say, it gives you the capital, the wherewithal to be able to invest in the way that I've described, the key is getting the right partner who is long-term and patient. Your challenge is always going to be calendar as well, right? Because of what it takes to get access to the players, because of what it takes to plan a tour, because you're not playing at home. The development of your product is so difficult if you're going to maintain a relationship with the other organizations that own your key assets.

1:07:20It's also part of the beauty of it though, isn't it? Because what's rare is precious, right? So the scarcity brings its own value. I'm just interested about how would you value the Lions today? I mean, well, it's got massive brand value and it's got a really good business behind it, right? By the looks of it. You've mentioned profit more times than anyone that's ever sat in this studio. It's not a word we hear very often. So if you're taking that into a conversation on a deal, that's appealing. I think you're right. Scarcity is scarcity of this product. We now, in sport in particular, we're always lulled into this, you know, value is more.

1:07:51And the reason the NFL is still able to do what it does is 17, 18 games a season. Exactly right. Being able to drive that is so great. And the Lions is the quintessential rugby product that does just that. So I think it would be interesting. If you didn't have this job, what's the other job that you think would be amazing to have? So I'm one of those people. So I did play rugby and it was my sport growing up, although obviously nowhere near Lions standard. Otherwise, I'd be on the field rather than off the field. But I'm also kind of a mass participant. So I'm one of those people. How do I decompress outside of rugby?

1:08:25Well, I do it by watching other sports. right and so you know football cricket golf these are all fantastic events that i engage in i was there like everybody watching rory at the masters you know i think about ashes tours i think about rider cups i think about football world cups you know men and women and so on there are lots of opportunities for people in this industry and it's a great place to be do you think rugby should be an olympic sport sevens is obviously yeah i think the sevens it's a pinnacle right the olympics you want to be the pinnacle or as close to the pinnacle so that the value is retained yes in in in the quality of participating and i think for sevens you know it sounds i think it is i don't think you could ever have 15s on the olympic program you just couldn't for a start you couldn't fit the matches in but for sevens i think it is the pinnacle and it's also a great way of unlocking investment from national olympic committees around the world so it helps grow the game and get more people involved at a very accessible level and it's good because product rugby still represents exactly right but it's represented in the part of the game which is requiring that exposure.

1:09:24Exactly, yes. And you see, you know, Cunt Fiji gold medal also, I think back in 16, wasn't it? So you're seeing different countries get to the absolute top in the sevens format of the game, which is great. We've loved it so much having you in today. Long time in the making, well worth it. Very excited for the summer. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. There's few better ways to build up to a major tour than getting the opportunity to sit down and speak with the person that sits behind the performance. I'm so grateful to Ben for coming in and talking us through this side of the Lions, which I must admit, I have never really appreciated or understood.

1:09:58Creating an entity which has to build an entire business around a tour that operates for just a few short weeks once every four years does seem very difficult. And I have a much better understanding now for how they actually aim to achieve this, but also an appreciation on their side that they must diversify a lot of what they do to make sure that they can protect the product that is Lions, that buy the business and not have it so reliant on this tour to continue to develop and build the brand. The women's tour will be a fascinating play to do that and I think by the sounds of it it's going to be amazingly managed, amazingly supported and will no doubt really appeal to a lot of the fans.

1:10:34It was so great to do this, another fantastic rugby show looking at a different area of the sport and hey, of this rugby can be profitable. It's not all bad business like some will have you believe. Now if you want to hear more from today's show you can do so by going to YouTube and typing in business of sport but before we leave you some words from our valued partners. Oracle are the leaders in AI for pro sport. Their algorithms help make the invisible visible providing advanced warning of illness and injury risk for some of the best athletes on the planet. We can all see that the demands of elite sport have never been greater.

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