Simon Massie-Taylor, CEO Prem Rugby: 'From Red Bull’s Newcastle Investment to Building the Best League in Rugby' (Ep83)

27:28So ticketing and sponsorship as well, to the extent that the collective deal makes more sense across the league, collective kit deals, things like that. So that's where we're going to play much more of a role. And if you think about the word franchise gets banded about a lot, but in terms of some of the principles of franchise structures, that strong central support and coordination over commercial rights and growth is a key part i think media you negotiate essentially as prem rugby so the tnt deal for example yes through you yeah that 100 that's our that's our main income stream as the prem but if almost if you look at pll prem rugby 10 years back essentially sort of pre-cvc it was quite a sort of b2b business it was it did you know when i talked about my responsibilities chief of sex responsibilities the leagues it was quite b2b you a broadcast deal you do title sponsorship deal you organize the fixtures and that's it there wasn't a huge amount of central resource marketing budget and what we're seeing you know we've built up our marketing team we've incrementally built up our marketing spend and we've seen the impact that has in terms of the promotion of the league and so i think a lot of the growth and interest we're seeing is because now we're we've got a more coordinated marketing unit essentially and how it works with clubs and that's making a difference media is always it's held up as a almost the core of the leagues that make the most money.

28:46And I think there's two sides to it, right? You can get really drunk and happy on it, but then it can also present risks because it does create a huge over-dependence if anything happens. So if you're looking at the current deal, it's a brilliant deal that was a record deal for 200 million over five years with TNT. So say 40 million a year, give or take. So that's what is it? Equally distributed as 4 million to the teams per year. But in comparison to other sports and when you've still got significant cost base in rugby, that's not huge amounts of money to be able to then grow a lot of that work so does it all go hand in hand as the product continues to develop as the fans come in the media obviously becomes more of a core piece of revenue that then facilitates being able to pump that money back in yeah i'm careful i don't want to i don't want to shit on a great deal but do you know what i'm there's a lot to unpack here and so let me start off by saying if you look at a business plan for a new league or a new concept or even someone's an investor's view on a future of a league.

29:45If the biggest number is media, you've got to be a bit wary and a bit scared, especially if it's following a hockey stick flow, which isn't necessarily where the market's going. If you look at that 200 million pound economy, then it's about 20 odd percent of that. So it's not that the system is overly reliant on a single income stream which could go up and down. So I think our reliance on it is balanced and that's good because again going back there's other more commoditized, more predictable income streams which have growth potential which we can focus on. I guess again you get worried if you're sort of having to focus so much on short-term media deals that you know going in two three year cycle that will only do this sort of length deal because there's going to be a big uptick in the next one it's amazing when it was so we've just signed a five-year deal with tnt so they are brilliant partner for rugby they've proven track record in in the production that they put on place and everything they've got behind it's amazing when you actually now sign a long-term deal with them how it changes your focus as a business because you can then be much more long-term much more strategic and drive all the things that Ultimately, in five years' time, when we sit down and we talk about where we were and where we are, we can show demonstrable difference rather than two years' worth more of trading and it's hard to put a finger on where you are.

31:06So it makes us into a much more strategic operation. But then also, if you look at the broadcaster, it means they can invest in the long term, right? So they're not thinking whether they're going to have these rights in a couple of years' time. They know that they're there and they're going to invest in the product. And so it totally changes dynamic and creates much more of a partnership. So we're in a great spot with TNT Sport and they're now super excited about investing in the long term and doing a lot of innovation, which, you know, again, they're famous for, but now they can double down on it.

31:35So that's great. And again, that becomes quite self-fulfilling, doesn't it? Because again, that's going to help generate new audiences. That's going to make the product superb and that's going to drive growth. And so, again, you can have that conversation in five years time and it's been a really good spot. To close off the investment piece, we were talking and there's been obviously so much conversation around emerging leagues and concepts and different ways to disrupt rugby and R360 is a key one of those, but also the opportunities that are presented when challenger competitions come into play for the existing leagues and teams.

32:05how do you think about that when you have something like r360 on the table but then you also have what prem rugby has to its advantage established audiences storied assets huge opportunity but of course with the need to build more value into that well i think from what i've heard about r360 it's it's a set of ideas and principles which we put a call to our strategy and our vision of where we're working you know it's all about improving the fan products it's getting the best players on the pitch. It's about global growth as well. So there's a lot of things we agree with. The key thing with where we are is we've got the foundations.

32:41If we've got 150 years worth of history with some of these clubs and the fan bases and the regions that exist behind it, and we've now got a significant amount of momentum. So the sort of pitch around innovation and growth and all those types of things and quality is absolutely there. We talk about standards and that's what we're trying to elevate but i think it's it's incumbent on everyone to continue to try and self-disrupt and constantly challenge what's what you've got and whether that's it's you know it's right going forward i don't know if you've seen um you've seen happy gillmore 2 yet no i mean well for those that have seen happy gillmore 2 it's quite there's quite a good parody on sort of the concept of a challenger thing because it's golf and you know they've essentially sort of got a uh a live golf a destructor that's there i think it's called the maxi league or something and part of the message of that is you know there's sort of you can whiz bang a sport and try and sort of make it sexy and appeal but actually fundamentally you need to have something that is competitive that means something to fans means something to players as well you're playing for something and so there's that balance and i know sort of disruption has been a big thing or challenger leagues have been a big thing over the last 20 odd years it seems to there seems to be a lot of things especially in rugby we've had like 12s knockout and ex-rugby i think at one point but you sort of need to stick back to the core about what fans actually want you talked about your use of the word franchise you made just a brief reference to it why do you think that is important and has the system now with the promotion and relegation system and just a brief explanation on that in an answer this would be great for people but why do you actually think it is important now if we're just playing to the modern market and economy and attraction of rugby as a sport that those small tweaks in how we talk about something like this actually influence what people understand as proper value?

34:27So franchise meets different things to different people. I think there's a lot of elements that we have which are already elements that people identify as part of a franchise setup. A good example of that is something like the salary cap actually. So central strong regulation that ensures competitiveness and that in itself is attractive for investors because it means there's a chance of winning and the chance of winning is really important when you look at your own sort of respective commercial models. An element of centralisation exists already. You talk about media rights, but it's something that we're looking to continue to move on and have much more of an influence on other commercial elements, which I think is a core franchise feature.

35:04But you also need a stability as well for investors. Now, that moves into quite an emotive topic about promotion and mitigation. And we live in a country with football where that's a key part of the system. And there are other, I think there's probably one other example within rugby, be within France, where they have two tiers and there's a flow between those two leagues. I think for our system within England, and I've come on a journey with this, but having worked at the RFU previously, but I think there's a realisation that we're trying to find solutions that suit our system, not trying to copy someone else's.

35:38I think for us, we're in a system where we can only really sustain one professional league and make that the best as it possibly can and drive the standards, because that's another key part of what I see as franchise in terms of higher standards driven from the centre, which therefore qualify yourself to be part of the franchise. I think there should be a risk if you're not meeting standards that you don't get squatters rights. But I think we should have the ambition to grow our core league with more regions and more brands and more teams that way. So there are aspirational teams that sit within the champ and I think they should have an opportunity to join the Prem in the long term once we're at a point where we can accommodate more teams.

36:18But equally, there's other regions that have big potential. The Southeast is one of them. There's no professional rugby team within that region. I think it contains 22, 23 % of both English rugby and also Prem fans. And the nearest cup for someone who's in Kent is Harlequin's. What do those standards look like for a champ team to be able to promote themselves or participate in Prem? I think it's a multiple set. Some of it's infrastructure, and that's the sporting infrastructure, the quality of your academy, the quality of your welfare provisions. On a sporting side, there's that. And then on a fan side, it's the quality of your stadium.

36:55It's also the experience that exists within there when fans go to it. People now are quite discerning in terms of what they choose to go and not go to. And so the right infrastructure there, also the infrastructure there that makes it look good on TV. Once things look good on TV, generally that starts to push interest to actually go to the events. I mean, if you rewind back to really the beginning of the Premier League, that was a big push to have full stadia looking good on TV and that drove the sort of desirability to actually go and buy a season ticket or go and turn up. So I think that's important.

37:29Governance, again, let's go back to governance, but again, that is important in terms of how your boards are constructed, how you make decisions, how you financially regulate yourself. And then I think you need to push harder and harder in terms of fan growth. And so you need to be accountable for your database is increasing, your fan base is increasing. And then finally, the quality of product on the pitch. You know, you want people to invest in players. You don't want to have people who are sort of hanging out at the bottom of the league and spending as little as they possibly can and just getting by.

37:58You know, you want really good quality there. We've kind of danced all around that side, which is really important. to build some of the foundations. But then, of course, marketing, fan growth. The numbers in and around the sport right now, particularly Premside, are really positive, right? We're looking at some good trajectories. All of this that we've talked about financially needs to be put in place to build some of that infrastructure. And to do that properly, you need something that people actually want to follow. Start right at the beginning. It was a big move that you guys made, Prem Rugby, Gallagher Prem Rugby.

38:28Yep. Why? Well, we were just, I mean, it's quite interesting, actually. So when I started, my first hire was a guy called Rob Kroger, who is the commercial marketing director from The 100. And I was slightly obsessed with the sort of concept of the power of the new, right? So you need to totally sort of reposition yourself or start something up new or whatever else, reset, which is essentially what The 100 had gone through. And so Rob's been around since sort of the last three years. And so we've been on a journey and actually once you listen to fans and to players, what we understood that was actually different from the 100 was, well, for a start, that the product is really good.

39:07The rugby is really good. It's competitive. These teams really mean something to people. And go and Google the victory parades in Bath or in Northampton the last couple of years when they've won the Prem and you'll see that in spades. It's really exciting rugby as well. So the actual product and the fish is unpredictable. There's all those types of things, the DNA of something you'd really want in any sports property. So that was great. And actually, when you speak to fans about who we are, we're just replaying what they say we are. And people call us the Gallagher Prem. That's part of the vernacular.

39:44So we're just speaking how fans are speaking really with that. But it also, where we've concluded, isn't a radical rebrand of, you know, calling ourselves the big smash or whatever else you could have ended up doing. Did that come on the table? Like a big smash at one point. So this was an evolutionary thing, playing back what fans and players think we are. And then just accentuating a lot of the key elements of this whole sort of gladiatorial spirit, this whole athleticism that exists within our sport is so unique. I mean, I remember seeing that. I forget who did it. I think it was E &Y did that Gen Z study on, and rugby had dropped, hadn't it?

40:22It dropped down to just, I think it may not have even been the top 20 in terms of relevance for Gen Z. And so throughout this whole research phase, we're like, well, what's wrong with the sport? Why aren't people appealing to it? And actually, again, when you look at the core DNA of what people want, they want athleticism, they want the whole sort of brutality of the sport actually was something that really resonated with young people. So all these things were there. they just weren't promoted enough. And so we're investing a lot more in content now that starts to play that back to people. And actually, what we're seeing even the last year is significant growth in the 18 to 34 year olds.

40:58That's growing 30 % in terms of interest in the last year. And that's just from basic marketing and just basically getting it out there. So I think the concept of the prem and what it is, I think it's building notoriety. I believe it's very exportable i think in in terms of if you look at global sport there's only really room for sort of you know one you know maybe in football two global sort of club leagues that exist and in football that's obviously the premier league in rugby i think it was super rugby do you remember back in the day that was when it first you're a bit younger so but when super rugby first came out that was exciting that was renegade that was really amazing international players that were in it and that's still there but i think we've we've got a very exportable product you know it's english language for a start which i think help helps us and it's starting to build you know really decent audiences in other rugby territories so i think our vision of being the most being the best and the most loved rugby competition i think is is possible how much of that targeting and capturing of youth attention we call it you know attention economy more saturated than it's ever been more hard to really get a hold of that and most importantly not just get a hold of it but build loyalty and sustain it how much of that is down to a developing media strategy that you have both centrally yeah and also then as individual clubs much is significant and i think just that was part of the the strategy when we first came in is to try and get the distribution out as much as possible and so that meant well on on linear channels all games on on tv and so now tnt broadcasts every single game that meant more free to air and especially big moments like the final so we've got we now have seven games on itv and that's massively helped in terms of general interest and it's the general social media channels the tiktoks that the instagrams that again we're seeing massive uptick in terms of interest and youtube just plays a big role i think for for all sports in terms of making sure content is well curated there and there's enough of it i think clubs are moving much more in this direction as well you know they've got the constant sort of battle of selling a ticket tomorrow for next weekend, which is obviously marketing to a certain demographic or established demographic versus trying to do things that are building more of an audience, the family audience, the young audience.

43:18Quinn's a good example. If you turn up to Quinn's on a Friday night, there's a sort of Friday night lights vibe to it. It's young people. There's one degree or two degree of separation between someone who knows someone in the academy, a lot of academy players that are sort of knocking around there. So it's different for different regions, for different clubs, but there's much more of a focus on it now. Individuals in sport have become more and more influential, should we say, in developing brand and developing profile of clubs. Previously, the badge was always outstripped the individual, give or take maybe a couple of extraordinary exceptions.

43:51But now, particularly in the environment that we live in, social media environment, the player power environment, those individuals can often drive far more attention than the badge that they play for. rugby has struggled to create what we would call i would say a global global superstars in the same way that some other sports have and we've had this discussion with quite a few rugby and i understand it's almost the antithesis of what the sport is all about it's about that collective that team no one's head above the parapet all of this but there comes a time where as you're playing this game where you're trying to attract the younger people a tiktok generation if we want to call some of that as well how important is it that you support the development of athletes as brands to support the development of the game and in this case the prem in particular absolutely you've i mean you've highlighted some of the sort of cultural challenges that have existed within what is a team sport environment but sitting underneath this is you know some of the biggest characters you'd meet in sport they're there and i think they've sometimes struggled to either have a voice have the motivation to have a voice or you know just generally be given a platform for it or help develop to be to be like that i think there's an important point there around what's expected of of players within this like it's not an idea around them goofing around being someone they're not on social media that the fundamental power that a player has is to be a promoter of their sport of their team and of themselves and so the ability for a player or a coach or anyone else to actually say to give some context as to what's happened or what's happening or what they've been through or the idea of what's about to happen this weekend in terms of a clash between a and b and what that means to them and what that means to their club that's like that stuff that you tune into and therefore get excited about it if you look at the sort of the build-up to boxing matches the idea of rivalries, the idea not, you know, you don't have to go down the sort of trash talk, you know, avenue or anything else like that.

45:49But the idea that this is building up to something that's big, that means you want to tune in, doesn't it? What's interesting with the younger wave of players that are coming in, you know, Henry Pollock's, is that I think they're seeing this opportunity, they're seeing how other athletes are behaving, they're moving in that direction, they're trying to balance the fact that they're not legend yet in terms of their their own performance and what they've achieved. And so there's this constant sort of making sure you're in check in terms of your own ego, personality, everything else like that. But I think they are – Henry's a really good example.

46:22He's seeing this opportunity to grow the sport and to be an inspiration. And so I think it's happening. We need to provide more tools for that and whether that's media training. But there's more that needs to happen there. And again, you go back to the content bit and us investing in content that gives a stage to these folks is another thing. Content's obviously been key for multiple sports and leagues, leveraging docu-series or whatever we want to call them. And some of them are brilliant, but the reason they've been so good is because they uncover the personalities behind people that we've never actually seen that behind the scenes to.

46:53We've never properly understood what they do to achieve so much in their careers. And when we had Sam Warburton on, he was talking about the Six Nations documentary. I know Premier Rugby's done that one with Amazon. Yeah. But he was quite frustrated and it aligns with something that you've said here about highlighting the best bits of rugby. He said, you know, I don't want to see Finn Russell having a coffee for a game talking about why it's an important match. I want to see Finn Russell smashing into someone in training. I want to see what it's like to actually perform at that level, what you have to put your body through, the physical and technical sides.

47:25And I guess I'll back it up. You know, watching some of these documentaries, I feel like there's been a part where it hasn't highlighted some of the best parts of rugby that make it different. and maybe it's gone down the route of other sports where the coffee and chat around it strategically is maybe more important. How do you make sure that when you get these opportunities to really showcase the best parts of the game that you're actually doing that? The feedback from the players is that it needs to be high quality really. Anything you're doing in terms of content needs to not make them look like a fool but equally that it's actually produced well.

47:56So I think that's there. But then if you're going to do these docos then yeah, you're going to want to have access in the change room. You're going to want to hear the team talk. You're going to want to hear the arguments. You're going to want to hear the tension. I think that's what's good with Drive to Survive. I don't think that was necessarily achieved with the latest Six Nations doco. And I think that was part of the feedback from fans and everyone else. I hope that rugby's learned a lesson with that in terms of access. So if you choose to do these things, you really do need to sort of open up and open up the doors.

48:23But I think also, I think that we've obviously had a wave of sport docos. And just specifically on the long format stuff. I think that you've got to be quite lucky with these behind the scenes documentaries because unless something amazing has actually happened within a club's history, whether they've actually won a World Cup or won the league, it can just be quite mundane. Do you know what I mean? You just feel like you're just watching a sort of day in the life of rather than anything that's bigger. So, you know, the great sports doctors have either been retrospective, so sort of Michael Jordan story, or they've led up to something that, you know, they just happened to have been there when it was something amazing.

48:59and so the best example of that rugby was back in 1997 with the Lions you know we're living the Lions and they won that series so if there was going to be another sort of you know big docker within the sport it needs to sort of build up to something and it also can quite often rely on the lucky personalities you can uncover if it's a drive survive you know someone just potty mouthing it like Gunnsteiner does but that actually fed into something that we had a football manager called Michael Beal on recently. And he said something that I loved, but it was talking broader culturally. He said, you know, we don't create any Ibrahimovic type players really in this country.

49:34And I think you can probably put it across quite a lot of sports because we don't necessarily create the environment where those absolute mavericks can succeed just based on our cultural understanding of how people should be. Do you get the feeling that that actually does present a challenge when we're trying to do this kind of new wave of profiling and iconisation. It's just not in the fabric of us as a country. Yeah, I think it will be really interesting around how Red Bull approached this. So the team sport, the fact they own a team within that now, I think they've done brilliantly in building other players' profiles so that it's about the sport, it's about their athleticism.

50:12It's about their personality as well. I'll be really interested to see how they take it on there and I think others will follow as well. What about the calendar and making sure that, you mentioned earlier that it's always a topic of conversation, making sure that the calendar supports the growth of the prem because international rugby is an amazing product and has been for years in the world cup we know the numbers around it are brilliant but we want that to convert you know you've always got to be careful not to get lost in summer tournaments or sometimes winter tournaments based on the success of them it's does that sustain throughout my issue continually and and it's sympathizing with you in the job that you have is in this era now where we're recognising the players as such important assets to build growth.

50:53If you're losing players on key game weekends, if you're having to compete with the strongest rugby product, that almost puts you on an immediate back foot, doesn't it? To be as good as you can be. It would never happen in the Premier League. How do you work on the calendar as multiple bodies to ensure that you don't have these clashes that compromise that quality? Yeah. Our calendar has massively improved recently as part of the professional game partnership we've tried to ensure there's clear space between international and club games so actually there's no overlaps now with the international schedule which helps you've still got elements of player rest that need to happen but our internationals are playing you know now the vast majority of prem games and that's great and that's what fans want that's what all casters want but it's a constant shuffle and i think the international schedule has expanded since professionalism so that's that but then equally so of leagues and so of competitions as well and and there's a reality here that there's only a finite number of games that players can play and so this is when everyone needs to get around a table has got around a table in terms of world rugby and in getting the global calendar sorted and so you've now got the nation's cup which is coming up next year which is set in stone and so there's clear windows which with which they are occupied our club game is pretty clear over the next few years there's a question mark over the european schedule which is which is eight weeks we've got an exciting new proposition with the World Club Cup that's happening in 2028.

52:16And that made you take how, I guess, the top, top tier of club rugby evolves going forward. And so I think that's probably the last bit of the jigsaw puzzle for us, in terms of that top tier competition, how the Champions Cup evolves, future World Club Cups. But you need to make use of every single one of those weekends, you know, because again, it's a finance stock. So it needs to be selling tickets. It needs to be relevant to broadcasters. But there's no more room in the candor for other competitions. but particularly rugby is interesting isn't it because there's just a physical element that you don't have in other sports as in a health care element people reference it oh if it works in cricket it's great but cricketers can play i mean they shouldn't but they can play every other day and they do in some tournaments you can't play rugby at the same frequency that you can other sports based on the impact that it has on your body so naturally that creates an even more finite amount of time to fit all of this stuff in.

53:11Yeah, so the idea is more isn't more when it comes to the game. And you can't see those pressures on players loading getting any easier over time. It's an intensely physical game. There's a huge amount you can do to make sure it's safe within the times that they play, whether they're playing or whether they're training. And there's been a huge amount of work that's been done on that. And you would have seen probably in the press the last few weeks around how instrumented mouthguards have evolved and that becomes a really important source of data in terms of learning around impact but then also you know how to manage it and then it's it's it's care off the pitch as well and i think we're we're really proud of the welfare provisions that our clubs provide and and so you know as a result you're seeing careers that are longer in the professional game but yeah the answer isn't more more games so you know there's a flight to quality here should we do a fire a few quick fires at you see what you got these what sport do you look at and take some notes from take lessons from as to how you could develop i mean it's such a cliche isn't it but the the i lived in the states for a long time and so the u.s sports environment is is brilliant when you turn up to a u.s sporting event especially i used to go to a lot of baseball and nfl games that's great that's a great experience and we're talking about ridley field before we came online and i would go back there every weekend it was just it was such a good experience there as a fan so i so i do envy the everything that exists within turning up at a us sporting is that fan experience driven yeah yeah it's customer service driven as well like you know i mean really digressing there but if you if you remember during the 2012 olympics the importance of the volunteers there the volunteers became a massive part of the event experience it was if you remember those people walking around in the purple tracksuit tops and the grey trousers.

55:01And they became inspired to deliver a great fan experience. There was a large element of customer service there and fan engagement. And that was really basic. That was just volunteers there with a pointy finger saying, go left, go right. Do you know what I mean? And actually, when I was at the RFU, my first event when I was at Twickenham wasn't a rugby game. It was an NFL game. And it was the first NFL fixture they'd had there. and I had a meeting straight afterwards with Mark Waller who was running at that stage and we got terrible scores in terms of fan experience and I think there was a sort of arrogance or assumption this is how we run our venue this is how we run our concessions this is how we run our wayfinding and it just didn't resonate with with NFL fans that experience other stuff elsewhere so they were brilliant they actually paid for a load of Disney trainers to come in and teach people how to look after people in queues and smile and various other things.

55:58And so I learned a lot through that process. Yeah, massive. Because that makes you want to come back. Yeah, yeah. What surprised you the most about the job? I wasn't prepared enough or had no experience of having to engage with the media and be publicly accountable. This was the first chief exec job I had and I was thrown into a situation where suddenly you had to explain what the hell was going on pretty quickly. And sort of fast forward six months whatever it is and you're having to do a select committee so having to go from no experience into that into having to deal with that pretty much on a daily basis was massive learning curve i think the big thing i learned was you're clearly a sort of you are a public asset you're something that fans have a massive stake in fans and players you know there's a huge amount of people that essentially relying on you in the to deliver something that they enjoy so the the level of accountability there is huge you enjoy it now yeah yeah absolutely it's a privilege I think that that first sort of 18 months was full on.

56:53Like I think it was probably one of the most challenging jobs in sport at the time. It's baptism of fire. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, cat years worth of experience in terms of what it's taught me. And as I say, it's a privilege to be a part of it. Okay, let's look at the performance side. If you can change one rule or you look at the game and you think, we need to improve this, particularly with a focus on making it more of an appealing product to fit what modern sport is, Is there something you look at with rugby and go, yeah, we need to sort that out? Things have got better. The ball's in play a lot more.

57:25I think the scrums are quicker. It's interesting, though. If you look at the World Rugby tied up a load of heart rate monitors to fans and played various different elements of the game. And the scrum was actually one of the ones that excited people. So this perception of just sort of long drawn out scrums was actually people's hearts were racing. I think it was the hacker that created pulses racing the most and line breaks were there, but scrums are right up there. And if you speak to someone like David Flatman, he will absolutely reassure you of that. So I think that's broken play where the ball's slow out of it.

58:05People are wanting that to happen a bit quicker. But I think we're on the right trajectory. I'm very conscious of not continually tweaking and changing rules because I can't explain it to people and I think fans get it as well so I think there's a point where the sport has to settle in terms of its rules I kind of hate the question because it's a great product but again it comes back to almost bring everything together if you can better package the whole thing collectively you just know it's part of it look at football I mean football's literally in play for about I think between 45 and 50 minutes.

58:41Yeah, yeah. So it is an issue throughout. And just explain what's going on because once people understand then I think that helps. So that was another one. It was where do you think the sport's most ripe for technological disruption? I mean, I'm waiting for the day where you can have a player cam and we have player mics and they've tried player cams in training but when you can have a player cam on every player and so you can see first person running down the wing and someone coming after you like that's going to be exhilarating to see. Finally then to wrap it all up we've talked a lot about investment and we've talked a lot about the future and what you want to be building.

59:17What do you think should entice an investor the most to come and put their money behind either Prem Rugby Central or one of the clubs? We're building the most lovely in world rugby we want to set world-class standards across performance across commercial across governance we want to create stronger clubs that are sustainable and investable we want to create a great place for players to play in and we do that in partnership with the RPA the Players Association and the RFU best academies best medical provision we're well on the journey with that already and a better product for our fans bigger games bigger stadia a better experience in stadia and in TV as well we want to position the Prem as the most exportable product in world rugby and there's plenty of proof points for that we're definitely in a growth phase now and we can see that with all the stats whether it's the younger demographic, under 35 attendance went up 15 % last year, interest in the league 18 to 33 awards up 30 % the last year, back to back sellout finals, we sold 20 % of our tickets for next year's final ready, we haven't kicked a ball yet.

1:00:17We've doubled the number of sellouts in the last year at the clubs, TV audiences are up 30 % as well. There's so many different metrics we can point towards and all the foundational work that we've done to make things stable. And ultimately Red Bull have invested in Newcastle and there's plenty more to follow. Perfect way to wrap it up. Simon, thank you so much. Love having you on. Thank you very much. Thank you so much to Simon for coming in and giving us the exclusive insight to the plans for Prem Rugby. We've now had a number of top-tier executives from the world of rugby on the show, all of them with their own unique challenges.

1:00:53Whether it's Bill Sweeney looking at the game from the RFU's perspective or Simon looking at the game from the domestic level, what we can definitely see is a collective movement to ensuring that the game continues to develop and adapt to attract both a developing audience and maintain the relationships they have within the existing fan base. It's always brilliant that executives like Simon feel this is a place they can have these conversations. We know that conversations in public forums can be difficult in sport. There's so many emotions you have to balance when talking about things people care so much about.

1:01:22But it does provide a lot of hope when you sit down and you see that these individuals are working with the best interests of the fans, of the players, of the investors, to ensure that, in this case, rugby has the best future possible. How will it manage as it continues to develop and compete against inevitable new challenger systems and an increasingly competitive broader sports market? Let's see. But we really appreciate Simon opening the doors and coming in to talk us through it all. 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.

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