Tom Burwell: How Sunderland Have Positioned Themselves for Premier League Success (Ep116)

19:13Tom Burwell:Oh, 100%. And that doesn't happen overnight. You know, what we've been able to do and sort of attack some of the low hanging fruit over the past 12, 24 months in preparation for Project Premier League when we were in the championship means that you're able to do where we are today. How do you move from a business that is going to go just over 200 million this year to a business that's going to go over 300 million. Newcastle just announced 320 non-Champions League year, right? So we've got someone 10 miles down the road who's doing over 30 % more than us. And that's in part because they are a globally relevant brand.

19:50Tom Burwell:I think we have a lot of work to do about international fan growth and I think that needs to be targeted. Is that as simple as doing pre-seasons abroad? I think it was and probably isn't anymore. I think you have to be really targeted with where they are like we are really excited to go to the US this summer I'm not being rude everyone's really excited to do the US I'm going to give you exactly what you want on that right which is we are really excited because this year is the right year to be in the US we've got Football World Cup taking place we're going to play Liverpool in Nashville we're going to play Leeds in New Jersey and we're going to play Wrexham in Philadelphia right and we're going to do that and football have signed off on the two weeks that we're there with world-class environments, world-class training facilities, it is going to do us a lot of good from a performance point of view because ultimately that's what pre-season tours should do first and foremost.

20:40Tom Burwell:Secondarily, we know that there is capital that we can capitalise on, both from sponsorship and we know that that will be a cash-positive business trade for us in the summer. The piece that you touch on there about everyone, I think is one of the most important pieces. Why would I target as a newly promoted Premier League club the region that the other 19 clubs are targeting alongside the four largest franchise sports in the world? It seems like that's probably an area which is hugely sporting and there's a huge amount of capital but likely is feeling quite jumbled up. I think there are other regions around the world and for us Africa is a hugely important part.

21:22Tom Burwell:We have some amazing players that have represented their countries in AFCON incredibly well. We are seeing a huge amount of growth of unicorns that are coming out of Africa that are intending to IPO, specifically in areas like fintech. Tourist boards that are wanting to switch on the Premier League, as we've seen with Rwanda and others. Now, if we can find a way to grow relevance, importance across the African continent without becoming specific about certain nationalities and become what the Premier League looked at post the 2010 Football World Cup, saying Africa's this great region, and by now everyone's begun to look elsewhere.

22:04Tom Burwell:La Liga have got somebody working directly in Africa about how they grow fan bases and relevance in Africa. Bayern Munich are doing a huge amount of work with Rwanda. know Paris Saint-Germain have done the same I think that there was a real opportunity with you know the likes of Habib Diara and Noah Siddiqui some of you know our best players that have put us in a position this year to be as successful as we have done and how do we connect that to growth fandom growth to then the point of what does that mean to international brands that want to speak to an African continent via the mechanism of the world's largest soccer league football league

22:39Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:it's so easy for people to sit here and go we want to become a global club and we're too domestic we're too localized but actually then i said how do you do that well what you've just described there actually then shapes your commercial strategy because you can target the businesses that can help you do that and it can shape your transfer strategy where you bring the right players in and around that area still at the highest quality you're not compromising on quality but there's a focus on how you can then leverage those individuals in a market where people are so hungry for those personalities i think you can be intentional i really do and i

23:06Tom Burwell:think that we should be. Our CFO says, do a few things really well. He's got a banging surname

23:16Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:as well. You said it earlier and I was like, can we just give him some credit for Papa Dimitriou?

23:24Tom Burwell:He do a few things really well. And I think that's really, really relevant for those that are in the disruptor space, which I believe we still are, right? Look, the reality is that we're football club performance so so first and foremost is you've got to win games i think we have to for us where we are today remain totally connected to our fans so fan first decisions and a commercial strategy that has joined up i've heard you say it and it's something that i say internally is joined up across its media storytelling football clubs and i literally have heard you say this in the last 24 hours but i've previous to that i've said it to everyone in our business our media businesses Now, we monetize our live rights via the payment that we have from the Premier League.

24:10Tom Burwell:That bit's done. Now, the rest of the show, the Hollywood touch, I say, is up to us during the week to be able to produce and tell and story tell and tell a story of Noah Siddiqui back into the DRC. All of those things that we do. The responsibility we have is to do that. Now, if that's our show, that's our neighbors at 5.30, right? How do we monetize that as part of our strategy to ensure that we aren't just saying, you know what, I'm going to sell Front of Shirt. Because Front of Shirt goes, it gives X million fans via the EPL distribution around the world and you're buying a media buy. We want to sell sponsorship and partnerships that mean so much more than just the media distribution that comes with it.

24:52Tom Burwell:You can buy that from Bournemouth or you can buy that from Brighton or you can buy that from Everton. Why is it going to mean more to buy it from Sunderland? and that's because we're going to be a media business more than just that. So to my point, your three things, it's got to be a genuinely joined up commercial and media strategy. Bottom of the rant, it's your foundation. Fans deeply connected with who we are and at the top, you've got to win football matches.

25:16Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:We've seen media rights collapse in France and when we're seeing them challenged in Italy and Spain,

25:21Tom Burwell:what's the future of media rights in the UK, do you think? I think it's going to be a really interesting next sales cycle in which we're sort of two years away from that coming into operation So they're in the window now of the next two years are really important. Why is it interesting? For everything you've just said, right? So there's a reality to the way that linear TV is being attacked. And when I say attacked, that means aggressively. I mean, I'm more meaning just that their business model is not the business model that Sky Sports enjoyed through the 90s and the early noughties. So if you've got a situation where less people are purchasing behind-the-wall rights, then those people are naturally at some point going to look at the rights that they are purchasing to do so.

26:01Tom Burwell:Really interestingly, the Premier League is still one of the core drivers that holds up many of those behind-the-paywall TV companies. Let's not underestimate the value that Premier League has to the likes of Sky Sports and TNT or HBO Max or whatever we're supposed to call it now. And that's relevant the world over. But clearly there's not only linear TV models becoming more challenged. There's also a consolidation of ownership of those TV rights. So we've seen it with Canal Plus by MultiChoice Supersport in Africa. and I would say that the diligence that's shown by those two organizations in the acquisition of rights is probably different but now the owners of of said rights in Africa will will be operated as if they were in France which is going to have an interesting impact on the value that you can extract from Africa I think they're likely to consolidate with some other media distribution businesses in Europe.

27:09Tom Burwell:What does that consolidation mean? Do people continue to pay in isolation region by region or do they start going, well, hey, I'm going to try and do a rights deal here. That's not for me or us as clubs. You know, we have a responsibility to build the EPL product in every mechanism we can to then make that job easier for the Premier League. I'm looking forward to the Premier League's response.

27:33Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:But it's kind of a weird one because, you know, But you say, and I can only imagine what it's like in the Hall, it's not our place of responsibility to say that's the Premier League, our job is to grow it. But actually when the majority of clubs' core revenue stream is so closely tied to this, it is absolutely essential. So you may not be able to directly address this. For those that don't know, of 200 million, what percentages?

27:56Tom Burwell:Well, the easiest way to say it is that when you look at that playoff final and it goes back to that, right, is before there's been any performance implications of where you finish in the league the following year, there's 100 million impact straight away from winning that game.

28:11Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:So there are some clubs where that takes up up to about 80 % of revenue, central revenue. There are others, obviously, that are much better at diversifying. What do you think about bringing it in-house? There's lots of discussions. Singapore have just done the deal with the Premier League where they'll trial it. Basically, you know, Premier League productions, Premflix, whatever we want to call it, pay-per-view, but really control the production yourself. That's always the one where I think we're looking at evolution. and you're selling more games at less price but still making a 4 % increase, eventually you're going to run out of games.

28:38Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:When you're in a position of strength, which they are now, change, develop. Always change when you're on the front foot.

28:44Tom Burwell:Yeah. I'll speak on this slightly more in my BSG hat rather than a Sunderland hat. It's actually how we directly look at rights, which is there's a business that we've been looking at for a long time that will almost certainly sell two extra franchises, which will create an extra pocket of games. and one of the big things that we wanted to ensure was that there wasn't a natural piece that the linear packet didn't just pick those new games back up. And I've been really clear to the CEO the opportunity will be to take those to pay-per-view, to take those to an OTT platform and start beginning to prepare your audience while you've got contracted rights in the linear space for what might look like on the other side.

29:23Tom Burwell:I think there's going to have to be some consolidation in smaller sports from multiple different sports and consolidated sports packages? Because that's the thing that we need to get back to is we go, what's the biggest difference? And I think you touched on it earlier on about like, you know, the amount on offer for us all, whether it's AI games, et cetera. The reality is, is the amount on offer that service us and serve up sport to us. When we were growing up, or certainly when I was growing up - It was very limited. Yeah. Like it was Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2. If Sky Sports went down, you had to call somebody up and said, Sky Sports had gone down.

29:56Tom Burwell:They said, switch it off and switch it back on.

29:58Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Still do that now.

29:59Tom Burwell:always works always works 30 seconds they say obviously I did 27 you'd be in the roof next to the whereas now like you know we'll all speak on this but like our children are not watching adverts you know which is another point right which is where's the revenue coming to those linear parts in a minute my daughter talks about when I try and show her the like the old Disney movies which of course she likes but she's like remember to fast forward the first five minutes because the first five minutes of the old Disney movies is when they did all the credits. Yeah, oh yeah,

30:33Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:they have the intro.

30:34Tom Burwell:Right, so they have the intro, right? And such and such will be this person and Robin Hood will be this person, et cetera. She's like, this is boring. Do that. And I'm like, I never thought about that when I was a kid because my attention span meant that I was like, I'm just happy that Robin and Little John are running through the forest.

30:51Tom Burwell:Yeah. Admittedly, we've gone off topic.

30:54Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:No, I look at it. It's great. I really want to understand that on the performance side. them because i'll be honest right when i saw what you guys were up to in the summer as a as a fan looking in at promoted teams and you were bringing a lot of new players in quite a few of them without premier league experience quite a few of them very young i just looked at it was like oh that's

31:17Tom Burwell:that's risky we are the second youngest starting 11 in in the premier league we're absolutely recognized and the project that has been over the last four or five years has to be invest in young create value and that value can either be on our field or another field the model that we took was that we had the opportunity to do so it's a at a let's call it a different quantum going into the premier leagues we had done coming into the championship but the model remained the same which was invest in young and not invest in a let's call it a an average premier league age which was x y that meant that if you did go back down there was a big challenge to remove or move those players on right this was actually about de-risking which was that if we did go back down because we bought the right players that we were creating value for if we had to exit said players we would be able to do so so it was a it was a program of hey look we think this is the opportunity we think these are the right players and we think they're going to create value for us on the field but if that doesn't go our way because 85 % of the teams that come up are going straight back down then we know that we've got an exit value now if we drop down with a parachute payment and we are able to exit let's call it 80 million pounds worth of players suddenly you are back down in the championship with 80 million of cash plus parachute payment revenues are probably 4x on where we were last year when we were the playoffs it's on us to get ourselves back up right Because if we could get up with that, then we should be able to get up with the next bit.

32:50Tom Burwell:So I'm not trying to say it's simplify it, but it was... It's like an additional insurance buffer.

32:55Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:But it's a really interesting way of looking at recruitment because the easier thing to do is look for that security, look for that experience. Now, there is one big caveat, right? And everyone's very excited about it. Obviously, with all of this youthful inexperience, say from an English game, you bought Granit Xhaka in.

33:08Tom Burwell:Yeah.

33:09Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Who's been like to a lot of people, there's a good signing of the season, right? Incredible. And you managed to get him out of Champions League football in Germany.

33:16Tom Burwell:How did you do that? That was our chairman, Kirill. Can you tell us the story of that? That's the project. And I think the amazing thing about Granit is he absolutely understands and appreciates the community that Sunderland is and got a feeling and a representation of that community straight away. And those are probably the things that are the more, irrespective of Champions League football, were representative of the same in Leverkusen. and certainly when he was, you know, obviously front and centre with his fan group, both upsides and challenges at Arsenal. And Kirill took him on the journey to say, look, we are where we are.

33:53Tom Burwell:This is where we're going to go. We absolutely need a leader that is going to not only inspire the local community and many of the players that have come through our academies, but is going to inspire a group of individuals that are also coming to join the project, but they themselves haven't trodden the road yet. and he's proven to be everything in that. He has been a remarkable representation of the club. There is something that makes the hairs stand on the back of my head when we produce this video that goes at the beginning of every game, which is very, very much representative of Sunderland.

34:35Tom Burwell:And then the last bit just before it finishes is Granit going, away there lads and there is there is a bit that that feels both incongruous because as it does when i say it um doesn't feel like it is perfect and then it's also completely representative of of who premier league football is in sunderland it is a mixture of people from all over the world that understand what it means to wear red and white and it's hard for players to get that

35:03Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:sometimes straight away but by the sounds of it you're probably going to tell me he's just he's Got it.

35:07Tom Burwell:He is, but I think it's probably easier at a club like Sunderland. I think, again, that would be really hard at a London club or potentially one of the bigger city clubs. And, you know, I think one of the things is that he's put himself into his community. He said, what's the really important thing? Schooling for my kids, a home. Like, we're coming to build a home in the northeast of England. And when you're captain and your leader starts saying those things, you know, when you start signing new players and say, well, by the way, this isn't a come and live in a hotel. this is a build a life be representative of who we are and i keep saying representative i apologize but it's so important it's so important that um clubs are connected when i talk to you i feel

35:50Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:the words you say i know it sounds really kind of soft and kind of psychologist but i feel it in the way that you repeat representative the passion you have for like wearing around the mind it's almost kind of animalistic in a great way sure i didn't really feel that from any other the CEOs do you feel a different level of intensity no look I'm an intense guy so like

36:11Tom Burwell:do you not agree with me no idea I think there's an application of and look let's be honest been three weeks and I have been on the board for uh nine months it would be misrepresentative of me to be like I bleed right but I absolutely understand that fandom is not something that is not earned. We have to earn the right for somebody to say this badge means everything to me and if we just assume that that happens because of an annual engagement. I'm a fan of a Premier League football club, a different Premier League football club that I grew up being a fan of. I don't feel that engaged with that club anymore.

36:57Tom Burwell:Some of that's me and the life that I've gone to lead in different sports that it's probably harder to be a fan and it's purity and some of that's because I just haven't I've been forgotten by the club but I don't live near it and I think it's easy to when we talk about when I talk about that connection when we go and make new fans in Nashville this summer when we play against Liverpool I want us to ask ourselves a question how do we remain connected to that fan in Nashville how do they understand what Sunderland is and that won't be through coming to the stadium of light we know that they might do eventually

37:31Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:how do you define success with a nashville excursion is it number of net new shirts sold in america number of net new sunderland tv subscriptions sold how do you define success

37:44Tom Burwell:i think there's one the the tour promoter will define it based on tickets sold merchandise sold You know, we've got kickers on sellouts of games and all sorts of things, right? So there's the classic boxing promoter model. Is it successful, i.e. did we make money that week? We actually have to ensure that that bit sits right first because that's definitively going to say that we're net positive over that summer excursion. After that, it's the secondary stuff, which is that I think there's a huge opportunity. When we're abroad, we need to really think laterally as to how we can be as creative as possible.

38:22Tom Burwell:It's also another example that we have a set of freedom around those games about our media distribution and the way that we can create content that we don't get here as part of the EPL.

38:35Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:It's a great way to think. I remember when we had Peter Moore on from, he used to be chief executive of Liverpool. Yep. And he said that when they were thinking about being a global club, He said 99 % of Liverpool fans in the world will never come to Anfield. So how do we give them that experience so that they still want to be a fan of the club? And if you can start thinking of that, it's not saying that you're taking anything away from being in the Stadium of Light. That will drive everything that is local community. But your global fan base needs to feel what they feel on a Saturday in the Stadium of Light.

39:05Tom Burwell:We don't have a membership program yet. What? We don't have a membership program, right? We're launching a membership program. But if you look at the tiers of what a membership program would be, probably the most bought-in defined part of that would be a season ticket holder. And the person the furthest away from the season ticket holder would be an international member. It's like being an international house member of Soher House in a city that doesn't have Soher House, right? And why are you that? Well, I'm just an advocate of what they stand for and I want to use it around the world. For us, if you've got an international member, how can we go back to that point about value at the bottom of that pyramid, that person has engaged with us, gone and bought a Sunderland shirt and has gone, right, I'm going to wear this with pride in Nashville when my kids are playing football on the weekends.

39:49Tom Burwell:How do I ensure that he, she, little Jack, little Jenny are feeling like the club care? Because if you feel, going back to my example with my club, I know they care, but they care about the mass, but the mass is so big now that it's hard to care directly about that for us we're coming into a space that we have to grow and we have to create people feeling like they cared about

40:20Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:because the reason you haven't done that is probably because if you are just thinking like a local club one in ten people in the city having a season ticket I mean that is your membership 100 %

40:32Tom Burwell:and for the last ten years you can't have that approach in League One you know I can't sit in League One and go, right, strategy, guys. What are we going to do this year? We're going to go to Nashville, and we're going to make that guy think we care. So going back to that point that I said about, like, we need to be more than the eyeballs that the Premier League brings you, you also have to recognize that that is this incredible base, that once you have it, then you have the opportunity to be more than. When you don't have it, you've got a bit of problems.

41:04Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:So you have to keep it, right? So because again, all of this... Top of the pyramid, performance goes first. Here, we're talking about Premier League and first season, you said 85 % of teams get relegated in their first season and then you think you said it was about 65 in the second year.

41:16Tom Burwell:You've still got poor odds.

41:17Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:So you still, yeah. So still odds against, right, for next year. But we talked about you having that very clear strategy coming in. What's the balance between you guys sitting there now in a great position if you're giving it at the start of the season going, right, guys, more of the same versus, no, no, we've got to keep going now. next item on the agenda next development of the transfer whatever that is because it's very easy to go if you think something's working or we'll just keep running it

41:43Tom Burwell:yeah I wondered when I'd say it the first time which is obviously this our big sort of mantra it's the relentless obsession right like in and that will mean different things for different people in Sunderland right so for our fans and our players it's about being bold industrious creative indicative of who we believe a Sunderland person and player and fan should be. Within our business, we have to be relentlessly obsessed about those three things. And if performance is at the top of that, then with each transfer window that's pending, how are we taking steps forward each and every week and month to prepare ourselves for that?

42:21Tom Burwell:And that's both on the field with an incredible manager with Regis and him looking after that squad and building a squad that is able to then compete and play on the field. That is a director of football, Flo, who's come from Roma with Champions League experience and deep experience at PSG and Nice

42:41Tom Burwell:to operate our football club as a football club. So this is the football performance side at the very, very highest level in Europe, which is not us being in the Champions League. I'm not trying to pretend those things. All I am saying is that all of our behaviours, when we come to how we operate our club, both on and off the field, they shouldn't be different because we are in the 11th in the league to where you would be a third in the league. The relentless obsession for performance on and off the field has to be our driver.

43:10Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:We had a guest on the show the other day that said the separation between a director of football and a director of business is bullshit because they're one and the same in so many ways. Do you agree with that? And if so, why do you have a director of football and then is the CEO not the director of business?

43:26Tom Burwell:So I think a business needs to have somebody or something sitting across all areas of it for ultimate responsibility. A good example I have is that we talk about revenues all the time, but then we talk about costs, right? And your costs, let's say 85 % of them are going out at one building, which is the training round. And you'd argue your revenues are coming in at the other building, the business side. And the reality is that 60 % of those revenues are only coming in because of this side. So you're right, that circle has to be perfect. My relationship with Flo is that we're in absolute lockstep.

44:06Tom Burwell:And Flo's job is to decide on player selection, transfers. Yeah, he's to run that 150 plus million of assets that sit at the academy. He's the person that ultimately the academy will be looking to develop the next Jordan Pickford. And because there's value that's created there, you're going to spend X amount on an academy each year. You hope that you'll create players that will have Premier League minutes, whether that's for you or for somebody else. But you need to create value at the end of that sort of tunnel in the academy at 19 or 20, where you sell players onto the championship to cover your 5 million.

44:44Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:With that football side to it, for you guys, the business and everything, meaning so much in that community, how important is it to you to ensure that you always have a few representatives of the city, the club, the academy in that team?

44:56Tom Burwell:I think actually it leads to the recognition that we're going through evolution, not revolution, right? We have made some changes on and off the field over the last six months via the lens of the board believing that we're preparing ourselves to be a really strong Premier League football club in the future. That has resulted in some of our homegrown talent that were playing in the championship last year exiting to play elsewhere. We need to recognize that without them, we wouldn't be where we are. Is that tough? I think it's really tough.

45:32Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Yeah, it's brutal. The people who slug their guts out to get there, like, thanks, he serves your purpose.

45:39Tom Burwell:Yeah, I think that, you know, we've seen it across the business. We've had some people at the top of the business do exactly the same thing. What do you say? Well, I mean, the football player conversations weren't mine. I think you have to say thank you And you have to ensure that you do that with a level of both gratitude and understanding and empathy, but also appear that they probably believe you're being disingenuous in that moment. And that's OK, because, you know, we're all humans and we recognise the emotion that comes with those things. I always say that just because you didn't get picked for a team doesn't mean you're not a good player.

46:14Tom Burwell:You just weren't picked for that team. We've seen it time and time again that, you know, Mo Salah and Roma to Mo Salah and Liverpool. He leaves Liverpool as arguably one of the top 10 players of all time for one of the most storied football clubs there's ever been. And he ultimately failed in Roma. Which one's the real one? The real one's this one. So I think that you need to make sure that... And I think there's probably also an understanding that this is football and that there will be another club on the other side of that and that life will mean that you're going to go and represent a different badge.

46:46Tom Burwell:And that's both executives and... And I said it to somebody else. I said, you know, just because you're the wrong person now doesn't mean that you weren't the right person then. And just because the person that we believe is the right person now doesn't mean that he'll be the right person in the future. These are ever-evolving businesses. Some of the best advice I ever got was from the right-hand man

47:07Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:who was a founder of Spotify, this guy Shaq Khan, or Shaquille Khan. And he always told me that what got you here won't necessarily get you there.

47:14Tom Burwell:Correct. And, you know, funny, I've been a bit of a journey on that myself. like i remember how i framed myself in my early parts of my careers and i've been really lucky to have some mentors or or people that have had a big impact on me from the sports world and money many of them were just like just be a bit more self-aware right my the intensity piece right like the intensity when i was 20s early 30s was wild and most of the time um uh not appropriate it i feel you more than you know and and i used to say it when we played rugby it was like earn the right to go wide and i probably hadn't earned any of that yet so my character was there and it was in the face it was all that but there wasn't this this piece of backing up and you know my so my time in rugby and i spent a long time in rugby and i made a very conscious decision to exit the sport of rugby because i i knew that i could be there for 30 years but i also knew the challenges that that sport was going to be facing.

48:15I went to Formula One and I learned a huge amount

48:18Tom Burwell:and I spent an enormous amount with Stefano Di Minicali who has had a huge impact on the person I am and the way that I operate now and that opened up a lot of other doors to then meet more and more people that you then become and you know I'm more comfortable now that whilst I've only been in this position for the last three weeks and I've only been on the board for nine months and potentially I'm not so obviously connected with the football club in the ways. I'm very clear now of the value that I can offer the football club.

48:50Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:It's a bit like when we were talking about the challenge of tribalism and commercial optimization where we're now looking at personalities and what's comfortable to an environment. Football is very comfortable with a certain type of personality and quite often it's conformist right so we have to find a way to balance that because this product needs to keep moving forward we've highlighted that success is is very current and present and the premier league let's just use that is doing brilliantly but it doesn't mean that it will forever do brilliantly and you need to keep having people with different perspectives different approaches different passions different intensities to ensure that keeps moving forward yeah correct not finding the same people that go and sit in the chairs that everyone else has just sat in before Correct.

49:34Tom Burwell:And I think there is an evolution taking place within the institutions of football anyway, because of the ownership groups diversifying so much and the level of expectation, especially that comes with American ownership, with their experience of the way that franchise sports work. I think what's really important is recognising that you just can't apply that model because of the fact that we're not a franchise-based sport. But equally, if you look across the league now, some of the most impressive executives have come from, if they've come from sport, their sporting experience will have come from outside football.

50:05Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Do you think the private equitization, the entry of big private equity, institutional capital is a good thing for football and for the Premier League?

50:13Tom Burwell:I think it needs to be shaped appropriately. I think it's good for the league. I think there will be examples in regions and in certain clubs where it will need really strong leadership within the club itself to ensure that it operates that well. And we've seen with some of CVC's investments into rugby and other areas that I think CVC have some really clear and present vision how to do it. And then the league itself struggled to get there. Now they're beginning to get there. I think if you look at the investment into clubs that are yo-yo clubs I think that's going to be a really hard long-term cycle

50:57Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:I can see you guys what you've done over the last five years I can hear it now we're sitting in the big private equity rooms in the US and we're looking at all the opportunities you're the case study you're the one where they go let's say buy something for 20 million now it's valued at 350, 400 million random numbers right oh my god what an asset class this is we got to get involved in it often the exception not the rule 100 what has made Kirill the ownership he's so young I mean we haven't even spoken about that and not that should matter right but if you're looking at it on paper it's not what people would say is your quintessential Premier League owner what has made him so effective as an owner to be able to achieve what has been achieved in a relatively

51:36Tom Burwell:short period of time yeah I think that um you know again talking as I was obviously not there at the early stages of that, that, you know, Kirill and Juan Sartori, the other owner of the club, they're football operators. They saw an opportunity with a club that had all of these big foundations that needed to first and foremost be operated as an excellent football club. And, you know, the success has come from the fact that they drove success on the field. And they did so really, really, really prudently. You know, if there was pounds to be spent, those pounds were spent on the field. Those pounds were not spent on the business.

52:10Tom Burwell:or on the operations of the business. We've run that club so leanly. Now, of course, the opportunity is if we're going to go and do that, we now need to invest in the people and the programs and the technology and the processes to grow again whilst also continuing to put performance at the top of the pyramid. I'd argue the next evolution, the next chapter is harder to write.

52:34Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:So interesting because we will sit here quite often and probably go put the foundations in place to succeed more broadly and manage that spend accordingly across different areas. But really what you're saying there is when you're in League One, your primary focus, really the only thing that moves that needle significantly is spending that money on that pitch.

52:57Tom Burwell:And connecting yourself to fans. So that when you go and flick the switch, your fandom comes with you.

53:02Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:If I give you an unlimited checkbook, where would you spend money today that you're not spending money?

53:07Tom Burwell:If we look at it through the lens of long-term capital growth, right, let's say that we're going to be owners of this team for a 10, 15-year cycle, which, of course, we could be. With the age that Kirill is, there's no rush, right? We're in a...

53:20Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:I'm sorry for the contest. He's 28. Yeah. Yeah.

53:24Tom Burwell:We're in a... Hey, you're supposed to be the kid from VC. The old man puzzled by age. He's 28. Yeah, he's 28. So, you know, so there's, we're long-term investors, right? The stadium of light was built in 1996. There's a reason why it's a 7 % inventory space, right? We have designs and understanding to take that from the 49 ,000 that it is to 59 ,000. The thing is, is that creating 10 ,000 extra GA tickets is not going to be that much of a bigger swing. what we then got to do with that is how you do you know how how u.s real estate works in around sporting plazas how do you turn the stadium of light and the surrounding areas of the stadium of light into a deeply engaging 365 day representation of sondland football club you know and i look at our model today and we've got we've got this incredible stadium that we know we can do some work on and we know that that can have some swings locally for us we know we've got this surrounding area, David's done some incredible work with this fan plaza and re-engaging our Hall of Fame and our connection, right?

54:35Tom Burwell:But we've also got a building which has got the store and the offices in at the moment. If I could move those into the stadium, could I turn that building into Toka Social? Can I turn those into the different forms of engaging there? How can people that are Sunderland representative? Because if we know that one in 10 people in the city are season ticket holders and let's say two or three of ten in the city are advocates of the city of the team and that goes to five eventually then they all want to come and do things at our sports club and our social club and our uh our live entertainment and our food and beverage and again as long as we're creating value then there's the opportunity so how can we be even more than just relevant at 3 p.m on a saturday or 8 p.m on a friday or 4 p.m on a sunday how can we relevant on 12 a.m 12 how

55:22Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:How much of that is the plan for the stadium where you're needing to, let's say, go and change some of the hospitality offering, the seats, let's say the stand, versus build that around the stadium? What's the balance between the two?

55:34Tom Burwell:Look, we've got 15 ,000 people on our waiting list for season tickets. So you want to expand?

55:38Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:So surely then, if I was you, the number one thing I'd do with an unlimited checkbook is build a bigger stadium.

55:44Tom Burwell:Yeah, though again comes down to, the answer to that question is yes, absolutely. but we absolutely need to make sure that our inventory mix is appropriate so what do you mean inventory so that if you look at let's say we were able to increase by 10 000 seats the 3 000 of those were attached to hospitality of some form because those are the seats that i really drive yield on that what does that yield comparison look like between a normal ticket yeah

56:15Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:it's incomparable but just well i mean for me is it like 20 or is that 80 percent 80 some mls

56:23Tom Burwell:stadiums are being built now with 45 50 of their seats being some form of premium nature

56:29Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:and it's the wealth effect isn't it really which is like the inability to buy housing means that we are willing to have a much higher discretionary spend which means fuck it i'm not going for that hard ass seat you're going to give me i'm going to go for the premium seat which comes

56:43Tom Burwell:with a bit of padding yeah correct in every way you look at the way that um people are operating in regards to the sort of pick and mix approach to premium experiences and uh what would be seen as additional spend there's there's some things that i'm sure if i spoke to my father about like how we sell he'd be like what what how are you how are you even doing that yeah but but we

57:08Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:so you're providing experiences so your number one thing would be a bigger stadium

57:11Tom Burwell:If I look zoomed in on region and looked zoomed in on how do we operate, knowing that, turning back to that piece about how do we offer value but continue to grow the yield off that particular individual group of people, we need to do that in the stadium. And then I think internationally things are a bit more tactical.

57:32Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:You can cut one cost completely out of the budget line with no fear of repercussion, no fear of public fashion.

57:39Tom Burwell:Well, other than the fact that people will hear me.

57:42Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:No, this is between us.

57:43Tom Burwell:Yeah, of course. Okay, yeah, I remember that. This is like trying to silence. Hang on a minute. But Harry said that this was just between us? Yeah. What? No.

57:56Tom Burwell:So let's talk reality. We need to go on a digital transformation of our business for the primary reason that, as I said earlier on, we've not been in the league for 10 years. So many of the things that should be in place are not in place.

58:09Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:In the nicest way, it sounds a bit McKinsey consultant. what does digital transformation of your business mean like getting a media team and reinventing no i think it it more it more means that um there will be probably 10 efficiencies in in costs and

58:25Tom Burwell:growth in revenue if we are technologically ready for what we should be so

58:34Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:don't know if you have a great crm like do you know who your season ticket holders are we do

58:40Tom Burwell:we need to be better at a single fan view so at the moment we know buckets of fans but we don't know all the fans but you can't target that efficiently we are still doing 95 % of our premium ticket sales which is a high 7 figure number so like 8-9 million we'll do 95 % of that on the telephone wow and what would you like that to be?

59:08Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:like 100 % online?

59:09Tom Burwell:I think Manchester United are probably 90 % online. But funny enough, their whales are probably in the 10%. So, by the way, the notion of why we're in that space where we are doing those things one-on-one makes perfect sense because what we're doing is offering this real service to local people that are driving our highest value product. I think we have to take that service-first approach and then recognise that service first followed by technology has got to be the way forwards. We still have a physical ticket office open. There are only two clubs in the Premier League that have that. A physical ticket office.

59:47Tom Burwell:You and Fulham. Newcastle and Sunderland. Fulham's opens up on a Saturday. Ticketing is an amazing one, right? The reality of how you drive growth in your ticketing space, how you are more and more efficient, how you are targeting people, how you create scarcity. We have a match-to-match. The way that it works for us is that we'll sell, will hit this. So today I saw the numbers. Our season ticket renewal closes tomorrow at 12 o 'clock. We put 37 ,500 tickets on sale for, which is how many we sold last year. We've sold 94 % of that already. So we've sold 35 ,500. So we know that we've got this, and it's got this waiting list for 15 ,000.

1:00:27Tom Burwell:So those 6 % that haven't renewed, and for whatever reason they may or may not have done, those 6 % will disappear next week in the waiting list.

1:00:33Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:What's the average renewal rate in a club? I'm sure you might give or take. Probably, we targeted 95, 96, which is about where we'll hit.

1:00:46Tom Burwell:I would say that clubs like us, which are those community first clubs, are in and around that number. I would say London Club's probably a little bit lower. But interestingly enough, London Club's, the value of your season ticket has other value because you get to resell it.

1:00:59Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:So do you make up for that churn, that 6 % churn with price increase?

1:01:07Tom Burwell:Well, yeah. So we rose our tickets quite dramatically this year. But that's also because we've sold about 17%, 18%.

1:01:15Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Is that a lot?

1:01:16Tom Burwell:That's a lot compared to the rest of the league. But it's also for a reason, because we held our championship price for everybody last year. We didn't put our prices up for this year.

1:01:23Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Wow. So basically, we've stayed in a league.

1:01:26Tom Burwell:We opened up our season ticket renewals in April. but we weren't up and we said if we go up you won't have to pay anything extra

1:01:32Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:do you get flattened for that

1:01:34Tom Burwell:flattened for them going up now yeah

1:01:36Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:no I think everybody

1:01:37Tom Burwell:because of last year they understood that the reality is that they need to I still think we have some way to go in ensuring that we get the right prices how much is

1:01:47Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:a season ticket average

1:01:50Tom Burwell:pre-vat I think the number works about 360

1:01:53Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:360 pounds

1:01:54Tom Burwell:great deal

1:01:55Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:for a season ticket yeah

1:01:58Tom Burwell:it's not London Harry Banks on the Weir tickets. I think our highest-priced season ticket, which would be the premium season ticket, which is in Banks on the Weir, Tommy Banks' Double Mission Star Chef, we've got 100 covers in there, is about seven grand. Wow. Our very highest, highest price. And by the way, and this is about, when we talk about value, I'm not trying to say that we need to put our prices up. I'm not trying to say that we need to put more premium products in. what I am trying to say is that we want to create the best value possible now have we got people coming through the door with a season ticket at the moment that if I create a thousand person bar in a new stand that that 350 is suddenly 400 and in there value gets created I'm not here to say we need to push, push, push, push, push because that's not, in the grand scheme of things the value that you can get from ticketing is far smaller than what you can create value from fandom growth digitally that we sell sponsorship against.

1:03:01Tom Burwell:A hundred percent. Like, I mean, the£30 cap had been in place for a long time.

1:03:08Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:This is specifically on away tickets.

1:03:10Tom Burwell:On away tickets, of which you've got to give 3 ,000 of your, in our case, a maximum of 3 ,000 of your tickets away, right? And that hadn't even gone up over the period of time by inflation. So it's worth even less than it was when it first did it. but if you went oh god let's just put inflation back on it what's the point you're making an extra 200 ,000 for your club you're creating a far bigger problem for the fans that have got to pay for it away fans make an incredible atmosphere I mean our away fans we sell 3 ,000 every single game everywhere in the country right so our away fans are at the heart of creating an atmosphere in a club and I don't want to be in a situation where our league is not having that because that's what makes it special on a Saturday afternoon and for the sake of ultimately a number that doesn't really make any difference to our bottom line

1:04:02Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:You said the word re-engaging I found it desperately sad but I think it was Scholes came out recently and said like if he wanted to buy a ticket he wouldn't have any liaison in the club who was able to help him and I thought that was desperately sad that there was this chasm of engagement between a legend and the club but what you said you'd re-engage I think

1:04:26Tom Burwell:one of the amazing things for us is that with the connectivity that comes with the fan base there's an element of connectivity that comes with the legends that come from before so our boardroom Niall Quinn Pete Reid Jermaine Defoe like Michael Ball like these guys are all in there but I think we have a responsibility also then to make sure that today Sunderland feels like the Sunderland event as well right which is where some other clubs potentially are facing some challenges of the connection of the past to the future. Because we put the community and our city at the heart of that connection, we're not trying to necessarily connect with that era of the football club.

1:05:09Tom Burwell:We just want to make sure that every era of the football club is connected to the city.

1:05:13Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:I want to talk quickly, if you can, about the women's football deal. You talked about community, women's football, key part of community. You've got a deal now, which is great news, that's going to put a lot of money into the game, hopefully from a Sunderland perspective.

1:05:26Tom Burwell:I think, I'll give you some background to it. So we are a WSL, we have been a WSL2 team and we are a WSL2 team. Five years ago, that was an amateur team and is now obviously sits in the franchises of the WSL. There is, as always the case, the balance between investment into one side of the club into the other side of the club, especially in the period of time that as I've previously spoken about, we're hyper-focused on spending only dollars that impact on put us back in the Premier League. So we had operated that women's club in a way where it operated as a WSL2 team. The reality is that the North East of England in the same way it is with men's game is an absolute hotbed for talent.

1:06:10Tom Burwell:And that's Jill Scott, that's Lucy Bronze, there's players that are playing for England or have played for England that potentially went and played their professional football for another club, but clearly are deeply attached to the region. And that's the case for girls all the way down to under nines in our academy. So again, this is through the leadership of Kirill and Juan and the entire board. The direction that was given to me and our organization, BSG, about 12 months ago was go and find the right partner that is going to drive change for women's football, first and foremost, for women's and girls' football in the region, which is they're going to come with expertise, human capital, financial capital, and a want to be part of the growth story for women's football.

1:07:03Tom Burwell:We went to market, and we went to market. We didn't run a process with a bank or anything like that. We just went to market with people that we knew were interested in the space. And we ended up with four offers on the club. and we are in a situation today where last Tuesday we announced that Bay Collective wholly owned by Sixth Street Sixth Street one of the most important investors not only as a PE in general with what they've got under management but also in sport across the NFL New England Patriots two NBA teams Real Madrid Barcelona we now have and they've never entered into the UK space before and we now have one of the largest private equity firms in the world that owns 80 % of the women's football club in Sunderland

1:07:43Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:How much do you sell it for?

1:07:45Tom Burwell:A revenue multiple that we're very proud of.

1:07:51Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Again, expertly navigate. So good deal. But most importantly, so you have like a 20 % there, so it keeps a connection to the club. Yeah, correct. So they can still have all of the associations.

1:08:02Tom Burwell:One club mentality, right? And I think going back to all of those things that we've spoken about today, it would be completely disingenuous and disconnected from me for me to say community first, representation of the city, and then turn around and go, but we don't care about that part of the city. We deeply care about girls and women's football and that staying in the ecosystem of Sunderland AFC and that we have a set of commercial contracts that we've negotiated with Sixth Street for a long time that they will drive commercial and performance for the women's team and they will be a single entity that they own the majority.

1:08:38Tom Burwell:I sit on the board of them and we have these. but then there's these contracts that then govern how they exist in our ecosystem. You said at the beginning you were interim CEO. Yeah, my other job, and I actually will see somebody later on today, is that I'm interviewing for who may be the CEO in the future. I'm very proud of the responsibility that I have today, which is to hold the shirt and ensure that we're best placed for the future. Whether that is in the seat for 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 months, what does that look like, right? I think we know that we want to find a really great operator that can build this club for us.

1:09:13Tom Burwell:But I also recognise that there probably is a transition as we've gone through many of the things that we said that I can really help the club in setting it up for whoever the next person might be to move this forward. I don't see it too different with... So if I offered you the full-time job today, would you say no? I think as with all football clubs, you'd probably go fixed-term contract and let's work out what that looks like. And right now, there is no defined period of time. I have been given the responsibility by the board to ensure that we are best placed to be taking advantage of the things that all of the people that came before me created because they created it, not me.

1:09:53Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:I don't know if you saw this, but The Athletic ran something with fans called the Hopometer. Okay. and it showed Sunderland fans top with 98.6 % your pass is optimistic funnily enough our club Chelsea 7.6 % below Spurs Chelsea below Spurs below Spurs I'm optimistic but in all seriousness it kind of feeds right back at the end perfectly because it's what a time to be doing to have a 98.6 % optimism rating whatever that actually means what it means is you have You have a feeling around the club right now, which is super positive.

1:10:33Tom Burwell:And what a responsibility, right? Because the reality is that if you've got 98 % of people who are optimistic, you've also got 98 % of expectation. Yeah, that's true. The optimism in football, when someone's like, well, I'm optimistic. What do you mean by optimistic? That we'll win the league. You're like, oh, that feels like more than optimistic. Pragmatism not coming there. So I think we recognize the responsibility. and it's what, you know, I've said it before, evolution not revolution and got to recognise that the people that have put us here that are no longer with us are the people that did this and they did it remarkably and now we move forwards to the next sort of chapter to be written.

1:11:14Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Should we do a quick fire? Go for it. Who is the best CEO in the English Premier League other than you?

1:11:21Tom Burwell:Three weeks would be tough for me. I'm great. I think Liverpool's really, really, really well run. Billy Hogan yeah I think he's really good

1:11:31Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:what's properly shocked you could be bad could be good

1:11:34Tom Burwell:truly beginning to understand the legacy of the impact of 10 years like I used to talk about it and I used to say to people that might be interested in the business they'd be like clearly we're going through a scaling this is where we've come from this is what we'd happened and then spending time with the amazing people in our business of which got ripped in half. There were two rounds of redundancies. And of the 98 that sit on the business side now, probably 60 of them have been there during that period of time. They were there in the Premier League. And the resiliency that has been shown by those people to live and breathe in the same way at the Stadium of Light on a Saturday in League One when we were losing in the playoff.

1:12:23Tom Burwell:Those years, the Silent Until I Die documentary, the tougher years than the better years, through to now. I think I took for granted at the championship playoff final last year of why it meant so much, not only to the fans, but to the people that were there. I remember calling my wife and I said, it was a funny scenario that I found myself in today because I felt I was a little bit of a voyeur to 45 ,000 people greatest ever day and because i wasn't there yet i was a i was a board member that saw it as a business and a business only i don't think i'd be a voyeur if we were in the playoff final next week

1:13:11Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:you can sign any player in the world who would you sign and why

1:13:15Tom Burwell:who would you sign and why um i would sign uh downman at arsenal why because he's going to be like the next 15 years he's going to be remarkable we talk about buy young and get value yeah very young very young get value as long as I can get good value that's fine I don't want to pay over can I just keep going on this you can invest

1:13:39Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:in the MLS or Saudi which one and why MLS why

1:13:45Tom Burwell:because I think it will be it's going to be built on genuine fandom a lot a lot of the things that...

1:13:52Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Does it sustain post-Massie? Yeah.

1:13:55Tom Burwell:Yeah, I think that, well, I think that whether it sustains at the size number of the expansion, with expansion teams and so on, actually, I think there are some great operators in the MLS football. I think that it's going to... Why are they... Look, the amazing thing again is that a huge number of these MLS cities are similar to Sunderland, right? Where they built, one, the appropriate size stadium. They have been able to switch on regionalized tribal fandom. In this particular city, there's no NFL team. There's a big major league baseball team. Americans are incredibly visceral in their fandom of both the US when it's the USA, but also their local region, which is not too dissimilar to what we have in Sunderland.

1:14:40Tom Burwell:I think that they have a large number of really, really strong regional businesses. the interesting piece will be international media rights for them. Why do you and I care if they go back to no Beckham, no Rooney, no Messi? Because Messi's made it more but Messi's only really done what Beckham did. It's just a different era that has been magnified.

1:15:07Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:But they need to do what the NFL does so well which is get their own fans interested in their products not looking outwards i.e. at the Premier League. Yeah 100%. MLS is the MLS. Like all of your mates that you have over there, they're Premier League teams, but they don't necessarily tell them. All of my friends have Premier League teams. They don't have MLS teams.

1:15:22Tom Burwell:Yeah. What's the workout routine?

1:15:27Tom Burwell:So workout routine is the routine that it's always been, which is five to six days a week, eat well, move. What does eat well mean? Eat well to me means...

1:15:36Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:You weren't having the galaxies that I was downstairs.

1:15:38Tom Burwell:Eat well to me means be aware of what takes from the next day. So I know the foods that make me feel great. I know the things that give me great energy. And I have practiced that for a long time and refined it. I have, let's call it 75 minutes a day where my phone doesn't come out with me as a vessel for work. It comes out for a vessel of tracking my training. And that's 75 minutes of me and myself and my thoughts. That's played by. When do you train? I train super early in the morning, about quarter to five. Quarter to five.

1:16:17Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:How long do you train for?

1:16:18Tom Burwell:If I'm in London, I have a PT. Shout out, Harry. Is that me? Is your PT called Harry? Yeah, he's called Harry. He's down the road.

1:16:32Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:We could have played that off as me. Should we get him in? What, PT? Look at his results. You're fucking kidding me. I'm getting his number after this.

1:16:40Tom Burwell:so if I'm in London I'm in PT and if I'm in Sunderland I'm in the Pure Gym just above the test goes opposite the stadium alike there you go fans

1:16:49Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:if you really want an audience that's what time you've got to get there what would have to happen if we sat down in December 31st this year for you to say yes that was a great year

1:17:01Tom Burwell:that's a really good question I don't often get stumped like that I know what would look really good for us as a club and those are bored and if I sat in a board meeting and I presented that cue for us and this is what we've done. This is what we've achieved and this is how we've done it. But they would be quite McKinsey and vanilla. I think the opportunity that faces our football club and that we're at the bottom of the hill of is how do we take Sunderland to the world? And I don't think I can quantify it today, but if we go back to that pyramid, can we be really, really clear as to is performance on the field where we need it to be?

1:17:44Tom Burwell:Are we deeply connected to our fans wherever that fan originates from? And do we have a commercial strategy that represents and is properly integrated across the world with all of the vessels that we can communicate to people with?

1:17:59Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:Thank you so much. It's been an awesome hearing. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much to Tom for joining us. As I said at the start, if I was a Sunderland fan, I'd be confident that there are great times ahead. The fanciful approach to ownership is not present here. This is grounded in experience, ambition and competitiveness. But most importantly, there's discipline. It has been a great season for Sunderland. The big test will be the push to replicate it next year and beyond. Thanks so much again to Tom for joining us and I hope you enjoyed the show. Now, if you want to see more from today's show, you can do so by going to YouTube or any of our other social channels across Instagram and TikTok.

1:18:35Kyril Louis-Dreyfus:there are more snippets to share and bite-sized chunks to consume and whilst you're there please do like subscribe and follow the show as you'll hear from your other favorite pods it makes a huge difference when bringing you the best guests and conversations from the world of sport which of course is our endless aim thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you next week 25 years ago moneyball revolutionized baseball then football sporting directors learned the collect more data lesson and now mission accomplished clubs have 60 times more information than they did then But here's what nobody talks about.

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