Tom Tainton: The Plan to Win The Prem, The Ilona Maher Effect & Building a Modern Rugby Club: Bristol Bears CEO (Ep118)

0:00The next step on our journey is to win silverware. When you lift a trophy, it's a special moment in time, but it's a moment in time that is enjoyed by those that live in that bubble. The true legacy comes from how you make people feel. We want to leave something where Bristolians walk around with their chest out and they feel good about their team and their city and who they are. I want our team to obsess over that fan journey from when they arrive at the stadium to their experience through the game. How do we make them feel? The players need to better understand the power of their brand. There is a benefit to having values that sit around team and humility, and that's important to rugby.

0:35But equally, we can't sit here and talk about rugby values and watch the league die. When Alona arrived, frankly, we underestimated just how impactful she is. Bears women, we average about 1 ,000 people. When Alona came, the demand for tickets was so high, we had to move a fixture to Ashton Gate. I think we had 11 ,000 for her debut. The key question that we ask every time, is it moving the dial? Is it different enough to get people to sit up and take notice? Because if it's not, and if it's the same thing that everyone else is doing, what's the point?

1:08Tom Tainton:Hello and welcome to The Business of Sport, the show that takes you behind the scenes with the industry's leading owners, operators and athletes. This week we welcome Bristol Bears CEO Tom Tainton to the show. With a new league structure recently announced and some high-profile investments across the Prem, This is a great time to talk about rugby and look at one of the top clubs pushing for their first title to take them to the next level. Now, since we recorded this show last week, there's been a lot of blowback from some fans and media based on comments made by Tom at a sports industry event, most of which seems to boil down to the suggestion that Bristol are a marketing business playing rugby.

1:41Tom Tainton:To those of you that listen regularly, you'll know a huge part of our conversations with CEOs running clubs will include our firm belief that teams are content and marketing businesses and have to think like that to continue to develop in the most competitive sports market that there's ever been. On the blowback, what I can say is this. Tom is one of the most impressive CEOs that has sat in this chair with us across sport. He speaks like an executive that gets it. He understands the demands placed on clubs in this day and age to be more than their performance on the pitch. But, and it's a big but, not once did I feel like he believed this was at the expense of what happens on the pitch.

2:16Tom Tainton:He clearly says the big target is to win silverware, win the prem. A Bristolian running one of the city's major sporting assets, this is what you want to see in sport. So for this conversation, think about the future of the club and the sport as a combination of striving to win on and off the pitch. It's a challenge, but it's a challenge all teams face to maintain relevance. From what I saw, for what it's worth, Bristol Bears have someone in charge who is intent on driving both in equal measure. We're delighted to welcome Tom to the Business of Sport. The business of sport is supported by Airwallex, the intelligent financial platform used by more than 200 ,000 modern businesses, from SaaS and marketplaces to some of the most ambitious organizations in sport, including McLaren Racing, Arsenal and the San Francisco Giants.

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4:15Tom Tainton:Fully accessible for all tech abilities. Fully customised to how your club actually works. And fully focused on winning the transfer market. The Moneyball era taught us to collect information. Now the AI era is about actually putting that information to use quickly, simply and easily. Visit geminisports.ai and see the kind of edge you can get when your entire organisation is working from the same intelligent, high-powered system. Tom, welcome to The Business of Sport. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. It's really great to have you in. We've done a few shows with clubs from Prem.

4:49Tom Tainton:We did Harlequins, we did Laureate Harlequins, we did Julia at Northampton. But your journey at Bristol as Chibi-Zec at Bristol has been, well, I'd say pretty unique. You've been there for a very long time. Yeah, look, I'd say I've been fortunate enough to grow up with the business. And I see that as a real privilege. And I think the perspective that you have from being part of a business in the context of Bristol Bears that has really accelerated over the last 10 years, that perspective of being able to say, well, I know what good looks like, but equally I know what not so good looks like. And I understand the journey we're on and where we've come from.

5:29It's given me great context to make decisions for the betterment of the club moving forward. And we've got a really compelling plan around where we're going and what we're trying to achieve both on and off the field. But I don't think any of that would have been possible without the knowledge and understanding of where this club has come from. Because let's be clear, prior to 2017, when we rebranded, there wasn't a huge amount of success that Bristol Rugby could hang their hat on. We've been around since 1888, but there's been a sparsity of silverware. We've had a number of financial difficulties.

6:11We've bounced around different venues and stadia. And really, until we moved to Ashton Gate and had that really consistent footprint, until we've rebranded and come under the Bristol Sport banner, we've not really seen the fruits of the potential that a club of that size in a city like Bristol has had. So it's been an exciting journey so far.

6:34Tom Tainton:How's it when you rebrand? That's something that is incredibly difficult, right, for entities, whether successful or not, because the fans, you know, the people that have had that association with the club previously are often very protective over what's gone before. Yeah, absolutely right. And in a way, it was quite liberating because we'd sort of, the bar was very low. You know, we were rebranding at a time when we'd just been relegated from the Prem. I think our average attendance was around 5 ,000. And like there wasn't, I remember sitting in a room with the guys and our owner articulated as we're in, the club is in a time warp and we're going to keep doing the same thing and definition of insanity.

7:13And we thought about how do we, how can we take some risks and be bold and change the narrative and change the direction of this rugby club? And what it needs is it needs a jolt. This wasn't a kind of here is a here is a progressed transformation plan. It was we are going to rip the bandaid off and we are going to do it and we are going to go hell for leather. And I think liberating is the right word because it was just exciting. It was like we are going to operate a startup. We're going to talk to new audiences. We're going to bring people along on the journey with us. And our overriding message was we're bringing something different to the table.

7:51You have not seen what we're going to do in the rugby space. And naturally that's evolved over the last 10 years. And I'd say we've added layers of sophistication to that plan. But in that first iteration in the summer of 2018, it was all about, is it different? Is it going to move the dial? Is it going to make people sit up and take notice and almost wince and be like, oh, that's pretty close to the bone. That's what we wanted because we wanted that ripple effect.

8:17Tom Tainton:So if you're looking at it eight years on, what would you say back then that you'd wanted to do that you've achieved now has gone well? and what would you say still needs some work and needs to be done to make Bristol Wears the proposition you know it can be? Yeah, so our overarching vision is to inspire the community through rugby success. And what that means is leaving a legacy in our city. And that's silverware, that's the work we do in the community, that's the way we inspire young women, young men to grow the game and play the sport. I think over the last eight years, we can point to some really clear data metrics that tell us that our attendances have got bigger year on year.

9:00There's a higher demographic of female supporters. There's a higher demographic of under 12 and under 19 supporters. So all of the data is telling us that we are growing our audience in the right way. We've had success to a point on the field where we've gone from a team that was in the mid-table in the championship to a side that is consistently in and around the top four. We've reached three semifinals. We've won the European Cup in COVID. But I think the next step on our journey to really establish that credibility is to win silverware. aware and we look at it and our director of rugby pat lamb who's who's a really um special and an impressive guy and the way that he articulates it which i think is brilliant is that when you lift a trophy or you win a game like it's a it's a moment in time it's a special moment in time but it's a moment in time that is enjoyed by those that live in that bubble of sport the true legacy comes from how you make people feel the the hospital visits the time in the community what what bears are giving back the pride that we give people in the city of bristol and how they feel when their team on a weekend achieve success and and that's something that gets me out of bed every morning that's the driver of our team we want to leave something where bristol people and bristolians walk around with their their chest out and they feel good about their team and their

10:34Tom Tainton:city and who they are so interesting we had uh chris richards who's crystal palace center back on the show recently and he was just talking about crystal palace in a similar way never never won a trophy before the fa cup and he just explained what winning that trophy did they'd been competitive in the premier league they'd achieved everything that what you would class sorry palace a mid-ranking club would ever want to do but the silverware looking up in the stands the grown men crying families hugging the taxi that he'll now forever get into and the palace fan who's the driver turning around going you won't believe what you've done for our community he said literally they'd had a hundred years of of just never having that and now they have something that that they hold on to and it's that kind of point isn't it you kind of played that down a bit in my mind because taking it from a mid-champ team in rugby as well you know we're not talking about the shifts that go from the championship in football to the premier league taking it from the champion rugby to now a consistent top four top five team in the prem personally from my view that is a significant achievement it's just what next exactly and i think that you need to be impatient in sport and you're only as good as the what's in front of you and if you stand still you go backwards but i remember our you know we had 5 000 people come and bounce around Ashton Gate in a 27 ,000-seater arena on the opening day of the 17-18 season.

11:59Now we're averaging 20 ,000. This year we'll get our new record average attendance.

12:05Tom Tainton:That's insane. That's amazing. It's great, but I'm saying to our team, that means there's 6 ,000 empty seats. That's a million quid of revenue left on the table every year. So how do we now get to sell out? How do we keep pushing? So we have a number of projects ongoing that are looking at fan engagement. that customer journey. Like I want our team to obsess over that fan journey from when they arrive at the stadium to their experience through the game. How do we make them feel? How do we talk to them? Because that's the next iteration of sport and event entertainment. And when we sit down and we ideate and we look at the season and the campaign planning, the key question that we ask every time is, is it moving the dial?

12:48Is it different enough to get people to sit up and take notice because if it's not and if it's the same thing that everyone else is doing what's the point and i think that that attitude and that collegiate attitude has been shared by the other clubs i think there's a far more collective uh buy-in to how we all grow the league together and you've had some brilliant conversations with julia and laurie and there's you know really interesting intelligent people now who are running prem clubs and we all want the same thing we want a thriving league that in turn helps the clubs grow perfect chance we've got to dive into it and i'm gonna

13:26Tom Tainton:i'll put my flag in the sand i love the move for prem rugby my challenge and i've been told off before by simon is the phrasing of it franchise sorry like but you know there's also part of people understanding a little bit of what's happening i don't even want to say closing a league because it's not there are opportunities for teams to come in what we're really talking about as a structure to allow clubs to rediscover maybe some of the value that they need to to make them investable sporting products which we've seen in a few cases already i actually think also to raise the opportunity to invest in a champ club even though people will look at it and go yeah but now almost they can't get up it's like no they can in this model there's just now a system that they have to adhere to and a quality they have to meet which is actually what happened in to get into the football league in the 40s and 50s right you had to have a stadium of a certain size and a foundation and all of this, like that's super important if you're going to then create a system at the top, which has teams that can all compete together.

14:21Tom Tainton:So whether anyone cares or not, I think it's great. I'm really excited by it from the investment standpoint, from the sporting standpoint. How much of this, from what you've just said, how much of this do you feel comes into this new structure, your ability to do this in this current system? I think that's a great question because we've operated hand in glove with Prem Rugby on this. Like we fundamentally believe in the, it's not a prem rugby strategy, it's all the clubs shared strategy. So the removal of promotion relegation. I mean, let's start there because, you know, the question quite rightly that people will ask is, well, if you remove that jeopardy, then, you know, you get a ton of dead rubbers and you sort of, you kill that inherent value of competitive nature in the sport.

15:08But the data tells us that that doesn't happen. The data tells us that there was only one dead rubber in all of the 24-25 season. And as we're talking now with going into the run-in of the Prem season, there's still six teams that can win the competition. There's still plenty to play for. And the product of Prem Rugby is excellent. Every team within reason can beat each other on their day. I think what Simon and his ex-co have done really well, to your point, and you've hit the nail on the head, is they've created an investable structure. So suddenly you and I are sat here now. We're not talking about the Worcester, London, Irish and WASP scenario, which we would have been doing three, four years ago.

15:53We're talking about the fact that it's well documented that Exeter are looking to onboard third party investment. Bath have just taken on investment from James Dyson. Red Bull have obviously gone and taken the Newcastle. There is a swirl of attention now around rugby because it is a product that has appropriate governance, the right parameters for financial sustainability around it. we've put in some really positive steps around financial monitoring, the minimum salary floor, minimum operating standards. And I think you're right. If I'm an aspirational champ club, the door is not shut for me. The opportunities will present themselves when I am in a position that I am commercially able to and competitively able to compete.

16:40Tom Tainton:Completely. And if you actually look at what the last few years have been, We've always talked about open systems, but the last teams get relegated with Saracens, the last teams get promoted with Saracens quite a few years ago in 2021. So yeah, fine, the system may have appeared open, but really there were situations happening every single season, which meant teams weren't really coming up and going down Ealing. You know, however many times they've won the champ, they don't have the infrastructure to meet the requirements of Prem. So if I'm now going, oh, do you know what? Maybe the time to invest in Ealing.

17:08Tom Tainton:because if I can get a piece of stadia in place and we can keep the competition really high as in performance on the pitch really high, suddenly Ealing now has the chance to get up to the prem. We've got a really good bid, whether beforehand. I'm not even sure like being in the prem, well, being in the prem wouldn't have been an attractive proposition for me as an investor because I still see significant losses across a lot of the clubs. I still see struggles on the core product and its financial distribution to the clubs. this to me it just feels like that changes it it's not closing it it's just a different way of presenting opportunity and it's sharpening the focus i think that rugby as a sport has been guilty of of standing on its soapbox and saying here are all the things we should do and then we all pat ourselves in the back and then we we carry on doing the same thing and it's actually now is the time for for tangible action so we've gone from saying we need to do xyz to we are doing xyz And the decisions that are being made for the commercial long-term viability of Prem Rugby are really positive.

18:13I think that they support in the Team England piece. I think they create better pathways for young English players to get minutes. So I think there is a performance element at international level as well that we can look at. But as you've rightly articulated, if I'm an investor and I'm now looking at the competition and its feasibility, I see a product that is highly competitive. I see a clear narrative where we're now leaning into that gladiatorial collision sport. There's a great TV deal. We've got a really robust agreement with the RFU. Everything is in place now for the sport at domestic level to really kick on.

18:54And it's not without its challenges. And we are still very much in the primacy of our sort of professional life, if you like. And I use that everyone looks at the EPL, right, as this, the English Premier League, as this sort of bastion of what good looks like in sport, an unbelievable TV deal and a great thriving championship that sits below the Premier League. But I'm old enough to remember, only just old enough to remember what happened pre-92 in the B-Sky-B deal. And I remember what First Division football looked like in the late 80s and the challenges that you had with hooliganism and the quality of games and infrastructure and pitches.

19:38And it took some bold decisions to put in place that Premier League. And you look at where that's gone. I see Prem Rugby in an equally exciting place now where the foundations are in place. I think that you have 10 teams that all are aligned in wanting the same thing. And that's not always been the case. I think we've always struggled, I guess, that there are lots of competing factions and what Bristol Bears want is different to what Harlequins wants and so on and so forth. but we're now in a place where everyone is in the same room signed up to the same strategic plan and I think that we will find that the next three to five years will be able to generate some real interest in the product.

20:25Tom Tainton:I don't want you to throw your paymasters under the bus you said something interesting there though you said great media deal do you think it is a great media deal? I think it's a great media deal in the context of where we are now I think that there There is always going to be a debate as to the benefits of a paywall media deal versus free to air. But in terms of what the clubs get from central distributions and that TNT offering and how TNT are growing the game, because I think the production is excellent. I think it's really positive for the clubs. It's interesting because you mentioned the Premier League there.

21:03Tom Tainton:while the media has been such a well-documented tool for them to use in a positive way and build the financial opportunity that comes out of it what it's also done is for some clubs particularly ones maybe close to the bottom it's meant that a huge reliance of their businesses on central media and central revenue really which they don't have an influence over so there are some premier league teams that maybe have 75 percent of their revenue which is premier league tv money now it's great when you're in the premier league and thriving but if you're not or if something happens that media money you're very exposed because your business is really 25 million not 125 million while you would i'm sure like the media to be a bigger piece of the pie it's probably also giving you an opportunity to really develop business lines beyond media that you actually control as an individual club that you're not relying on a league giving you absolutely and that's where our local revenue drivers, be that partnerships, hospitality, ticketing, that's where we can capitalize and see genuine yield straight away.

22:07And I look at it from a bear's standpoint, partnerships in particular, that's an area that we've really focused our energy on over the last 12 to 18 months. And we'll see a 40 to 45 % increase in revenue in that space. In the last year? In the last year. Really? Yeah, and that comes from having a really clear story that we've gone to market with. But I think it comes from us being able to say that Bristol Bears is open for business, that we are a club that has the infantry and the assets to drive value for our partners.

22:42Tom Tainton:So is that you upselling existing inventory or is it you creating new opportunity? It's both. It's both. I don't want anything to be, obviously there are exclusive categories and there are areas of our sponsorship inventory that we obviously can't touch because of the league central deal. But I challenge our team all the time that, you know, what about events? What about networking? What about client acquisition? What about employee engagement? How do we squeeze every last drop out of our business? How do we really sweat the asset? because it's well documented that we are a loss-making business.

23:21We rely on Stephen Lansdowne and the Lansdowne family as our benefactors. But we're also, we're sitting on an incredible opportunity because Bristol is a, it's a really diverse, affluent, tech-savvy, major hub outside of London. A great place to live and work, somewhere that we're fiercely proud of. and I want people who live and do business in Bristol to feel like Bristol Bears is somewhere that is aligned to their own business and their own company. And I use the analogy of when you go to games in France, the city or the town in which you are playing grinds to a halt on match day. Like the city lives and breathes their club.

24:13And if you want to do business in Bordeaux, you've got to do business with the rugby club. And I love that attitude. I love the attitude of everyone buys into the bigger piece because I am a custodian of Bristol Bears. My job and my legacy is to ensure that the club has the sustainable footing to be successful for generations to come. And the only way that we can do that is to create the right stories and narratives now and bring people on the journey. And you know this because you've built a successful business. It's very easy to get bogged down in corporate buzzwords and strategy. And actually, when you actually boil it down and you simplify it, it's about people and relationships and authenticity.

25:02And I believe in who Bristol Bears are and what we are selling to the market. And I want people to come on the journey with me. My attitude is almost like we're going to get there whether you're with us or not. but if you're with us then we'll be able to supercharge that and partnerships for me is is the is a is a great gives us that great ability to then focus our energy on fan engagement focus our energy on on how we we bring a really compelling product on match day so all of it comes hand in hand and obviously as you know the the more revenue we can generate then the the greater ability we have to build a squad which in turn creates success because i mean you

25:40Tom Tainton:mentioned it there well there's two things that are really interesting one and we'll start with it is sustainability two is ownership structure and the really unique setup that you have one sustainability right this is a word that gets thrown around in sport all the time not meaning to always bring it back to football but you know you in football in the premier league you're in a landscape this season where sustainability has meant you lose 105 million over three years i mean it's just absolutely mental right that's not sustainable so it's just so funny how sport has redefined the meaning for this word but you're we all know what it really means right it's people trying to move in the right direction to reduce losses of businesses that previously have been a lot more than losing that amount of money you lost in the last account said 5.6 million against a revenue of let's say 12 so you're moving things in the right direction but i've no doubt right not gonna be rocket science to recognize do you want that 5.6 to come down so i think we know how you plan to do it you know you said leverage all of this opportunity but also really how much of a prohibitor is it i guess to what you can do how much focus is put on it versus do you know what we know we've got to we're still going to have to probably spend a little bit to get better we're still going to continue to operate well and we know given time that number will reduce if we nail everything else as you said you still got a million's inventory sitting in the stadium if you can sell that out yeah and it's the the paradox of professional sport isn't it because you want to invest and have the very best product on the pitch but in order to do that then you increase your your losses over here um i think that you're absolutely right you're you're you're constantly looking at how you can squeeze margin manage costs and at the same time grow revenue and the two are sometimes jarring objectives is there room for us to to reduce that reduce that 5.5 million home loss absolutely and that's you know that's a key part of of of my role but i don't see that as a regressive you know let's let's sit down in a room and work out how we manage head count or let's you let's really go into granular detail on our spend on our academy and first team.

27:55I want to reduce the losses in a positive way by growing revenue.

27:59Tom Tainton:You strike me as a make more revenue guy, not a cut cost guy. Yeah, 100%. Because the whole point of sport and the privilege that I have of being in a job where I get to lead a professional sports club, it's meant to be fun. It's meant to be fun and it's meant to be a privilege. And you should wake up every morning with a bounce in your step of being like, right, what can I do today that's going to make a difference and that's going to change the dial? And I should point out that obviously we work in, we operate in a multi-sport business. So we have a shared ownership model with ourselves and Bristol City Football Club and Bristol Flyers Basketball and Ashton Gate Stadium.

28:41so the the way that we we account for that multi-sport business is obviously different to some of our peers in the prem so it's it's not a like-for-like comparison in terms of our losses versus a sale or a or a northampton for example the advantage that we have of that shared buying power of of working with with the other clubs the other advantage is that we have that best practice that shared ip i can draw a ton of inspiration from from football and the excellent governance that comes from in bristol city's case being in the efl and what inspiration can we take from that and draw down into rugby and equally by the same token what can the football club look at on the rugby side in terms of our culture and the way that we engage our community that might not necessarily be typical in a football environment.