The Aussie plan for global domination

0:03Hello and welcome to another episode of Worth Knowing, the sports business podcast from us here at Leaders in Sport for you folks out there. Leaders in Sport, all of you. My name is James Emmett. I'm the editorial director here at Leaders and with me as ever in the Leaders studio in Wimbledon, South West 19. It's my great good colleague, David Cushon. And David, how are you? I'm very well. Thank you, James. How are you doing? Do you know what? Physically, the winter's coming, David. So my hands are shredded, cold, shredded hands. I've got plasters here and I'm getting old. But metaphysically, on top of the world.

0:46Good to hear. Very good to hear. And you? No, keep it light. Yeah, I'm also well. Okay, great. Good to hear. Actually, what we tried to do last time we recorded a podcast to break from the mould of what had been happening is to explain what's coming up on the podcast before we waffle about other topical bits. So what's coming up on the podcast, David? Well, we've got an interview that I did last week with Andrew Abdo. Interview format, is it? It's an interview format today. Andrew Abdo, the CEO of the NRL, Australia's NRL, top level rugby league. Australia, by most measures, Australia's biggest sports league.

1:29And I had an extended chat with Andrew when he was in town last week to take in the first two tests of the three test series, which is about to come to its conclusion between England and Australia. The first series for a couple of decades between the two countries here in the UK. They call out the ashes of rugby league, don't they? The ashes of rugby league. And Australia have won the series, the third test coming up in Leeds this coming weekend. But the conversation about much more than international rugby league really an opportunity to have a chat and get a sense of what the Australian market is like at the moment.

2:14And it's by all accounts, a pretty dynamic market from a media standpoint, from a fan engagement standpoint. So there's lots of things happening there. So it was good to get a health check from him on all things Australia with an Olympics on the way, on the horizon at least as well in 2032 but also illuminating to get a feel for some of the nrl's more global ambitions they have played a couple of games over the last couple of years in las vegas and have been on a bit of a mission to expand the brand and expand the league's fan base beyond the shores of australia they've also got a lot of interest and you might have seen this reported um elsewhere over the last week or so as the top folk have been in town from the nrl they've also got an interest in uh super league here in the uk and there have been on and off talks i think it's fair to say over the past few months about um a potential potentially more formalized involvement by the nrl in super league certainly there's an appetite i think to get more involved as part of this global push we've also seen some reports in the last few days that the nrl is thinking about a a week a match week um being staged entirely internationally potentially in as many as nine different cities which would certainly be bold and the kind of thing that would be i think envied by several other sports leagues in different spheres who are looking to move beyond international borders, but struggling to do so at the moment.

3:53So yeah, there's a lot in this conversation. I've got a tip and an apology for the listeners, if that's okay. A tip. First, if you like the sound of going inside the sports business landscape in Australia, and you listen to the rest of this podcast, and you like what you hear, and you're intrigued, we do have a series coming up it's a region by region guide to doing business in sport which we're doing alongside the folks at IMG I think the first episode is due out this week but Australia and the region that Australia sits in is absolutely an area of focus for one of the episodes and particularly fascinating discussion with Josh Humbler who focuses on that area for IMG coming up in the next few weeks and apology yes now this is for any crossover listeners uh of this podcast and the podcast that we do with richard gillis the unofficial partner podcast where we do a series with him on sporadic fridays um we talked about rugby league uh not too long ago on that podcast david in fact brought a particular story to that and richard made us all talk about that story And I don't delight in informing you, David, that I was pulled up on my contribution to that podcast for a clear lack of research and knowledge, which, I mean, hands up, guilty as charged, very much not my area.

5:33So apologies to you, listener, and one particular listener who definitely was offended by my contribution to that podcast. But do have a look in the archive on the Unofficial Partner podcast archive because it's an entertaining listen, if nothing else. Well, apology noted. Accepted? Noted. And yeah, I think on the Australia point, it's of course worth reminding everybody that in terms of international sports coming into Australia, of course, there's the Olympics in a few years. And naturally, there's going to be more of an interest from all sorts of international sports businesses on the market on what can be done in and around Brisbane, but also the NFL coming to Melbourne next year.

6:23next season, which will be another, you know, another sort of international foray for the NFL and Melbourne Cricket Ground will be hosting the game. Yeah. And of course, we continue to wait to see whether Serie A will get its wish and indeed move forward with its plan to host a competitive game in Perth in February next year, the Milan Como fixture, which can't be played in Milan because of the Winter Olympics and the San Ciro Stadium being occupied by the IOC. But as we've seen in Spain with the cancellation of the proposed La Liga regular season match between Barcelona and Villarreal, fan protest has basically caused that to be, and player protest actually has seen that, cancelled for December, which is when that game was due to be played in Miami.

7:21So we'll wait to see on that one. But Australia is, I think, going to naturally become a focus beyond even those things over the next few weeks as the cricket ashes take place, of course, beginning in not too many weeks' time. And now I'm going to say something which typifies the type of comment that I did say on Richard's podcast, which is when you could talk about the cricket ashes, David, of course, you're talking about the real ashes. Yeah, I think that's fair. The original OG ashes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Should we do a couple of rounds of congratulations? Birthdays, anniversaries, et cetera.

7:55Wins. Aha, yes. People, teams, organizations that have won stuff. Okay. LA Dodgers. Yes. Won the World Series. What a series. World Series for the ages is what they all said. A Game 7 decider and a series that really seemed to capture the imagination of both the US and Canada. And Japan, I'd imagine. And Japan. But yes, congratulations to the Dodgers who've gone back to back. Mark Walter et al. Running the show over there in Los Angeles. Who else has won something, David? It's only India. India winning. And I watched some of this actually returning to cricket. The final of the ICC Women's World Cup, which took place on Sunday in Mumbai.

8:38and probably no more significant sports result this year in terms of what it might unlock for for the sport of cricket but for India as a as a nation as well and for women's sport in general almost remarkably India has never won the women's world cup but they have now after beating South Africa and potential to be a real game-changing moment, not least in that it will potentially unlock more funding for women's cricket at all levels in India via the BCCI, who have already invested heavily at the top end in terms of the Women's Premier League. But also, we know that the BCCI in India are very much the economic driver of cricket globally.

9:28So I think probably the perfect result for the ICC and its new leadership. Totally. Congratulations again to the Indian women's team. Get the sense that there are too many World Cups happening in cricket. There's at least one a year. Well, lots of formats in cricket. A lot of formats. But this is the one, isn't it? The 50 over? I don't know. I don't know whether it is anymore. I don't know whether it is, David. A little bit inside baseball this, but congratulations to relevant football partners who have gone to market. This is their big sort of debut behind the scenes in the sports business ecosystem.

10:08They've gone to market with the packages for the next cycle of UEFA club competitions. This is the new agency taking over from team to commercialize the whole job lot. They also are reportedly on the verge of their first major sponsorship success for that new package or those new packages of rights. And it looks like Heineken, the longstanding beer partner of UEFA's club competitions, is to be replaced by Anheuser-Busch, America-based Anheuser-Busch, signing on with America-based relevant football partners. So, yes, pre-congratulations on what is being reported as close to a deal. And part of that new package or those new packages that are being sold is a slight tweak to the Champions League format to split out the opening game of the competition each season.

11:13The defending champions playing, I think, a home game to kick things off as a standalone game at the start of the first match week, which you can sense, you know, you can guess the reasons why that's being split out. And this idea of creating an event and potentially an event that streaming services might like to build more of a show around could well be part of the thinking there. One thing that I have found interesting over the last few days, just observing the sports industry, quite a lot of backlash at the end of the NASCAR season over in the US. they have had for many years the um the series of races at the end of the season that are known as the playoffs all building to this one race championship finale where the four drivers remaining in contention for the championship all compete and you know the highest finisher in the race in the final race wins the entire championship and it seems that we've just had the last race of this season um at the weekend that's a full field right but only it's a full of them but only four of them are actually worth watching so that for the rest of them they're just competing in a dead rubber they're competing to win a race which you know has its own kudos but gets absolutely overshadowed by whoever the champion right is but there's been a sort of feeling over the last few weeks but particularly after the uh latest edition of the uh the championship finale uh that single race decider which was created many years ago as a way of um really building the season finale into something spectacular, something that would have real mainstream appeal across the US, certainly, could actually be a thing of the past now.

12:57They are looking, it seems, to revert to some kind of new format that better rewards season-long performance, which is an interesting move and I think goes against the grain a little bit of what we're seeing in a lot of sports, which is where elements of a season, either individual games or sections of games we've got the nba cup going on at the moment are being carved out for specific showcase purposes so be really i think it's one to watch what nascar decides to do well there must be other ways obviously the the reason that they moved this playoff format was to um was to keep each race compelling there must be something at stake in each race you can't have the championship done and dusted decided with five races to go which of course it easily could be in a straightforward points accumulation basis.

13:48So I wonder if they will be looking at some other form of jiggery-pokery to keep that jeopardy in place right to the end. Yeah, I think that is tricky to achieve in a climate where what fans want, I think, is more difficult than ever to sort of properly discern and analyse and maybe the data doesn't necessarily tell the full story because fan sentiment certainly is now seems to be against this kind of building to a finale where there's actually too much of a random element and a luck element in who actually becomes the champion at the end of the final race. Any other congratulations in order or have you rattled through your parish notices?

14:32I think that's it. I'm sure some other people won some stuff but But, you know, it's sport, isn't it? There are winners and losers almost every single day. That's right. Yes. Such a philosophical way of putting it, David. Right. Shall we bring on Andrew Abdo? Let's do that. All right. I'm here now with Andrew Abdo, who is the CEO of the NRL. And what does the CEO of the NRL do on a trip to London, Andrew? It's great to see you. Great to see you. Thanks for having me. Well, it's exciting to be here. You know, one of the key themes that's driving rugby league in Australia is how we globalise and grow the game.

15:11And to be able to be playing historic Ashes games, a three-match series, it's been over 23 years since that's happened and goes back to 1908. You know, like we've been playing test matches, rugby league test matches between England and Australia since 1908. It's a long time and long overdue. So it's exciting to be here and it's an opportunity to meet with people that invest in sport or work in sport and for us to have a conversation with and have a look at what's happening in the UK, in Europe, in the Northern Hemisphere more broadly and what opportunities there might be for us. And I presume part of that is taking a look at some of the other sports facilities and meeting some of the other sports organizations in and around London?

15:53Absolutely. Some, you know, experiencing all aspects of the sports value chain from stadiums to the technology that's driving some of the changes that's happening in the industry. I mean, it's fascinating. Sport is, you know, different to the other industries I've worked in, in that really here you have something that is the X factor and that's the passion that everyone has. Whether it's owners of clubs, whether it's fans, pretty much everyone in sport, you know, there's so much going on in the world. You need something to look forward to. And sport brings people together in a really positive way.

16:26And so it's fascinating to see how different leagues, different sports, different teams are approaching the opportunities that are unfolding. For those who might be not so familiar and perhaps not quite on the right time zone to sort of experience the full magic of NRL, just give us a sense of the league and I guess maybe some of the numbers that you use to illustrate the strength, the size, the scale of the league. Yeah, so National Rugby League of the NRL now exists in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, the broader Pacific. And Australia is a very competitive marketplace for sport. It is incredibly competitive.

17:13If you look at GDP and you look at population size, I mean, we're smaller than the state of California, but we'll have three times the number of professional sports teams and particularly around winter code. So it's a war for talent, for athletes. It's also a wall for fans and it's highly competitive in relation to sponsorship and investment. And I think in those types of environments where there's a high level of competitiveness, it drives innovation and it drives effectiveness and efficiency. And if I take it, I've been the CEO now since 2020. So I became CEO during COVID and we weren't playing.

17:48And we had about three months cash flow to support an entire industry. and we've managed to really rebuild that under really strong leadership of our independent commission and working with the clubs and the players and really now we are the number one sport in Australia by viewership. So to give you a sense in terms of numbers and scale and size, we would have about, our premiership consists of 17 men's teams and 12 women's teams and we play really from February all the way through to now, you know, the end of October, November. It's 39 weeks. And we have teams based all over Australia and New Zealand, and we're about to expand to West Australia and to Papua New Guinea.

18:32And our premiership, the flagship sort of domestic competition this season, we've grown audiences quite significantly. So we'll have about 170 million cumulative views for our premiership this year, and we'll have about 12.5 million cumulative views in the women's competition. but importantly we've established quite important 10 pole moments where we have you know a lot of fragmentation and how people are consuming sport we've used 10 pole moments to really aggregate audiences back in um so our grand final uh would reach 4.65 million australians um that's a half percentage of our population around 24 million people so um we it's highly competitive we are growing really well we're focused on a younger demographic and we're focused on ways in which we can really engage and win over casual views and um it's uh something that is also evolving is the opportunity to grow both the men's and women's competitions which we really are pretty pleased about talk a little bit if you would about the the structure you mentioned the commission there and i i it'd be i think again really illustrative for for people listening just understand about where you sit in that structure as CEO and the commission's, I suppose, approach and the way that it runs the sport?

19:52I think governance is really important in professional sport. The ability to think long-term and to make decisions in the best interest of the game overall is something that you can't take for granted in the complex world of stakeholders, particularly in professional sports. So the way the structure is in rugby league in Australia is really set up for that. There's an independent board of directors called the commission or the commissioners, there's eight. They're not appointed by the members. The members of the clubs and the state leagues, which is really New South Wales and Queensland, and then the 17 clubs.

20:31So the members or shareholders effectively, but the commission is separate and independent. And those commissioners are appointed based on various skills and background and they elect then a chairman. But importantly, we are both regulators and effectively accountable to the members to drive the value of the game. But you have a commission that can make independent decisions around expansion, around allocation of investment. and that has really been instrumental in our ability to invest for the long term and make sure that we have a very clear roadmap to grow for the benefit of everyone. But the other interesting thing is the commission is responsible for the sport, unlike some of the structures here in the UK.

21:19For example, the EPL is really about the professional league. The commission is responsible for grassroots and the professional game. The NRL competition, our state of origin, which is our representative program, international program, but then also grassroots footy. So getting juniors to play the game, whether it's touch, tag or tackle, schools, clubs, really, you know, we're a not-for-profit. So we run as a very lean and efficient professional organization, but we are not-for-profit. So everything we make is reinvested back with that balance between professional sport and then grassroots and investing in fans for the long term.

21:56So give me your, I imagine you have this pinned on your wall in your office somewhere, but your sort of current SWOT analysis of NRL strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, just paint me a picture of how you as the CEO are looking at things at the moment, end of the season, and I guess already thinking about the new one. Well, start before I go into SWOT, sort of like a way to think about value creation and And like our share price is really driven by, ultimately it's two things. We want more people playing rugby league and more people watching rugby league. And underneath that, you know, your core metrics around how many people are watching, how many people are engaging on broadcast.

22:36And that's changing a lot. So, you know, traditional linear broadcast versus streaming. How many people are watching live at, you know, week-in, week-out sub-games, sort of in your major events. And then how many people are playing, but not just one format of the game. And we've diversified into a non-contact format. Touch football is really important for us. Tag football, which is another non-contact hybrid and tackle football. Males and females across different parts of the world, not just Australia. So that all ladders up to getting more people playing and more people watching. And the watching too, younger people are following individual athletes more than they do.

23:13The old sort of focus on tribalism or clubs. So finding a way to connect with younger people, younger audiences is really important for us. So social media, short form content has been really important. Coming back to your question around SWOT, really briefly, I think our strengths are the ability to have an independent commission that can move quickly and act in the best interest of the long-term game. The governance is definitely a strength. The fact that we are not some codes that exist and that are more globalized and more mature than us perhaps aren't able to move as quickly as we are. we're able to focus on the customer so a real strength for us is um customer experience changing the rules of the game to make sure that it is an entertaining and a fast game balling play these types of metrics we've been very fortunate enough the last few years to really focus on that and that's given the actual underlying product a lot of strength and that's led to us winning lots of new fans which has been terrific i think um one of the areas uh that this sort of like linked to that the opportunity for us, the opportunity for us is to take what has been really successful in our core markets and showcase that into new markets.

24:25So we now start our season every year in Las Vegas and we have that as our season opener doubleheader with the Super League. So three matches. Great opportunity for us to get real prominence, not just in our home markets, but in our traditional markets, but in new markets as well. So continuing to globalize the game is another big opportunity for us. I think a weakness for us would probably be making sure that we are able to withstand some of the challenges that all sports are facing now around people's attention and younger people's attention. So there are so many options, whether it's playing or watching, there are so many different ways in which people are consuming and entertaining, consuming sport, consuming entertainment and their choices of and their commitments to for example a traditional long form or long competition you know we need to stay relevant so I think that that you know so our weakness is probably I don't know if it's a threat or a weakness is making sure that we stay relevant for how younger people are choosing to consume sport and participate in sport and a thread would be linked to that would be um at the professional level is i mentioned earlier how competitive australia is but you know the wall for talent making sure that we are maintaining an attractive place where athletes want to want to be long term yeah um and of course as a contact sport we need to think about that really carefully how much footy the players play um and making sure the player safety is at the forefront of what we do how much i mean australia such a dynamic market.

26:07We'll maybe come on to talk about the media side in a minute, but in terms of the leagues and the number of professional teams and just the appetite for sport, I guess, you know, both an opportunity and a challenge, I would imagine. How much are you looking in reality at what the AFL is doing and how much are they looking at what you're doing? And actually, is the, you know, beyond the hype, actually a pretty good working relationship between the two of you in terms of raising the sports bar in that market? I mean, it's really very different sports, different athletes. There's not a lot of crossover.

26:45And different strengths in terms of positions in the different geographies of Australia and beyond. Our focus is really making sure that we continue to grow the game in new markets. So for us, expansion into Western Australia, expansion into Papua New Guinea, Papua New Guinea is a wonderful opportunity for us. A country of somewhere between 15, 19 million people where rugby league is the unifying language. Like there's 800 different languages literally in PNG and there's one language that everyone speaks and that's rugby league. So for us, a franchise or a club in Papua New Guinea is a great opportunity for us.

27:22New Zealand is another incredible opportunity for us. We have one team there called the New Zealand Warriors, both the men's and women's franchise. But the popularity of rugby league, it's such an engaging sport to watch. And we are connecting with younger audiences and viewers. That means that we're having real traction and growth in New Zealand. So to answer your question, which I probably haven't done, David, in such an effective way, is I'm not really too focused on what is happening in other sports. I'm really focused on where the opportunities are for us. and making sure that we are thinking about the positioning of rugby league globally, not just in Australia.

28:05Let's talk about Vegas because I know you were heavily involved in that and continue to be heavily involved in that. And it was one of those headlines that you see and you sort of give it a double take when it was first announced. But actually, when you think it through, there is a real logic to it. There is obviously the US and expanding and I guess planting the seed of rugby league in the US is at the heart of what this is all about. What else is it doing for you? And I mean, maybe reflect a little bit on what you said at the start around those tentpole moments, because you've created another one, essentially.

28:39Yes, it's a good summary. So the strategy is West and East. East is about Australians in the Pacific, bottom up. And it's about making rugby league the number one sport in that region in terms of playing and watching. The move west to the US is top down. It's about acquiring fans in a large market. And the original intent was for us to showcase our sport on the west coast of America to start with because of the time difference. It means we can play a game in the evening. It comes back primetime Sunday afternoon in Australia. And it was about really planting a foothold in a very large market where we can grow and attract and continue to find a way to be a niche sport in a very, very big market and everything that comes with that in different ways in which you can monetize fans now in the off season for the NFL.

29:31I mean, rugby league has a lot of similarities to NFL. NFL is huge in America. It's the number one sport by miles. If you look at the key metrics around audience and engagement, sports wagering is being deregulated and sorry it was being regulated but essentially it's becoming online a really a great way to engage with sports fans and so America presented a huge opportunity for us ironically though one of the biggest benefits we've got from it is the benefit it has brought to have our opening round we moved the fixture to be a week earlier so we extended the season we have this double header opening match that just absolutely saturates, captures the imagination of Australians in our core market, saturates the marketplace.

30:18Everyone knows that the season is on and we actually got a halo impact where we were getting a lot more casual viewers, a lot more casual fans leaning in for the start of the season. And that halo effect actually sort of extrapolated across the season. So it wasn't the reason we went there, but it was an unintentional beneficial benefit for us. We knew playing it a week earlier before any of the other codes, when the code started, was going to be an advantage, but we didn't realise just how much of an advantage it was for us. Tell us a little bit about state of origin and how that's developed and how important that is.

30:53And we talk, I guess, about cultural cut through and sort of really making an impact and, you know, moving into sort of absolute mainstream appeal. And And I mean, sum it up for us, for those of us who haven't seen it, haven't seen it live, do maybe, you know, are maybe in the wrong time zone to sort of fully experience what it means for Australia. I'd love to bring us that Origin game to England one day. And I'd love, you know, all sports fans here and around the world to experience Origin. It is literally, you know, indescribable. It's something that transcends sport and it's captured the imagination of the country, regardless of what sport you follow.

31:33So really simply put, there's two, the two sort of, if you go back to 1908 and the origins of the game, the origins of the game were, the game started in Sydney and in New South Wales and in Queensland. That is where the real sort of heritage and the history of the game is. And a lot of the, so state of origin is a representative fixture where the best players who grew up learning their footy in either New South Wales or Queensland get selected from the clubs and playing in a three-game series, men's and women's, it's the best of the best. And it's about a rivalry that really showcases unbelievably talented athletes, but playing for something where they are representing the state.

32:19And it's become so successful that when we talk, just to give you a sense, so grand final, we got 4.65 million viewers in Australia. that that's number one rated tv show of the year not sports show just number one and then in the top five state of origin one state of origin two state of origin three so it gets four million people sort of leaning in and watching and the quality of the football is amazing that you know the gps on the players will tell you that they are running higher top speeds the level of intensity is just phenomenal so it's a great spectacle but really the buzz and the atmosphere in the stadium is indescribable.

32:57We take one game in that series to a neutral market and we'll go and play at the MCG in Victoria, in Melbourne, and we'll get 90 ,000 people watch it. We'll sell it out in Perth. We're thinking about taking that game to New Zealand, potentially elsewhere around the world. So it is an intense rivalry. It's a spectacle that is worth traveling for and experiencing. And it's something that gets the whole nation really engaged. Continuing the theme around shop window for the sport, you're obviously over here in part to take in a couple of the test matches between England and Australia at the moment.