From a couple of weeks ago.
Richmond's message for corporate AustraliaPatrick Durkin
Australian Financial Review
Sep 20, 2019Brendon Gale, chief executive of the Richmond football club, has a message for corporate Australia ahead of annual general meeting (AGM) season, try running the gauntlet of 90,000 rabid fans every week.
"The AFL is like an AGM every week, whether you are a coach, a player or administrator, you are on the rack every week and your performance is being scrutinised," Gale tells The Australian Financial Review.
Corporate heavyweights and CEOs will descend on the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Friday night when Richmond president Peggy O'Neal and her premiership favourite Tigers face off against the Geelong Cats and their president and Lendlease director, Colin Carter (whose board includes Medibank CEO Craig Drummond).
They join Eddie McGuire's Magpies (whose board includes Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate) and Tony Shepherd's Greater Western Sydney, as the last four teams in the competition overseen by AFL and Qantas chairman Richard Goyder.
AFL football has become big business - the league is heading for a record profit this year of more than $50 million from revenue of about $700 million - and the connections to business run deep.
Gale and O'Neal refuse to get ahead of themselves - although acknowledge playing the equally loved and hated Pies in the Grand Final "would be wild" - but say the success has been driven by the turnaround off the field.
Back in the blackRichmond is leading the membership race after topping more than 100,000 members for a second year running and is back on a firm financial footing, expected to make a profit of more than $4 million from about $80 million revenue this year.
A $60 million plan to redevelop Punt Road Oval will soon get underway and their health and fitness business, Aligned Leisure, is delivering strong revenue after weaning off pokies.
" Save Our Skins " rally for Richmond Football Club, the past champion Jack Dyer Signs autographs for club fans. AFR
The Tigers, premiers in 2017 after a 37 year drought, have come a long way from the 1990's Save Our Skins campaign when crippling debt threatened the club's existence.
"I had to get out and rattle cans," Gale, the former Tiger player, lawyer and past CEO of the Players' Association recalls.
"We were a club that was always down the bottom. The club never seemed quite as aligned as we should have been. It was pretty much hand to mouth", Gale tells the Financial Review.
The club's poor fortunes continued until 2016, after a 113-point loss to Sydney in their final game which saw the club finish 13th and prompted calls to sack coach Damien Hardwick.
The fans' refrain for bloodletting was legendary and saw the club sack eight coaches over two decades before O'Neal and the board stood tough, believing the club was close to turning things around.
"We realised we needed financial stability before we could be competitive, a lot of the short-term view that preceded [us] came from chasing success on the ground, and success off the ground wasn't looked at so much," says O'Neal, an American lawyer who sits on a number of super fund boards.
"When I joined in 2005, we had lost $2.5 million and were about $6 million in debt and the auditors were threatening a qualified audit, so we committed to never spending more than we had and we knew this would be a long, slow recovery."
O'Neal says most fans do not realise the club's current good fortunes - the VFL team also play in the grand final this weekend - have been a decade in the making.
"By 2009, we were on our way financially ... a decade ago almost to the month, we had to appoint a new coach and CEO and we appointed [Gale and Hardwick] both in the same month, so this has been ten years in the making."
Close observers also point out that O'Neal isn't in the mould of the larger than life presidents who might have stormed into the rooms to demand Hardwick move a player.
Wide and deep leadershipIt has been a hallmark of Richmond's good form that everyone is expected to play their role for the greater good, from the on-field stars like Dustin Martin, Jack Riewoldt and Tom Lynch to the off-field between the president, CEO and coach.
"Leadership here is spread wide and deep but everyone has the ability to impact the mission of the club but everyone play their role and contributes to the overall result," Gale says.
Another key has been putting Richmond members "at the centre of the club" although Gale admits "premierships help" to lift members from 75,000 to 100,000.
The club is also working more closely with their corporate sponsors who "want more than sticking badges on jumpers". NIB have come on board for Richmond's new women's side "because they feel very strongly about diversity, gender and equity".
https://www.afr.com/companies/sport/richmond-s-message-for-corporate-australia-20190918-p52sqk
