David Buttress has been a busy man of late. He has been overseeing a rebranding of the Dragons, which has culminated in them taking on a new life as a rugby club with a new name - Dragons RFC - and a new badge. He’s also in the process of putting together a buy out of the club from the WRU, while pushing hard for a stable long-term funding model for the professional game in Wales. And then there’s his new role as the UK Government’s Cost of Living Business Tsar. So plenty to talk about when we sit down with the former JustEat chief executive, who is now into his fifth year as chairman of the Dragons.
Q: First of all, what was the thinking behind the rebrand?
A: Since I have been involved here, there has been a consistent question around identity. So I wanted to go through a rigorous process, really getting into it properly, and that’s what we have done over the last ten months, talking to all the stakeholders. We have spoken to so many people, from supporters groups to sponsors, players and staff and we have listened. We wanted to pull all the drains up and be really clear about what we think we are.
Q: You have come to the conclusion that you are a rugby club, hence the new name Dragons RFC. How did you reach that decision?
A: Over the last 20 years, I have spent most of my career building brands. You can’t compromise when you build brands. You have to be clear and strong what it is you stand for and why. I think it was fudged and compromised here 20 years ago.
One of the most important things you have to do as a brand is be authentic to what you feel you are and what you are in practice. So why RFC? Well, in Wales, we have rugby clubs, that’s who we are. When I come here, I say I am going to the club, the same goes for our fans. Everything we try and do around players and staff, our relationship with supporters and the community, is in the context of what I would describe as a rugby club.
I think that’s a key value in Welsh rugby. I feel really strongly about this. It was probably me that advocated this point the most. We need to be authentic, so we have inserted the RFC.
We are a rugby club with regional pathway responsibilities for developing Gwent rugby. We take that responsibility extraordinarily seriously and are proud to do that. That’s why you now see ‘We are Gwent rugby’ under the badge. So this team represents that area but we see ourselves very clearly as a rugby club.
Q: You have decided to stick with Dragons and not restore any geographic name. What was the thought process there?
A: The simple answer is we have been the Dragons for 20 years now. We are developing our own history and we feel really proud of that and we want to continue to develop that over the next five, 10, 20, 30 years. If I speak to the kids round here and you see them coming on match days, we have an identity that’s developing and we want to build on it.
We looked at everything in the name. There was nothing off the table. We considered all names, including do we insert Newport back into it, do we insert Gwent back into it? Having thought about it really carefully we felt we didn’t need to. We think Dragons is strong enough on its own and we are very comfortable to develop that brand.
I also feel extraordinarily respectful of Newport RFC’s history and I did not in any way want us to encroach on that. As a rugby fan and a local boy, I love and respect Newport’s history and we want to support them as best we can.
I don’t think it was necessary to put Newport back in our name. I think it’s different for us to Cardiff and the Scarlets. For Cardiff, their rebrand last year was a logical move for them because they were always Cardiff Rugby in my mind whereas, 20 years ago, went down a different path. We felt really strongly at the end of it that we want to be Dragons.
Q: Why then have you opted not to have a dragon on the badge?
A: In terms of branding and imagery, we use dragons a lot around the stadium. We have it in the lounges, we have the tail on the back of the shirt still. I don’t think you need to have a literal dragon on your badge or your crest to capture the name. I think we can do that in other ways.
Q: You have gone for three amber fleurs-de-lis on the badge instead. What was the thinking there?
A: Badges should represent what and who you are and we believe we very proudly represent the Gwent rugby development pathway. When you were selected to play for Gwent in years gone by, a similar version of this crest is the badge you would wear on your shirt. It was the historic Gwent/Monmouthshire badge, so we felt this perfectly encapsulated what we represent.
We have added the black and amber colours because we play in Newport and are proud to do so. When you think of the teams of this city, they play in black and amber. I think it was a mistake to add red into a professional team based in Newport. Black and amber is this city’s colours and, playing at Rodney Parade, we should represent those colours. Then with the away shirt we have added all the colours of the clubs in Gwent in flecks in it.
I am very confident this is the right brand and imagery and that we have done the right thing. Whenever you do stuff like this, there will be people who like it and don’t, but we are very clear this is the end of the process. We have drawn a line, this is the end of the discussion in pro rugby in Gwent. I will never revisit this again. It’s done. This is who we are. We have been authentic and true to who we are. Some people will love it and some people won’t and that’s ok.
Q: Do you still have an ambition to take over ownership of the club from the WRU?
A: Yes, 100 per cent. Our model is me plus certainly two others, possibly three. I am not in a financial position where I can do it myself, but we have built a team of people that have an aligned passion and a desire to get involved. It has to be over the coming months, not in a year. The club has to go into private hands sooner rather than later. We can’t have a three plus one model, with three independent teams and one Union owned. I don’t think that’s fair or right.
Q: There has been a lot of talk about the number of professional teams in Wales. Are you confident there will still be four sides moving forward?
A: There has to be. Where’s the evidence that says you can win a World Cup with three professional teams? I am not signing up for any plan that means my kids can never see Wales win a World Cup or Grand Slams. Frankly, anyone that signs up for that plan should get out of the way.
Welsh rugby deserves four teams because that gives it the best chance to win World Cups and Grand Slams. This is our national sport and we need to be galvanised around that. We should all care. Anyone who is advocating two or three teams should go and support sides that compete at the lower end of the Six Nations and get knocked out at the group stage of the World Cup. I am not interested in that for Wales.
I didn’t see Wales win a Grand Slam until 2005 when I was in my 20s. If we reduce ourselves, you are condemning the next generation of rugby supporters to that kind of experience and that would be criminal given the last 10 to 15 years.
Q: I guess the issue then is how do you competitively finance four professional teams?
A: There is plenty of money in Welsh rugby and, if there’s not enough, then lets go and find it, let’s challenge ourselves to grow. When I was CEO of JustEat, we started with no money and made £37 in the first month. So don’t tell me Welsh rugby with the supporter base it has got, with a 70,000-plus stadium with a roof on it, that we can’t grow and add sufficient money in order to support four teams successfully.
Welsh rugby needs to focus all its energy on improving the financing of the game and the running of the pro game. We should not convince ourselves there is a shortage of money. It’s what we prioritise and do with that money is the issue.
We don’t finance the pro game sufficiently to be competitive. If you don’t invest enough in a product, then the product struggles and it forms a negative perception with its customer and then you are in a cycle of decline that is difficult to break out of. We have to invest in the professional game and then over time we will see a reversal in that perception because we will start to have some success. You can’t under invest in a product and expect it just to fix itself.
Of course there are financial challenges after Covid but we have to prioritise our resources correctly. We have to make a solution now and put a plan in place. We have got a very decent league with some very good teams in it, so we have to take care of our end with Welsh rugby because I would like to see Welsh teams in the sort of occasion we saw with the URC final. There is no reason why that shouldn’t happen. We have got to come up with a funding model that works and is stable for three or four years.
Q: You have recently been appointed as the UK Government’s Cost of Living Business Tsar. Is that going to have any impact on the time you spend at the Dragons?
A: It’s business as usual here. I do roughly a day a week, probably a bit more in reality, and that will stay the same. My working life is pretty flexible as I am not a full-time CEO. I have that ability to dip into interesting projects. It’s only for six months, but I hope I can make a difference. There is an appetite to try and help where we can.
Q: So you remain as committed as ever to the Dragons?
A: If I didn’t love this place, I wouldn’t be here because Welsh rugby has been one of the great labours of my life in the last four years. I love everything about this club. I love the ground, I love the area, I love the people, I love the people I work with.
If you ask my wife what’s the job I have loved the most, she would say he loves the Dragons and that whenever he goes there he goes happy and excited. When you genuinely love and care about something, you don’t want to leave. I love the place and that’s despite Welsh rugby at times literally destroying the last of my hairline in terms of frustration!
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