Welsh rugby’s power brokers are 80 percent of the way to firming up what the future of the game here looks like, according to Ospreys chief executive Nick Garcia.
The Professional Rugby Board – on which Garcia sits with representatives from the other regions, the WRU and independents – is tasked with running the elite game in Wales and they’ve been locked in lengthy discussions over a long-term plan that would provide a level of stability and financial certainty that has been lacking in recent times.
Talks have been going on for months now and, in that time, Wales flopped in the Six Nations and the four regions all finished in the bottom half of the United Rugby Championship. Those involved in the discussions have given nothing away and the information vacuum has paved the way for proposals to scrap one of the regions being leaked, though they were eventually shot down.
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But the end is appearing on the horizon, with Garcia telling WalesOnline after the latest meeting of the board: “Everyone’s in a room and everyone is motivated to get something done. My gut feeling is that we’ve got a good plan and we’re probably 80 percent of the way there, we just need to drill down into detail and stress test it in certain areas.
“I’d go as far as saying I feel quite confident about where this plan can take us but we’re not quite there yet.
“It’s got to be in before next season. We’re all committed to getting it done. My view was that it had to be done by the summer but what is certainly coming out in conversations now is ‘right guys, we’ve got to finalise this, we’ve got to get it done’.
“That could make things sound like there is a lack of commitment and ambition and there is not that, one hundred percent. Some of the people in that room are very senior, powerful people and they’re dedicating a huge amount of time to [this]. You’ve got chairmen there whose job should be one day a week and they’re putting a hell of a lot more than that into it.
Garcia believes the plan must be in place and set in stone before next season and insists that there is a general agreement that it’s time for decisions to be made. But he explained the mentality of the board has been to approach the issue as if they had a blank sheet of paper and were rebuilding from scratch.
“I’m a really impatient person but if I think back to that first meeting, before we started this workstream, it’s night and day in terms of what we know we want to do, the pillars that are governing each structure and all that kind of stuff is broadly agreed. We’ve come a long way and it is a big old job.”
One thing that has emerged from the PRB in recent months was a fairly short, vague statement that spoke of the four regions having important ‘roles’ in the professional game. Dragons chairman David Buttress has also talked about 'roles' and insisted each region has a different purpose. The open-ended use of that word paved the way for fans to fear that some teams may experience a reduction in payments and effectively become a development side. Garcia shot the suggestion down.
He said: “My view is that what’s wonderful about sport is the integrity that exists. I don’t think you can manufacture sport, you can’t say: ‘This is your role and this is yours’.
“As the Ospreys, we’re in it to win as many games as possible and I hope we’re showing that intent so far. A lot of stuff that is being talked about right now just isn’t a thing.
“Everything has got a long way to play. What I’m seeing in Wales is that we – the regions and WRU – haven’t been good enough at telling the story of what Welsh rugby’s about and where we want it to go, the plan. That’s created a vacuum and people have filled it for us, and it’s not usually positive.
“The only place we should be fighting things out is on the pitch.”
Garcia also gave a wide-ranging interview on professional rugby in Wales, business decisions being made at the Ospreys and the URC...
WalesOnline: Is the plan being worked on by the PRB with a view to the longer term?
Nick Garcia: “It is definitely thought of like that. I don’t think anyone wants to be back here in 12 months’ time. We actually want to get back to the business of competing in rugby games, nobody likes the boardroom stuff so there is a complete commitment to that.
“To a large degree we’re all keeping each other honest because we all have slightly different objectives, so that takes time to work through. But, critically, if we do something now, what does it need to look like in five years’ time or 10 years’ time? And what do we need to do or sacrifice in order to get there?
“It’s about thinking beyond the here and now.”
WO: What is your preferred approach?
NG: “My preferred solution is something that is holistically looking at the entire pro game in Wales and thinking about a long term strategy because it’s the way I’ve always done things and I think it’s the way you get the best results in sport.
“But I can’t really be more granular than that.”
WO: How difficult is it to build a long-term plan when your revenue can go up or down depending on WRU finances?
NG: “I believe that, as regions, we are privately-owned businesses – I know there is WRU investment at the Dragons but broadly we are privately-owned. We should be thinking, like any business in the world, about not being so heavily reliant on one income stream.
“It’s really important for us to look at how we’re driving out controllable commercial revenues, what our proposition is to increase those commercial revenues, how we’re being really efficient around our player recruitment and development – all the things that sports businesses could be doing.
“We need to get to a point where we have a good, diversified income stream and that’s on us.”
WO: Whenever we reach these moments in Welsh rugby, the Ospreys seem to end up on the chopping block allegedly because they don’t own their own stadium, is there anything being done to eradicate that threat?
NG: “Our lease expires in something like 2050 or 2055. It’s years away. I’ll probably be gone by the time it expires, so we’ve got security and it’s a good stadium to play in.
“Is it a little too big currently? Yeah maybe. But it’s a good stadium for hospitality, it’s a good seat, it works for the players. We could be a lot worse off and we’re secure, which is the important thing to say.
“I didn’t get it when I saw it. It was a bit odd. I know the report was leaked and there was clearly an agenda behind that but if you actually break it down, the Ospreys are the most successful Welsh team in the modern era, we’re the top team in Wales this year, we’ve got 11 players going to South Africa, which is almost 50 percent more than the next contributing region, and we’ve got about 10 players who will be on the under-20s tour this year.
“Critically, we’re the best capitalised team in Welsh rugby right now, so we’re okay.
“That stability is showing in where we’re investing. The reason we’re churning out young players in the age grade, the reason we’ve got top stars and are the best Welsh team is not coincidence, it’s because we invest heavily and strategically in things that are going to grow the business, making sure that every single penny we spend is optimised.”
WO: You were criticised recently for saying CEOs and Chairmen shouldn’t interact with fans on social media, do you want to clarify those comments?
NG: “My point was that there is an awful lot of positivity in Wales and rugby. It’s amazing that it punches above its population weight, it’s clearly part of the fabric of the community, there is a lot of positive stuff to talk about but nobody talks about it.
“When people vent on social media, they’re not talking about that. They’re talking about stuff that’s broken. These are snippets of conversations that people pick up and go wild with.
“I’m not in the business of talking to everyone just to talk to my supporters. I’ll have an open dialogue with our fans, a big part of the strategy at the Ospreys is to be more transparent, so I’m really happy to do that.
“I will have those sessions as often as is wanted and I will give our fans honest answers but I don’t feel the need to use social media to talk to everyone, so that trolls can pick up on it, just so I can talk to our fans. That was my point.”
WO: There seems to be a move towards attracting investment from global brands and away from local ones at the Ospreys?
NG: “It’s a big part of the strategy. Let’s take the Welsh rugby ecosystem, the pro game. The reality is that, by and large, a national team’s commercial potential is capped by the amount of people from that country that are in the world. Of course, there are some anomalies in that – Brazilian football team, the All Blacks – but by and large it’s capped.
“The club game is not. I come from the world of football and when I started at Man City in 2012, 97 percent of our fan base wasn’t even in the country. So that’s enabling you to bring fandom from all over the world, and money if you commercialise that fan base well, back into the English football ecosystem.
“It’s also about monetising third parties like broadcast partners and commercial partners. For Welsh rugby, that’s a good thing because it would allow it to punch above its domestic economy.
“So you’ve got this interesting scenario that I see in rugby. People talk a lot about counting chimney pots in terms of working out how many regions we can sustain and all that stuff. I think it’s more about counting IP addresses or social followers.
“One, it broadens your capability enormously and secondly we need to accept that young fans don’t consume sport in the same way.
“It’s a really interesting situation for us as a sport because we’re not thinking that way. I believe we need to attract a younger, more diverse fan base. The global and the younger audience plays into a digital proposition. However, and I caveat this heavily, our product is only as good as the matchday experience. We need to have more people in the stadium because it plays out well in terms of atmosphere, lifts the players, there’s the commercial side, the TV product is a lot better.
“Therefore, our core fans that come to the stadium are our top priority. But in order to drive financial sustainability over a longer term, we have to be more global. So we’ve put a lot of work into that space.”
WO: Does chasing those global brands put you at risk of losing those local businesses that may have been investing in the Ospreys for many years?
NG: "Local brands are still vital. They're kind of like local fans and there is a huge amount of commercial value locally that just isn't relevant to global brands. If I think about dealing with a brand in Canada, which we've just signed, they're not going to be coming to the Swansea.com for every match to use the hospitality, they're much more about the narrative, co-innovation, the visibility in the fan base, the players.
"With local brands, we've got an amazing hospitality offering. I'd say we're probably one of the best stadiums in rugby. Yes we want to fill it but it's a great stadium with a great hospitality offering. We have a really distinct product that we can offer those guys.
"First thing we did is decide what our brand is, what we stand for and why, what are the values that define us? Because that is what we map against a commercial partner. Then it's about how we service them and identify their needs. It's been quite transformational.
"You'll notice we only have about five logos on our shirts. We purposefully slimmed it down because we know that too many logos means nobody gets seen. Consumers can't pick up the brand. These are the sort of things we need to do more.
"There is a proposition for a local brand, a Welsh brand, a European brand and global brand in that. We've now seen the value of certain assets, say a position on the shirt, grow two-and-a-half multiples because you can demonstrate value.
"If you took the Scarlets game, you could not get a seat in hospitality because all the local brands and businesses used it to host."
WO: What are you doing to arrest the decline in season ticket sales?
NG: “They’re a challenge. Major cities are bouncing back a lot quicker, more rural areas not so much.
“I don’t have the data to back this up but you might find that the demographic outside city centres is slightly older and potentially more nervous about coming back.
“On that point, it’s about giving confidence around safety measures, doing what you can to look after your supporters. I also think that you’ve got to have more younger people following rugby, otherwise the sport is ultimately going to die.
“We’ve been doing a big push on that. We did a big programme with Swansea University, we’re doing a lot to try and get students to watch games, creating areas specifically for them. We’re doing an awful lot with our clubs throughout the region. It’s about bringing in more kids, making it more diverse. The results of that are that last season we had something like 33 percent of people buying a matchday ticket were under 25, which is phenomenal. We got as high as 44 percent in one game when we did specific, targeted promotions towards youth.
“That is going to be really important for the future of rugby.
“The other point is about the continuity of the product. If you’re not playing week in, week out at the same time then it’s very hard to get continuity for the fans.”
WO: The ownership is not particularly visible and they have other business interests, which can make fans a little edgy – what is their outlook on the Ospreys?
NG: “James Davies-Yandle is originally from Pontarddulais. He might live in Bangkok but he’s from here and there is a huge amount of passion in the project for him. Now, we need to be careful with those words because passion implies it’s a vanity purchase and it’s not that. He’s a smart businessman.
“The Ospreys is a critical part of a global journey. I’ve talked about virtuous circles and running a rugby business efficiently, we’re developing that playbook at the Ospreys. We will potentially make other acquisitions somewhere in the sport. It might not be other clubs – obviously there is the 25 percent in the Hurricanes – but other rugby assets because we believe in rugby.
“The Ospreys is ground zero. There’s a reason I live in Mumbles and not London or Bangkok, because we’re defining the playbook here.
“The supporters should not be edgy. Without creating it at the Ospreys, we haven’t got anything. That’s really important.
“We’re excited and to say that the current ecosystem in Welsh rugby is rosey would be a lie but we’re pretty measured about it. We know it’s going to come good, we’ll give every bit of our knowledge to make it come good. We remain bullish.”
WO: When the owners came in, they talked about being innovative and improving the fan experience in stadiums through the use of the app and things. Progress appears to have been slow on that, where are we with it all?
NG: “The challenge we’ve had is that Covid battered the game and we’re finally staffing back up to get to the level where we’re doing not just the housekeeping but really pushing the needle a bit. We’re going to be in the market for eight recruitments off the pitch within the business side of the Ospreys imminently.
“This is something all rugby organisations will need to do. Everyone focuses their investment on the pitch, that’s smart because it’s going to move the needle. The general consensus is that 70 to 80 percent of success is bought. Spend enough money on players and you’ll win.
“That’s great but if you’re not commercialising that success then it’s unsustainable. You start investing on the pitch, get the best players you can within your budget. They go off and get wins and as they’re doing that you get a really good product around it – good matchday experience, data on the website, good competitions to play in. As that gets better, make sure it’s an efficient, well-run business because then you’re going to drive fans. Get to know the fans well because you need to serve them and you also need to tell your sponsors about those fans.
“Once you’ve got those fans following a successful team, watching a great product, then you commercialise it. The more money you make from commercial, you can invest back into the squad. Then you win more trophies. you get more fans and it goes on and on.
“That’s why you’ve got to invest off the pitch. If you’re not constantly innovating off the pitch, then you’re just going to fall behind. You’re asleep at the wheel, basically.”
WO: Finally, what are your thoughts on the URC?
NG: “The URC is very fresh and very exciting. I know it’s challenging, having a tournament that spans five countries and two hemispheres right in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic is going to be difficult. But they are incredibly open, we have a lot of dialogue with them. They’ll sit down with the four Welsh regions and say: ‘How can we make this better for you?’
“Kick off times is a really good one. There is a live discussion around that. Some of it sits with them, some of it sits with broadcasters but they will pull us into the conversation with broadcasters. They’re very forward thinking.
“I love the way they’ve freshened up rugby, in terms of the Roc Nation involvement, the whole brand presentation, the drive they’ve got to get younger fans. They’re very innovative and I love all of that.
“The URC is a very young league, they’ve chopped and changed and they recognise that. They’ve done the brand refresh and it would be great if we’re out the back of Covid and we can start seeing how it can be really powerful.
“You’ve got real powerhouse rugby clubs in that league. It’s exciting and if you’re playing in lots of countries throughout the world it’s great to accelerate your global brand. It’s going to be interesting to see how clubs dial up that opportunity, because I’m not sure any of us do a lot right now to attract a global fan base.”
