Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Premiership Rugby, has overseen the growth of domestic rugby union in England – helping turn a fledgling professional sport into a £125m turnover enterprise. He talks about how he created a strong working relationship with the clubs, their vision for the future and why the national team's World Cup embarrassment can make the club game stronger
Standing beneath the goalposts at Twickenham Stoop, home of Harlequins, Mark McCafferty grips a rugby ball firmly under his arm and looks unfazed by the bracing January wind swirling around the stadium. It's a fitting scene –McCafferty has been chief executive of Premiership Rugby, the organisation that runs the elite club game in England, since 2005, and in that time has determinedly carried the business forward through the brisk winds of change
that have continued to blow since the sport turned professional in 1995.
Anyone who saw England's current leading teams, Saracens and Harlequins, slug it out at Twickenham in front of 82,000 fans – and considerably more watching on TV – over Christmas would perhaps find it hard to fathom that club rugby union's undoubted popularity, and potential bankability, lay untapped in England until 17 years ago. The Rugby Football Union (RFU), governing body of the game in England and overseers of the national team, had previously feared that the trappings of professionalism could harm the spirit of the sport.
"It would probably be best to describe Premiership Rugby as a youthful business," says McCafferty, casting his mind back to his arrival in 2005. "The sport had been through its first decade of professionalism and there had been a lot of learning out of that. The investors and shareholders that came in at the very start had done a lot of the heavy lifting to get the whole thing going and the basic business model and roots were in place. My job was to help Premiership Rugby and its clubs really build on that platform."
McCafferty explains that his first priority was to seek a deal with the RFU over club-versus-country issues, including the amount of time players were required to spend with the England team if selected: "A team of us spent almost two years negotiating a new eight-year agreement with the RFU that covered everything learnt about the professional game over its first 10 years," he says. "It was time-consuming, but we added to the platform that had been created – gaining control of our commercial rights for the first time, for instance."
This commercial autonomy would prove crucial in giving English club rugby lift-off, allowing new TV deals to be negotiated: "Back in 2005 we had only one Premiership Rugby game televised per weekend," says McCafferty. "Now we have three across Sky and ESPN, plus highlights with ITV, giving more exposure to the club game. Off the back of that set-up we've been able to draw in new partners – most notably Aviva, who are now in the second year of their title sponsorship of the league, and also global names like Hilton and Gatorade."
THE RIGHT BRAND
With these essential building blocks in place, McCafferty was keen to use principles central to his previous roles with Thomas Cook and Avis to drive domestic club rugby forward as a business. "The biggest transferable area from those businesses is consumer brands," he says. "Rugby clubs are brands at the end of the day. People follow their club passionately and for them it embodies values they enjoy being associated with. So we're very precious and enthusiastic about anything that can uphold and enhance the brand values of each club.
"We ensure our culture's a very entrepreneurial one too – we're a challenger brand and so we have to act quickly and be slightly audacious at times," he adds.
"For example, two years ago we decided to establish a summer rugby sevens series. We went from approval with shareholders in May 2009 to launch in July, which is a significant exercise when you consider we had to find TV coverage and sponsorship, get all the clubs on board and stage it all – but we achieved that."
One of the brands Premiership Rugby is looking to challenge with this fleet-footed approach is, of course, the much longer established professional football business. "Over the next five years, we won't catch Premier League football – but we could realistically overtake Championship football, the next level down," says McCafferty. "They average attendances of 19,000 per game and we're averaging 13,500. We've got a gap to make up, but it's possible. Ten years ago our attendance was 6,000, so we've more than doubled it in that period."
To attract new fans, Premiership Rugby has focused on making its 12-team league as closely competitive as possible. Money from TV deals and league sponsorship is distributed equally among clubs, and a cap on the total salary that can be paid to each squad ensures no one team can splash cash to gain a huge advantage.
"We position it as the most competitive league in world rugby," says McCafferty. "The stats show that 55 per cent of games finish within a seven points or less winning margin. That closeness makes the league very strong."
The drama is topped off with an end-of-season play-off system, the latest version of which was introduced from the 2005-06 season and sees the top four finishing teams in the league play semi-finals and a grand final to crown the Aviva Premiership champions. "We looked around world sport, and the conclusion was always the same – it's the unpredictability of the final result which really draws people in and makes for a compelling spectacle," says McCafferty. "So that has been at the centre of our policy and strategy."
As well as the action on the field, the razzmatazz has been ramped up to encourage yet more fans through the turnstiles. The match at Twickenham watched by 82,000 at Christmas is a now-annual event called The Big Game, which sees Harlequins move one of their normal league fixtures from the 14,000-capacity Stoop across the road to Twickenham. As well as the rugby, fans were treated to live performances by X Factor contestants Misha B and Amelia Lily. The game set a world record attendance for a regular season league match.
AMERICAN DREAM
McCafferty's priority now is to ensure that this success is ongoing and for that he is taking inspiration from across the pond. "We have got to ensure it's sustainable, not just overnight success," he says. "Looking at sports around the world, most people would acknowledge that the most successful business model is the NFL in the States – a multibillion-pound business. We can take inspiration from that, but people have to appreciate that they've been professional since the 1920s, they're a little bit further down the track than us."
But with the attractiveness of the sport and brand identity of the clubs so crucial to success, how much of a setback was the conduct of the players while away on World Cup duty with England and the RFU in New Zealand last autumn – when off-field misdemeanours and on-field underperformance brought embarrassment in the international spotlight? "We were obviously as concerned as everyone else was with what happened in New Zealand," says McCafferty. "The important thing was to move quickly to address those things.
"We organised the most comprehensive 360-degree review that had ever been done of an England performance, not just from an England point of view, but also from the players' and clubs' perspectives," he says. "Thoroughness but speed is an important principle in a situation of this nature, so by the middle of December, less than six weeks after the tournament ended, we had those reports and we and the RFU were already beginning to take the actions necessary."
While the negative press at the World Cup was a dent to progress, McCafferty believes the response could make rugby in England stronger in future. "People recognise that things go wrong in any consumer business – and we're a consumer business with a profile 10 times higher than most in terms of column inches we generate," he says. "It's the way that you respond that determines how your brand is perceived in future. If you do that right, the brand is not only undamaged, but also gets stronger. I think we're now in that phase."
Attendance figures for matches in the wake of the World Cup appear to support this claim. "Since the World Cup attendances have been up seven per cent which, in a recessionary environment, is a good testimony to how people feel about Premiership Rugby," says McCafferty.
So what's the financial standing of the league today then? "Collectively the clubs turn over between £120m and £125m – that's made up from the central revenues we distribute to them and obviously the main revenue stream remains each club's supporter base."
THE NEXT GENERATION
With the support of local people crucial to the progress of each club, community projects have also remained at the heart of McCafferty's strategy. "How the clubs interface with and support their local communities is key," he says. "We've worked with Aviva and MBNA to develop schools programmes. And, as Director readers will appreciate, this sort of work has increased in importance for our partners over the last few years as the corporate and social responsibility element of business has become a bigger part of strategic agendas."
On the subject of young rugby talent, McCafferty believes the next generation of professional players will be the perfect antidote to World Cup woes. "Now we have 73 per cent of all players in the Aviva Premiership eligible to play for England," he says. "There is a generation of playing talent coming through now which I think is second to none and, in terms of the preparation of the England team over the next few years I think it's one of the most exciting periods for a long time – and that after one of the darkest hours back in October."
Supporters will see if the green shoots are in evidence this month, as players report for England duty for the Six Nations. McCafferty, meanwhile, is focusing firmly on the medium- to long-term future of club rugby in England. Premiership clubs play a guaranteed 16 games a season, plus matches in the Anglo-Welsh LV Cup and, if they qualify, in the Heineken Cup against the best teams in Europe. But McCafferty is hoping to see a lucrative world club competition added to that mix, featuring the biggest clubs from the southern hemisphere.
"There's only one unanswered question – who is the top club or province in the world? Is it a Canterbury Crusaders or Queensland Reds, or a Leinster Rugby or a Saracens? That would have a compelling level of interest and at some point over the next few years we would like to try and find a way to deliver that," says McCafferty. And what of speculation that domestic rugby could move to the summer in future? "It's always going to be something that is discussed. If it means more people would attend games then we would consider it."
And with ball under arm, McCafferty leaves the pitch, ready for an afternoon of meetings. "At weekends I'm at matches," he says. "But on weekdays I'm on the road, helping clubs facilitate a strategy of increasing their popularity and translating that into commercial value. You can't rest on your laurels, you've got to keep saying 'how do we make it a better, more affordable, more enjoyable experience' – not only for supporters, but for their kids, families and friends who might come with them to enjoy the game."
The Aviva Premiership Rugby Final 2012 is at Twickenham on Saturday 26 May. www.avivapremiershiprugby.com
