The Serve Interview: Brian Waldron

Storm CEO Brian Waldron has the formidable task of selling rugby league to Melbourne. He sits down with Dan Ginnane.

DG: Every time I see or read an interview with you, the question gets asked ‘Will the Storm survive?’. It must get to you…BW: Early days it did, but I reckon all that’s changed. The fact the new stadium is coming for 2010 is the most significant step in the Melbourne public’s mind. It�s like a stake in the ground, so to speak. The signs that everyone knows we�re here and here long term was when we recently ventured to the Central Coast region. In the old days it would have been seen as move away from Melbourne, but this time the question wasn�t even raised. That was just about expanding our support and recruiting opportunities.

There�s four million people here, and if we can capture ten percent of that, that increases the overall value of the game.

DG: You�ve done well with Olympic Park, but as it stands, it�s not a good venue. This new stadium looks magnificent. You know the Melbourne sporting psyche, so how important is the stadium to capturing the public?BW: Incredibly important in terms of bottom line, because we can only fit 300 corporates at the moment and the new stadium will have 2000. The Melbourne public is used to excellence in sporting facilities, they�re used to excellence in entertainment. And we�re in the business of entertaining, not just sport. It will be the best facility of this type in the world for thirty odd thousand people. That will bring in people no matter what.

DG: I�m sure you noticed when the Origin was on, Sydney had one game and they couldn�t sell it out. I know Melbourne has a game in 2010, but that�s it. Is it your role to lobby for more games?BW: Tradition is very important, and it�s traditional for the odd game to be taken away but generally it�s the domain of Sydney and Brisbane. Look, if people in the northern markets can get their head around the importance of this franchise - all they need to look at the Sydney Swans in AFL, who have generated an incredible amount of money - it adds commercial value to the game. We had 30,000 come to the Tri-Nations game late last year at Telstra Dome. Apart from having a good team and good facilities, we need to bring the elite down here. If we can do that, we will capture the market. A million people watched our grand final in Melbourne - more than Sydney and more than Brisbane. It needs to be an educational approach.

DG: You have an AFL background, so when you took over three years ago, what was the first think that screamed out �This ain�t AFL�?BW: AFL is a little bit precious in that facility wise and corporate wise, it�s not blue collar at all. League is a blue collar game, which I think has a bit of romance about it. Take WIN Stadium: you look at the facilities and you�d think �crickey, the facilities for a professional team are no better than local park footy here in Melbourne�. But that�s because we don�t really need it.

From a professional point of view, we a very Sydney-centric game, and Sydney is a very different than Melbourne, which is obviously an AFL-centric game. I love the democratic approach of David Gallop and his team. I like the fact you can have a huge barney and have a beer afterwards. That doesn�t necessary happen in AFL.

DG: Did Melbourne win the premiership(in 1999) too early?BW: I don�t think so. Unfortunately, I think the powers that be in the game or here may have sat back felt that it would simply all happen. What�s happened in the last three years is we�ve spent money. You�ve got to spend money to make money, such as advertising, to get the attention of an AFL-centric town. In John Ribot�s time in his last three years, he had the wool pulled out from under him. He didn�t have the opportunity to spend money. That�s changed.

DG: If they said �Brian, you�re the commissioner of the NRL for one day�, what would you do?BW: Ha! I�d probably make sure our plans are about the next twenty years and not the next two.

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