By Whaley Shark
April 26 2014

All change, all change please…..

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well, next season will be something quite different, which suggests to me that the “Friday night Sale rugby at the AJB” model is most certainly broke. The remarkable upturn inon-field performance seems to have been accompanied by some pretty eye-watering financial losses (thank you BK- we may whinge but we wouldn’t be here without you!). Our normal game day has moved to Saturday afternoon after well over ten years of Friday night rugby. Season ticket prices have been substantially reduced, and this all looks to me like some serious decision making by Mr McKie, whose LinkedIn profile says “Capable and proven Chief Executive Officer with additional potential to absorb a demanding Non-Executive Director or Chairman role, ideally within a demanding or change management situation. Significant turnaround, restructuring and business recovery experience gained from a number of sectors including …………… sport. Track record includes successful business transformation, change management and improvement of high profile, complex organisations”.

He describes his almost six years (2005-2011) at the Scottish Rugby Union as “Appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Scottish Rugby Union after a period of significant losses which were funded by bank borrowings. Subsequently transformed and improved the running of what had become a badly run, poorly managed and under-performing organisation which was close to insolvency after many years of losses, poor governance and political in-fighting. Increased commercial revenues alongside the overall running of the business which allowed a return to profitability and a significant reduction in bank debt. At the time of my resignation in June 2011, the SRU was viewed as credible, and well run.”

What do I think our Gordon’s looking for? First of all, continued development on the field. We have played some very, very good rugby at times this season and we seem always to compete- the habit of not really trying very hard in difficult away games (or indeed some home ones) seems to have been broken. I can’t think of any occasion when we really looked like we couldn’t be bothered- over-confident once or twice early on, but always bothered. And that attitude has been reflected in some excellent away wins and a bunch of bonus points. We’ve secured top level European rugby for next season and I think he’s going to try and use a good season on the field to transform our commercial fortunes.

I don’t know anything about the commercial arrangements associated with the AJB but my impression is that we don’t make much from the food, drink and such like. So if we want to make more dosh, we can do it by selling tickets and merchandise, and that means making the game day experience more attractive. So I think he’s looking for crowds of 9-10000, having a fun Saturday afternoon out, buying a Sale shirt on the way home, and coming back for more. He needs the numbers to give a good atmosphere- otherwise one might as well spend one’s winter Saturday afternoons in a mortuary- so it’s a calculated risk, more people at less money gives comparable ticket income. Put other events around the match and spread out peoples’ arrival and departure times to ease travel problems (and hope the new access road is on time and works). Sell the fans a shirt each, maybe get to the knockout stages of one or more cup competitions, top the bank balance up with BT money, and cash from the new European competition, and that’s problem solved and time for a new paragraph on LinkedIn. I think he has the raw material but it’ll be interesting to see what happens.