REGAN RESPONDS - Pt.2 - STILL DRIVING FORWARD
STEWART REGAN
By JMB
March 20 2007
In the fourth Regan Responds interview, Yorkshire Chief Executive, Stewart Regan talks about cricket matters and more. In the second of two parts, the questions continued on the subject of the plans to redevlop the Headingley Carnegie Stadium...
Members approved the outline proposals for the Carnegie
Pavilion Complex at the AGM on 17th March. Are you happy that the plans do not
include any extra seating capacity and that the Cricket Club will be required to
pay
There are plans for good quality corporate and members seating as part of the development. The proposals consist of a tiered pavilion of approximately 4,000 sq. metres with just over a thousand square metres exclusively for the use of The Yorkshire County Cricket Club all year round. The rest of the plan will include teaching and student accommodation which will include space that can double up for internationals as corporate areas, media centres, journalist areas and more.
The structure of the deal will be that Yorkshire County Cricket Club will own the freehold of the land on which the pavilion sits and we will then be granting those rights back to Leeds Met for a period of 99-years, leasing back the ability for them to build the building on a 99-year lease and having developed that building they will then lease back to us our exclusive space. It’s a real win-win – we get a pavilion built that we couldn’t otherwise afford, we get it used all year round which is one of the objectives that the board has got for the development of the ground anyway and we have the space we need when we need it. It is the best deal we could possibly hope to get at minimum capital outlay from the club, so I think it’s a big tick.
How confident are you that
the arrangement with
To refer back to the previous answer, we own the land and that is the key thing. We sub-lease that building back to Leeds Met and take back the elements we need. It satisfies the hosting agreement with the ECB because we still own the land, we get the building built by our partner and we end up with the best deal for everybody. As far as it being problem free, I can only comment on the relationship we’ve had with Leeds Met for the last 12- months, where they’ve been a fantastic partner and their work with the club in a number of different areas has been sensational. In the sports science area, strength and conditioning, sports psychology, bio-mechanics, nutrition, lifestyle – all things that the club haven’t got resources in and we would have to go out and buy. The players have been able to take advantage of some of the facilities and resources. On the marketing side they have worked with us on PR & Communications, promotional activity, projects and initiatives and it really is breaking the mould of partnerships. We are very happy with where we are with Leeds Met.
There will be legal contracts that will cover user restrictions and the need for development and all kinds of things, but there has been full consultation between the university, the club, the broadcasters, the Cricket Writers Club, the radio, all personal who will have use of the building. Whilst it’s still subject to planning and contracts, we are feeling that it’s in pretty good shape and we are very confident.
As I understood it, when
the
Leeds Met are
not going to be funding it exclusively, we will be making a capital
contribution. The building will also need kitting out and if we are going to
have high quality, exclusively Yorkshire areas such as a Yorkshire President’s
room, top drawer player’s facilities, a new retail outlet (which will be selling
cricket equipment as well as merchandise) – we want to make sure we have the
best, so there will still be a need for investment. Any surplus that we develop
through the Yorkshire Pride Appeal will then help us pay off outstanding
obligations on the ground and then we’ll start looking at developing the Main
Stand, which will be the next project on the blocks, and we’re looking to do
that after the Ashes. Any money that we get there will always be a home for.
In our last interview you
mentioned Geoffrey Boycott was keen to get the board to talk about cricket,
rather than business. Which comes first the cricket or the business?
Both of them are integral parts of the board’s
agenda. I don’t know how it was before I joined. I suspect that it was business
led, because at the time the board were trying to buy the ground and there was a
lot of pressure on the board to complete the deal and I suspect the club were
very internally focussed. Certainly since I came on board and Geoffrey came on
board, the cricket and the business aspects have been side by side on the
agenda. We always have a set agenda item for cricket and Geoffrey always joins,
even by telephone, for that part of the agenda and he is, as you can imagine,
very vocal in his thoughts. Geoffrey’s involvement has been absolutely
fantastic.
He has made introductions to bring players across like
Khan and Rudolph and his knowledge and his insight his superb. He’s good friends
with Gough and Moxon, they’re all
You refer to cricket as
‘the product’. That sounds strange to a lot of us supporters as to us the club
is cricket.
In the commercial department and on the board we talk about cricket being the product. If it was a blue chip business then our product would be cricket. If we are selling our product and if the consumer wants our product then we are in better shape and therefore we’ve got to get the product right. Just as businesses spend time on fine tuning their product, on marketing it better, on trying to attract new consumers and new target groups, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with cricket. We’ve got a portfolio of brands – Twenty20, Championship, Pro40 and the Friends Provident Trophy – every one of them has got different target audiences and need marketing in a slightly different way, but we’ve actually got to get the product right and unfortunately this hasn’t been right and we haven’t sold enough of our product to maximise our income. Going forward, hopefully people have got a sense in the last few months that we are taking cricket more seriously now. We’ve got the business side sorted, we’ve got the finances stabilised and now we’ve got to pay attention to the product and that is being dealt with.
Can you see a time when we
are self-sufficient enough that income from international cricket is a bonus
rather than an essential?
Oooh, it might
take us quite a while because of the contributions we get from both the ECB
broadcasting money and the money that we generate through Test tickets. In an
ideal world we would like to get a greater proportion of our turnover from
non-cricket related activities, whether that’s pop concerts, conferences and
perhaps selling
If it wasn’t for the
England team we probably wouldn’t have the club that we’ve got here
What has happened to the
membership numbers since the various announcements - has there been a sudden
increase in members?
Yes they have, the numbers have gone through the roof. Last Saturday we opened the membership office and had to work the weekend for the first time this year just to cope with the demand. The phones never stopped ringing. We’ve had complimentary letters instead of the ones with pictures of tombstones and RIP Stewart Regan written on them that we were getting at Christmas – we’re now getting something a little more pleasant, which makes for better reading.
Is there more the club can
do to involve players with its supporters?
I think as a
club we’re trying to become much more community focussed. We are currently
seeking a community partner and are hopeful that we can bring somebody to the
table on that quite quickly and as part of that there will be much more of an
involvement of players in the community. There is already a lot of work with
players making guest appearances in schools and getting involved in coaching.
Andy Gale, for example, is running his own coaching clinic, as is Tim Bresnan.
There is a lot of involvement with kids and the community. Most of our players
play for local cricket clubs in
Someone has commented that
the official website could be better, in particular a lot of the player
information is quite out of date and in some instances
incorrect.
I’ve picked up
that a couple of people have commented on it recently and as we speak the
profiles are being updated. Just so people are aware we run this club, in terms
of marketing, admin and support staff, with 16 people, which is probably less
than any other first class county. The work that everybody does is mammoth. If
you think yourself about how much time you take to run your website, if you
think of a club as big as
Do you see yourself being
with the club for the long haul?
I would certainly like to think that I’m here until we deliver the vision which is to get this ground as one of the leading venues in the world of cricket. I’d like to think that the pavilion project and the main stand project, I’ll be here to get them through. It will be great to see the output of the boards work. I’ve got no intention of moving on at the moment. I’ve only just started this job and the club has come a hell of a long way in the first 12-months, but there’s a lot to do and I’d like to think that I can play an important role in that.
Have you contracted the
cricket bug yet?
Yeah I have. I
found myself watching some of the Test games on TV and the one day international
series against
You must have been putting
in the hours in the last couple of months. Have you family and friends ever lost
their patience or have they been understanding?
It’s interesting because I’ve always had jobs where I’ve spent quite a lot of time at work. When I was working in the brewing industry many of the jobs I had were jobs that involved quite a lot of evening work, I was at pubs or clubs or at meetings in licensed premises, which went on into the night. At the Football League I was up and down on the train to London quite a lot and spent a lot of time watching football matches, which some might not think is work, but for me when you’ve got to go down to Ipswich or Plymouth on a Saturday morning it is quite a trek. So this job is no different. I’ve worked a lot of hours, as have the whole board and the management team, over the last few months, but I enjoy it and it’s worth it to see things starting to turn ‘round. The good thing is that I live on the doorstep and that was one of the attractions of doing this job in the first place. It’s only twenty minutes to work, which is no time at all really, so I enjoy that benefit.
When you manage to have
free time what do you do to relax and forget about
Cricket?
I’m an athletics
coach. I do a bit of coaching with under-13’s kids at Leeds City Athletics Club
and try and do that on a Tuesday and Thursday evening if I can. My daughter is
running for
What are you going to do
all summer without all the hassle he has had to sort out in the winter to occupy
his time?
I’ll probably focus on the ground development and looking forward all the time to where we need to be as a club. We’ve had a good year financially. We’ve had a crap year with all of the cricket matters to deal with, but there’s still an awful lot of work to be done here and the work doesn’t stop just because we’ve sorted out the cricket matters. We’ve got to keep the club in profit, we’ve got to focus on getting funding for the ground development, we’ve got to make sure the staff are motivated and everyone knows what they are doing, so there’s still a big job to be done here, so it’s still foot on the accelerator and we’ll still be driving forward.
On a match day how much
time does he actually get to watch the cricket?
I haven’t got an office with a glass window overlooking the pitch, unlike some of my colleagues at other county grounds, which I’m quite envious of. I’ve got a little office that we’re sat in now with windows that you can’t see out of because they are higher than the level of the desk. I do try and get out and walk around the ground and see the odd over here and there and I go and talk to the members in the Long Room, I’ll go and see the guys in the Exec Club, speak to the journalists in the Media Centre. I take in bits and pieces during the day, but I don’t think in this job you can ever sit and watch cricket for 4-days on the trot, otherwise someone will say ‘what’s your job then?’ My role is to make sure that the club runs properly and in order to do that you’ve got to be out there walking to talk so to speak and making sure everything’s going as it should.
So on the plans for the
new pavilion you haven’t earmarked a glass fronted penthouse
suite?
I’ve got my eye on a nice glass fronted office overlooking the pitch but I’m not sure if the planners or the designers will be happy with that (laughs) we’ll have to see.
I saw on the official site
that you are down to bowl the first ball in a
Well, it was exactly like Steve Harmison’s. I don’t think I’ve bowled since I was at school and I was asked to bowl and I thought it was going to be a photo opportunity only, with a camera, me and a guy with a bat, but when I turned up there were about one hundred students ready to start and indoor cricket match. They threw me the ball and said ‘go and bowl’ and I think the first one went into the wall, but I had a couple of trial runs and then I got one okay.
Do you own a
Well, I think in our last interview you described it as a ‘yellow nasty thing’ but I’ve got one of those one day shirts from last season and I wore it on holiday last year.
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