Kiwis look for commercial growth

Thursday 29th October 2009

DID YOU know the Kiwis don't actually have a shirt sponsor?

And despite that, they believe that they'll still get a best-ever commercial return from this Gillette Four Nations tournament? 

The NZRL have, for so long, stumbled from one commercial deal to another, picking up sponsors by happy chance, not by design.  A poker-machine company was on the jersey front back when Gary Freeman was coach, presumably because of his day job as a company rep. A transport company, Pirtek, was last on the front because they happened to sponsor Parramatta and then Kiwis and Eels trainer Haydn Knowles brokered the deal.

This year, the NZRL have effectively donated the shirtfront to their new kit
supplier Kooga, in return for long-term goodwill and a commitment to support
grassroots programmes.  That gives them time to properly pitch for blue-chip backers without imposing a deadline so short they will be laughed out of corporate HQs.

And that brings us to the subtle but so important reshuffle at Rugby League House in
Auckland, where three staff are leaving and four new appointments being made. Veteran coaching director Dennis Ward is retiring; marketing manager Cushla Dawson and general manager Peter Cordtz have seen their jobs dis-established.

The reckoning behind Dawson's departure is that she was in a mid-ranking role, and
the league now need a heavy hitter to woo the big corporates and boost a shrinking
bottom line.

And ironically, after surviving nine years in league administration, tumultuous
times where cliques thrived and grudges grew, it was actually Cordtz who knifed
himself. He suggested some 18 months ago that the league needed a full-time chief
executive with commercial and financial skills, and that he was not that man.

When that man finally arrived - likeable Scot Jim Doyle - it was inevitable Cordtz
would be cut, although he may yet pop up in a new role.  I've always liked Cordtz, because its a rare league administrator you see popping up behind the barbecue at his local club on a Saturday morning (he still coaches the under-11s at Northcote Tigers).

As the general manager of the Rugby League Foundation from 2000 to 2003 - an uneasy
joint development initiative between the NZRL and the Warriors at a time when they
didn't get on very well - and then general manager at the league ever since, Cordtz
knows where all the bodies are buried.

And after enduring five different chairman and innumerable crises, he sensibly still hasn't publicly said where they are.