PORT ADELAIDE’S executive flies out to Shanghai on Wednesday to hold an important conference with the club's board of directors and members of the city’s business community.
14.35 million people live in Shanghai - that's more than half of Australia's population - so the opportunity for Port Adelaide to meet with key business leaders of the megacity is significant.
On the agenda will be a range of items, led primarily by Port's quest to establish new commercial relationships on the back of its landmark agreement with Shanghai Cred earlier this year.
Additionally, the Power will be pursuing its recently-announced goal of playing a game for premiership points in Shanghai as part of its broader aim of furthering the introduction of Australian Football to the world's biggest nation.
Before flying to China on Wednesday morning, Power chief executive Keith Thomas spoke to portadelaidefc.com.au about the importance of this latest trip to Australia's northern neighbour, and the club's evolving agenda in China.
Matthew Agius: Key members of the Port Adelaide executive, the board of directors and other club personnel fly to Shanghai this week. What is the purpose of this trip?
Keith Thomas: On Friday June 24, we are hosting a major luncheon event for our partner, Mr Gui from Shanghai Cred, and his business community. Up until now all of our dialogue has been directed back towards Australia, and that’s been really positive, but this is our first real pitch to the Chinese business community. It’s a very important event, where we’ll be talking about the partnership and our plans to launch AFL in Shanghai and China more broadly.
We’re also catching up with our Hong Kong advisory board which is developing a plan for football in South China, we’re going to Guangzhou – the home of Team China. It’s all part of building an AFL community and the game in these key Chinese cities.
MA: To clarify, is Port Adelaide now solely responsible for game development and growth in China?
KT: The way to think of it, is that we are the AFL’s ‘team on the ground’ in China. So, with the AFL, we are spearheading the game development agenda.
What we need to work out is how much game development we need to do, what’s appropriate. It could be a bottomless pit – China is so vast, and you could certainly be at risk of wasting resources. We feel it’s important to have a coherent, effective football program in each market that is significant to us. At the moment that’s Hong Kong, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing.
If people are watching AFL on CCTV and they or their kids want to play, we want to make sure there is a football program to give them an opportunity to do so. There are programs currently, but they’re not very well coordinated. We want to just bring that whole plan together.
MA: More than a billion people live in China, Australia has a population just over 24 million, Port Adelaide has a full-time staff contingent of about 60 people – not including the football department. With that in mind, your goals would need to be quite realistic in terms of creating interest in Aussie Rules wouldn’t they?
KT: Our primary goal is to establish commercial relationships with the Chinese business community. When Mr Gui became involved, his goal was to bring the game to Shanghai. That shifted our thinking, as did the success of the CCTV broadcast.
By the end of the season it’s conceivable 70-80 million Chinese people will be exposed to AFL because of what we’re doing. I know that has caught the attention of the AFL, and certainly the business community -
MA: Australia’s, or the Chinese business community?
KT: Ours – and hopefully theirs soon. What we’re developing now is a plan that will capture all of those elements in a way that doesn’t break the bank and put us under financial pressure, but helps to grow firstly Port Adelaide and as a result of that, the game of Australian Football in this incredibly large, potentially lucrative market.
We’ve got to be really smart about this – many have gone in and failed and wasted money by chasing opportunities. We’ve got to be targeted and focussed on what we want to achieve.
Port Adelaide will visit Guangzhou - the home of Team China
MA: So what are the goals Port Adelaide has for China?
KT: We want to maintain a presence on TV so people can access the game, underpinned by a social media presence to build a community, and if people want to play, I believe they should be able to. We’re going to try and put those things in place.
In overall terms, the market is modest, fairly niche, but where our program could end up is inside classrooms teaching Chinese students about AFL.
That said, we’ve seen in Queensland and New South Wales how long it takes to develop the game in our own back yard – decades. We’re not going to be disappointed if the participation in the game doesn’t explode. I just think, if kids are looking for it, and want to learn about it, we should work to achieve it.
MA: A memorandum of understanding to play a minor round game in China was signed earlier this year. How is that progressing?
KT: We will visit two potential stadia this week. The AFL led a touring party over there to evaluate them, and now we’ll have a look. In two or three weeks we’ll certainly know the cost of putting the game on and shaping the stadium appropriately. From there we’ll build a commercial model around it. Then there’s the matter of working out where the game would fit in the 2017 fixture – we need to do that by August – and who we’re going to play.
MA: Have any other clubs expressed interest in playing as an opponent?
At the moment there is significant interest from several clubs actually, and we’re working with the AFL on all of that at the moment.
MA: If this game gets off the ground, will you look to continue playing there year-on-year?
KT: Yeah, this is not a once-off. Our view is that we need to be sending as a code, and certainly as a club, the message to China that we are in this for the long haul. I believe that means playing in China annually.
It’s not resolved, but as we are committing to a training camp each year for the next three years, we should be sending the same message from a game point-of-view.
That gives people reassurance that we’re not a fly-in, fly-out type operator. We want to invest in this initiative for the long term.
MA: By meeting with the Shanghai business community, Port Adelaide is wanting to reach commercial outcomes and increase its international exposure, but what do these businesses get in return from partnerships with the club?
KT: Think about what it would take for a Chinese investor to invest in Australia.
You need to have great government relationships, understand the cultural landscape, establish the business, trade effectively, recruit staff – it’s not dissimilar to Australian businesses going into China. There’s really important stuff you need to understand about doing business in a foreign country.
There’s also real cultural differences that can, and sometimes do, act as an impediment; whether they be different culture, language and attitudes towards things.
Being associated with a football or sporting club helps to break down those barriers. If Port Adelaide puts its arm around its partners, it immediately makes it more accepted in our community. For new business entering our country that is very valuable, not dissimilar to the role we’re looking to play with young migrant students and families with our multicultural academies.
If we can make people feel more welcome and included, simply by putting on a Port Adelaide scarf, I think there’s real power in that.
