About this episode

Tom Tainton discusses the future of Bristol Bears and the evolving landscape of rugby as a business.

This week we welcome Bristol Bears CEO Tom Tainton to the show. With a new league structure recently announced and some high profile investments across the Prem, this is a great time to talk rugby and look at one of the top clubs pushing for their first title, to take them to the next level. Now since we recorded this show last week, there has been a lot of blowback from some fans and media based on comments made by Tom at a sports industry event, most of which seems to boil down to his suggestion Bristol are a marketing business playing rugby. To those of you that listen regularly, you’ll know a huge part of our conversations with CEO’s running clubs will include our firm belief that teams are content/marketing businesses and have to think like that to continue to develop in the most competitive sports market there has ever been. On the blowback, what I can say is this. Tom is one of the most impressive CEO’s that has sat in this chair with us, across sport. He speaks like an executive that gets it. He understands the demands placed on clubs in this day and age to be more than their performance on the pitch. But, and it’s a big but, not once did I feel like he believed this was…

People in this episode

Hosts: Charlie Stebbings, Harry Stebbings

Guest: Tom Tainton

Topics covered

• rugby
• Bristol Bears
• sports marketing
• CEO insights
• league structure
• winning titles

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bristol Bears, Prem

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