Destinations Report 2014 - Venues

THE ANNUAL REPORT 2014 SPORTSPRO DESTINATIONS 2014

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VENUES

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Destinations report 2014 VENUES

The SPorTS ConSulTanCy The Briefing: Venues “

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he idea of a single-use stadia, with some exceptions, is a thing of the past,” notes The Sport Consultancy’s Angus Buchanan.

They have to be multi-use, multi-purpose to be economically viable. Football stadia in most European markets will sustain themselves just on football, although even they are now looking at the calendar for additional content.”

Multi-purpose, modern arenas such as London’s O2 Arena, which has hosted

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The idea of a single-use stadia, with some exceptions, is a thing of the past. basketball, gymnastics, ice hockey and tennis amongst many others, and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, which has quickly established itself not only as a

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premier sports venue but a major concert arena since it opened in 2012, have become vital tools in a city’s wider major events acquisition strategy. The Sports

The rise and rise of The Sports Consultancy “

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e had a very successful 2013,” reports Robert Datnow, managing director of The Sports Consultancy. “We ran two quite wellpublicised procurement processes – the WTA process, which culminated in Singapore being awarded the WTA Championships for five years from 2014 and the double Volvo Ocean Race procurement. They soaked up a huge amount of resource on our side; they were successful, in that they achieved both rights-holders’ objectives in tight time periods. From our perspective they reinforced the specialism we have grown over the last eight years, the combination of our marketing, consulting, strategic, legal skills, in forming relationships between major events and major host cities. We will continue to develop that growing specialism. There is a growing need for professionally-managed processes, which derive maximum value from host cities and which secure longterm partnerships on robust terms.”

The agency’s other managing director Angus Buchanan adds: “We feel we’ve been banging this particular drum for quite a while and the fact the Olympic Games, the pinnacle of major events, with its own process is looking at reform substantiates what we’ve been saying.

The fact we did Singapore has also led to a fair upsurge in interest in what we’ve been doing for other major international federations and event owners.”

Now the company, which was formed in 2006, finds itself at what Datnow calls “an exciting juncture” and is poised to

expand into three new areas. The first is sponsorship procurement. “It’s where we started as a business in late 2006, early 2007,” Buchanan explains. “We recognised at the time that the global economy was slowing, so we applied the same skills – a consultative sales approach – to finding solutions for clients who are investing in major sports events. We applied disciplines to host city procurement for major rightsholder clients, so now feels like the right time to return to sponsorship. We’re making a major investment in that this year.”

The second move is into the megaevent bidding sphere, where The Sports Consultancy will join the small, but established collection of consultancy firms which specialise in guiding cities through bids. “We’ve done quite a bit of bidding work in single sports, through golf, athletics and basketball,” Datnow says. “We have wanted to break into the multi-sport bidding arena, which is often perceived, quite rightly, as a bit of a closed shop because there are a small number of bidding agencies that act. We see that as an exciting area to be involved in but also strategic for us. In order for us to be attractive to our rights-holders and international federation clients and helping them secure cities, we need to be wellconnected with cities and we need to know their aspirations, what they’re building and their strategies.”

The Sports Consultancy recently worked on Dubai’s successful bid for the 2020 World Expo, a mega-event in its own right. As its relationship with cities like Dubai have deepened over the years, it was a natural progression for the company

Consultancy has worked closely with the operators of Singapore Sports Hub during the host city procurement process for the WTA’s end-of-season tournament. The new multi-purpose facility is scheduled to open in April and saw off competition from the Chinese city of Tianjin and Monterrey in Mexico to win the five-year contract.

Buchanan describes the venue as “iconic”, adding: “We’ve done a lot of work in and around it. They also recognised the value of place and destination marketing with the stadia – and a stadium can look like any other stadia unless you’ve done what they’ve done in Singapore, which is to make sure the stadium is oriented towards the city, so the back end of the stadium is open to

to move in tandem with their clients’ ambitions. “It’s clearly going to need to be something we are able to offer. Whether that’s on our own or with another agency is something we’ll consider through the year but now feels like the right time, particularly because we feel the debate continuing and somewhat converging on what we’ve been saying for some time now, in terms of the style and nature of the mega-event bidding process. It’s a natural progression and we want to bring the same level of best practice and analysis.”

Area three of expansion will be the creation and delivery of The Sports Consultancy-owned events. “The route to getting there was that for many years we’ve worked with international federation clients – and we will continue that specialism – but the same skill-set applies to creating relationships for our own events. We’re excited in both the sporting and non-sporting area to be doing exactly that, growing and investing in acquiring our own rights. There are four events we’re actively pursuing at the moment; it’s an area that will grow pretty rapidly. One of the consequences of that for The Sports Consultancy is we are growing at a faster rate than we have ever grown before; we’ve had a pretty steady average 40 per cent growth rate over the first seven years. In our current business plan our growth rate is set to accelerate beyond that and we are recruiting fairly actively.” The company has just recruited an executive director, a third consultant and a graduate. It has also added finance director Dermot Heffernan, taking its total head-count to 20. the city skyline. You will get the distinctive and iconic visual iconography when events are hosted there. They are recognising the ability of sport to project beyond just simple Melbourne-like destination branding and bringing the city into the stadium, which I think is a really smart move.”

For more on the Singapore Sports Hub, turn to page 98.

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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: ZAYED SPORTS CITY

By David Cushnan Zayed Sports City is not only one of the Middle East’s most established sporting venues, it is now an awardwinning example of how to stage a wide variety of sports and events. This, in their own words, is how they built a multi-purpose venue into a local hub which is also increasingly serving the global community.

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hen Zayed Sports City was built over three decades ago, it was meant to fulfil the vision of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and reflect the country’s passion for sport. He intended the site to provide a platform to develop the country’s promising sporting talent and since then we have been working hard to honour this wish by remaining the premier sport and entertainment venue in the region. We have a sprawling site here and are very proud to offer so much to residents in Abu Dhabi and beyond.

Zayed Sports City boasts facilities for over 20 sports and is home to several clubs and federations

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Among our 1.2 million square metre campus are over 28 sports, anchored by football, rugby, tennis, bowling, ice skating, and specialist fitness programmes. The facilities are open 365 days a year and in 2013, we had 1.2 million visitors for sporting and entertainment events. People came from all over the world, some using the facilities and others participating in one of the more than 143 events that took place on the property.

Our facilities are vast, just like our offerings.

Zayed Sports City is home to the 43,000-seat national stadium with 14 adjacent multipurpose grass pitches, a 5,000-seat ATP-

standard tennis stadium with eight additional courts, a 40-lane bowling centre, an Olympicsize ice rink, three basketball, and netball courts, four beach tennis and volleyball courts, as well as two paddle tennis courts, and the famous Haddins Gym, with The Room Abu Dhabi and Emirates Aikido Centre as our most recent additions.

There are 27 organised sporting clubs, academies and federations that call Zayed Sports City home. They represent nearly every sport. Manchester City School of Football, Abu Dhabi Harlequins Rugby, and Sharks Rugby Academy are on the pitches, as

Matt Jones, head groundskeeper “

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raining for international teams increased significantly in 2013 and we had to ramp up pitch maintenance to match the teams’ expectations.

“We set aside pitches for renovations in preparation for them arriving, perhaps a month out. This allows for pristine pitches when they arrive, without fail. For winter training camps we have an overseed and introduce a cool season rye grass into the pitch, which is typically Bermuda or paspalum. It gives it a European-style feel, which is what most of the teams are

is Abu Dhabi Softball League. The Storms and the Theebs ice hockey teams utilise the ice rink along with Abu Dhabi Figure Skating Team, while PSS Tennis Academy and Abu Dhabi Netball League use the International Tennis Centre’s courts. The UAE National Bowling Team practices on our lanes and offices for the UAE Football Association, the Pro League Committee, the UAE Boxing Federation, and the Abu Dhabi Ice Sports Club reside onsite.

What kind of year was 2013 for Zayed Sports City? What were the highlights?

Zayed Sports City had very successful year in 2013. We had a number of internationally renowned football teams come to train in our facility, hosted a large number of events, developed several new events ourselves, launched new sports and sporting centres, and continued to deliver on our mission.

International football training in January was a high point on the pitches. We hosted national teams – Ivory Coast, Ghana, Egypt – and club teams – Metalist, Norwich City – and we received some fantastic compliments about the facilities and the Abu Dhabi experience from players and coaches.

The success on the pitches has already paid off. For January 2014 Royal Concord, a great client to Zayed Sports City, helped bring in teams such as Anderlecht FC, Vitesse Arnhem, Wolfsburg, Hamburg, Norway, Moldova, and Sweden, to name a

accustomed to, particularly those in the northern hemisphere.

“When we prepare the pitch we’re thinking of two things, the hardness of the surface and the speed of the pitch.

We reduce the mowing height to make the speed of the ball roll much quicker, something they are more accustomed to. We also syringe-water the pitches right before teams go on, which we would never do for amateur groups. We cut, mark and roll every other day and divot every day. These fields are getting the best maintenance they possibly can in preparation for each team’s few, and other teams such as Iceland, FC Metalist and Newcastle are amongst others who have chosen to train here. With a new booking from FC Dallas, we are truly attracting teams from all over the world.

We hosted 143 events this past year and those that Zayed Sports City welcomed for the first time were definite highlights. As part of football training the Matchworld Cup took place. We held our first ITF tennis tournament and Ace It!, which was the first open ladies tournament in the UAE. The Abu Dhabi Wilson Tennis Cup was an event that we developed and we hosted Monster Jam’s first visit to the Middle East in May. Abu Dhabi Alive, the first exhibition on the site, was in November as was the inaugural Abu Dhabi World Bowling Tour.

arrival every single day. The pitch staff know how big of a deal this is and they’re all very willing to be flexible when the teams come. We run shifts starting early and others that cover the evening games. We have them here when we need them and I can see a great sense of pride that the guys have when the teams arrive.

“We have strong competition in this part of the world and want to put Zayed Sports City on the international elite training map.

We’re a little further away from other sites and so we work harder every day to do better in order for there to be value.”

There were many other highlights outside of events. Zahra Lari, the famous Emirati figure skater who trains with us, was the first UAE national figure skater to win a gold medal at an international competition. She did this at the 24th Criterium Cup in Budapest in April. The ice rink also was home to another great Desert Open Figure Skating Championship, which even drew a team from Kazakhstan, and The Ice Factor, Abu Dhabi Figure Skating Team’s annual show was great fun for everyone. As part of a strengthened collaboration with the UAE Ice Skating Federation, we supported their successful effort to become a member of the International Skating Union.

Bowling continues to host fantastic tournaments for local and interntional companies. One was the Sheikha Fatima

The ground staff at Zayed Sports City work to prepare high-quality grass pitches with a European feel

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General manager Barry Bremner on why ZSC won “

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ayed Sports City has always been well known within the UAE. What the award has helped do is give additional credibility throughout the GCC and internationally. This award is recognition for what was happening and it was well deserved – it’s taken two years to lay the foundation for the current services.

“In our submission we demonstrated

Bint Mubarak bowling tournament. It was a great corporate event for women and the centre was closed so that they could bowl in privacy. The tennis centre was busy with the Inter-Gulf Netball Championship and Mubadala World Tennis Championship, while the pitches were kept in use with the Etihad Airways Junior Rugby Tournament and ICLDC Play for Life football tournament. We also added beach tennis, beach volleyball, and softball, plus The Room Abu Dhabi and Emirates Aikido

how much growth we’ve shown over two years. In 2010, a new management took over the venue and that was an impetus of change. We showed the results after two years of hard work in terms of investment, new facilities, new programmes and focus on customer services. In 2012, we hosted over 100 events and welcomed 750,000 visitors to participate in events.

Centre both opened on site in September.

This added five new sports to the facility.

Of the most pride is when we won the Sports Industry Award in March for Best Sport and Recreation Venue in the Middle East.

How have you measured the success of those events and what lessons have been learnt going into 2014?

A great event is one that is pleasing for the guest, client, and venue. This means

The increase was nearly 70 per cent since 2010. We went from seven sports to 20, held world class events like WWE Raw and the Harlem Globetrotters, and received US$15 million in regional print and online editorial. Our Facebook fanbase grew by 189 per cent and we are continuing to deliver great experiences to our guests every day.” that we need to look at success from three perspectives. For each of these views we have different ways to take feedback and make an evaluation – this is where we learn what worked well and what can be done better in the future.

We look to take guest surveys following each of our major events. This has been in place since 2011 and we use standard questions on a five point Likert scale so that we can make comparisons. The questions that we find most telling of the

The 43,000-seater national stadium at Zayed Sports City has hosted major soccer events like the Fifa Club World Cup and is also home to a range of other sports

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guest experience all fare well. These include questions about their overall experience, their interactions with staff and how likely guests are to return. Staff friendliness and courtesy rated 4.48, which we think is fantastic.

From the client perspective, a successful event can mean many things. We try to make it easy for them to deliver their objectives by using our expertise and relationships.

There are a lot of ways that we support our clients, from commercial rights to marketing to operations. One great success was with WWE, who visited in October. For the event we brokered some commercial rights deals to increase their revenue and saved them a lot of money by taking a more hands-on role in management of certain elements, such as ticketing and transportation.

Following events we send out surveys in addition to debriefs. Every single one of our clients would use Zayed Sports City again and would recommend us. It’s very meaningful that they are happy with what the site offers. Rebooking is very telling too, because it means the achievement is mutual.

Success from our perspective starts with a happy client and happy guests. We also look at our financials, of course, but we really want to gauge our efficiency. We look for the best suppliers, to build relationships and to refine our procedures.

The event department did well with such a heavy schedule and there are no hard lessons learned from 2013. We did find ways to improve our operation once we stepped back and examined how events went. This year we are going to standardise things a bit more. We

are working on price lists and policies that can be easily communicated, for example.

Can you explain a little about the award ZSC won and why you believe you won it?

The Sports Industry Awards (SPIA) honour top industry leaders for their contribution to the development of sport in the region. SPIA will become the leading awards and networking event on the sporting calendar. The event is organised by Sport 360°. They have official auditors and so any submission must be strong.

We had a lot of progress and were able to quantify with compelling statistics and stories.

Customer service, community engagement and facilities are all factors in the award.

Our customer service programme is strong, probably stronger than any other facility in the region, and we have a number of ways to receive and respond to feedback. We take surveys regularly, have feedback boxes on site, offer methods for instant recognition of staff members, by colleagues and guests, and operate an internal recognition programme which includes a monthly celebration.

Our facilities are being upgraded and added to, with more tennis courts than ever and new billiards and table tennis rooms added in 2012. We also added more pitches and have earned a reputation for having the best pitches in the Middle East. Teams from the Premier League and Bundesliga, and national teams from all over the world are hearing about us and moving their training here, a testament to the quality facilities we provide.

From an engagement standpoint, the facility offered over 20 sports at awards time – up 400 per cent from 2010, which is when current management, Abu Dhabi Entertainment Company, came on board.

This, the creation of programmes, the implementation of commercial rights and the development of partnerships that would help the facilities be used by a wide demographic, all contribute to the community. And being engaged with the community helps us meet our mission, which is ultimately to promote healthy lifestyles in the UAE. What are the main events on the calendar for 2014?

The major international event in 2014 will be the World Bowling Championship for men that will be held towards the end of the year. The event will return, after 15 years, to Khalifa International Bowling Centre, which was purpose-built for the 1999 event.

We’ll also have some great regional and local events such as the Asian Challenge Cup, an ice hockey tournament, in March.

Our international football camp schedule is still packed and the Etihad Junior Rugby Tournament will continue to grow. The Abu Dhabi Wilson Tennis Cup presented

by Healthpoint has accepted 20 per cent more registrations than last year, and we’ll continue to host events to celebrate milestones for the residents.

From a brand-building perspective, the regional events and a new eye on corporate family days will be very important to us.

Maria Gedeon, director of marketing:

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romoting the facility is about building and maintaining relationships with our day-to-day end users and customers as well as event and sports promoters, especially those that are based locally. A lot of them are annual or permanent clients of Zayed Sports City and we’ve worked hard on nurturing and strengthening those relationships over the years.

“We are very active in reaching out to

federations, sports councils and sports bodies. This helps bring in international elite training camps, events, academies and other sporting opportunities to this unparalleled venue.

“On an international front, every year we have gone to the International Live Music Conference to promote the site and we sponsored their 25th anniversary last year.

We also place some advertising in major industry websites as well as international

sports and events publications.

“Moving forward, we are shifting our marketing efforts and funds into nontraditional and digital marketing. Our strategy has adapted over the years and a major part of our decisions now are guided by the major rebranding project that we did recently. We did research for 18 months and it led to a new logo, identification of our values and a clearer direction to where we are going and how to get there.”

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international? Do you have targets in mind for international visitors’ revenue in 2014?

A ‘Sport for All’ philosophy informs Zayed Sports City’s strategy and encourages community participation

Can you explain how your promotional strategy works, both locally and on an international level?

Zayed Sports City underwent a major rebranding exercise in 2012 and went from nearly no marketing at all to a marketing machine. Our strategy uses technology across multiple channels, applying advanced analytics to determine media spends, identify gaps, and track our customers’ value.

Research is also key and the findings generally help determine the marketing mix and the channels that we intend to use for our consumer or business to business campaigns.

A significant amount of our budget has been shifted to non-traditional and digital marketing because it’s trackable, easily amendable, and adaptable to customers’ needs.

A lot of effort is being put into digital and social media, and developing a loyal and engaged fanbase has proven challenging but successful. Maintaining this momentum is key for us moving forward. We have built a database of over 35,000 customers and reached over 73,000 Facebook fans in about three years, with very little budget spent on advertising.

Traditional marketing such as print, radio and TV are still heavily used around events or programmes that require a mass media reach.

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local nedia and are always nurturing them. We have a creative approach to PR and believe that we have stories people want to hear.

With minimal financial investment in 2013 we generated over US$12.47 million in local and regional print and online coverage.

Third party marketing is also key to us as our partners, clients, and event promoters heavily market their events hosted by us and so we benefit from all the publicity that exists around them.

On a consumer front Zayed Sports City is very much a venue used by people living around the UAE, which is why a lot of the efforts are local. Internationally, our focus revolves around event promoters, federations, sports agencies, and MICE groups, as well as international sporting teams. We are reaching out to them in a traditional manner through PR, advertisements in industry publications, conferences, trade shows, and direct mail.

Personal relationships are important as well as our relationship with the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Cultural Authority, Abu Dhabi Sports Council and other local bodies who attract international business to Abu Dhabi. We work very hard to develop these relationships.

What proportion of your business is local and what proportion is

On a day-to-day basis, and when it comes to the use of our facilities, our customer base comes almost entirely from the UAE. When it comes to major events, this changes heavily.

Our international football training includes popular players that attract people from outside of the UAE. WWE drew fans from the region and the World Bowling Tour had people coming from Europe and Asia to compete. When an event is marketed properly to the region, it tends to be successful – a case in point is our own event, KidsFest.

Daily revenues rely heavily on local customers. In our baseline survey we learned that almost 70 per cent of our visitors come at least once a week for recreation, training, leagues, and clubs. Without the local community we would not have a purpose.

What are the main revenue streams for Zayed Sports City?

Daily operations make up a big part of revenue that we generate, but events and commercial rights are becoming increasingly important since they yield a higher profit margin.

In 2013 focus was placed on event sponsorship and branding partnerships rather than more passive partnerships such as longterm on-site branding. A highlight of the commercial rights piece was serving as the middle man for a naming rights deal between WWE and Figaro’s Pizza – it represented the first time WWE had placed another organisation in their event title.

How important are community events, and engaging the local population in sport, to Zayed Sports City?

In order to deliver on our mission we must have a strong involvement with community events. We have a philosophy called ‘Sport for All’, and that is key to our business decisions.

We have screened two tennis courts so that Muslim women can play in privacy and be encouraged to participate in sports. The Room Abu Dhabi has group fitness sessions that are very attractive options for women.

The complex has been the scene of entertainment events like monster truck rallies and the UAE’s only WWE shows, while it also houses an Olympic-sized ice rink

Our ice rink also has a ladies day every Thursday. We own several ramps that are used to make bowling accessible to people with limited dexterity, for example, and special needs groups prefer our facility for activities.

There is no fee to come onto the site and use the skate park, cycle, rollerblade or go for a run on closed roads. And our activity fees start at only AED11, so it is affordable to anyone. Every venue is open 365 days a year and there are only five hours a day where you can’t stop by. To accommodate schedules we stay open late during Ramadan so that there is ample time to play – if it weren’t for this flexibility the community would not be so willing to come and we would not be achieving our mission to the degree we want.

How does Zayed Sports City fit into Abu Dhabi’s wider sporting strategy?

Abu Dhabi is looking to solidify its place on the tourism map and world class sport is a big part of their stratgey. It’s the reason why the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was established, for example. A venue like Zayed Sports City is clearly going to have opportunities to support this goal.

We work closely with the local sport council and national federations to host major events here. Football, tennis, wrestling, basketball, bowling, rugby – each time we host an event that attracts people from outside the UAE we’re contributing to this strategy.

What would your message be to a federation/rights holder looking to stage a major event at Zayed Sports City?

There are many venues in Abu Dhabi but Zayed Sports City has the most versatile facilities and the experience to cater for a range of activities. We have areas for small meetings all the way to festival space that would easily fit 75,000 people. People from outside the region probably wouldn’t know this, but parking is a huge asset in the city, and there are 7,000 on-site parking spaces here.

We can say these things about the site but the actions of others speak volumes as well. The World Bowling Federation and Asian Ice Hockey Federation selected us as the site for their championships in 2014. We had more than 10 international football teams on our pitches this January; six of the top ten tennis stars come out each year for a match; we host International Tennis Federation matches; Manchester City has established an academy here, and likewise the Sharks and Harlequins have done the same for rugby; the UAE national team bowls here and the UAE Ice Hockey Federation is headquartered at Zayed Sports City.

We have partnerships with Pepsi, Hertz, the Abu Dhabi Sports Council and more.

WWE is not considering any other venue for their UAE shows.

There are so many top organisations that have made a home here that we know we are doing something right. We do it right because we work together, rather than just opening the door and handing over the keys, which is all too common in the region.

We pride ourselves on our ability to support the success of our clients in every way possible.

How hard do you have to work to attract international teams, or are they approaching you?

We have a fantastic reputation when it comes to pitch quality, so it hasn’t been difficult to attract international teams, particularly in football. It’s mostly based on word of mouth and relationships.

A couple of years ago we had an unexpected inquiry from a DMC representing a major soccer team. They came, said great things, and we realised it was a perfect fit for us. Since then, most of the clubs’ representatives have come to us and we have made partnerships with companies that bring the teams to us. Aside from the great efforts of the staff to schedule and prepare for their visits, attracting this much success hasn’t been too difficult.

What are the key commercial targets for the year ahead? Do you intend to develop new revenue streams and, if so, how?

Our focus is on up-selling current streams, particularly commercial rights and event revenues. We are constantly looking at diversifying our programmes as well as increasing quality and therefore revenues. We are taking existing programmes and growing them, finding ways to use the facilities during off-peak times, and looking to streamline processes to give a bigger financial impact.

Partners are coming on board and we’re open to new ventures with them. We are really excited for 2014, which will be another great year for Zayed Sports City.

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KEEping up appEarancEs

By Michael Long Originally published September 2013 edition of SportsPro

Widely regarded as a highlight of the tennis calendar, the Bnp paribas Open in indian Wells receives high praise for its superb facilities, its cloudless skies and its innovative approach to prize money and technology. indian Wells Tennis garden chief raymond Moore intends to keep it that way.

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ach year in March the tennis world descends on the desert town of Indian Wells in California’s Coachella Valley for a two-week tournament that has earned a reputation as one of the most popular events on the sport’s calendar.

While much of the United States is still shaking off the last throes of winter the BNP Paribas Open, a top-category event on both the ATP and WTA Tours, offers all the fun and excitement of a vacation for the nearly 400,000 media and spectators who arrive each spring through the gates of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden to bask in the desert sun, top up their suntans and soak up the on-court entertainment.

For the players, too, Indian Wells is an unmissable event. It offers superb facilities, including Hawk-Eye’s ball-tracking system on every match court – something none of the Grand Slams can claim. With the prize fund of US$11 million including a seven-figure payout for its men’s and women’s singles champions – uniquely among non-Grand Slam tournaments – it proves a hit with the world’s leading players year after year, each of them vocal in their praise of an event now dubbed tennis’s unofficial ‘fifth Grand Slam’.

“We feel humbled, honoured to be included in the conversation, but for us that’s all it is – it’s conversation,” says Raymond Moore, the chief executive of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. “We don’t pretend to be the fifth slam.”

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While South African Moore, 66, may not be drawn into that particular discussion, that Indian Wells is spoken of in such high regard is testament to the meticulousness of those who help to stage the event each year. Leaving no stone unturned, Moore and his team do everything they can to ensure the fans, the media and, of course, the players are looked after in the best possible way.

“We look at how we can improve anything for them – workout areas, increased prize money, we look at every single department that relates to the players,” says Moore, a former competitor himself who won eight doubles titles on the ATP tour during the 1970s and early 1980s. “We then do the same with the media and then the same with the fans. How can we improve the experience?

Because sport today isn’t just about going out and watching the athletes perform, it’s the experiences. Is the food good? Is there interesting shopping? Are the parking facilities convenient and close by? You’re a fan driving to the matches: what happens to you? Do you get in traffic jams? Is it easy to park? Then you get out of your car: how far is it? Do you have to walk a long way to the courts? Are there shuttle buses?

“During the tournament we hire another 3,000 people to help run the event but the 40 full-time staff here, most of them have been with us for 15 years or more; very experienced people, experienced in the tennis industry. We sit down and listen to them and say, ‘What is

the experience? Can we improve the ushers?

Can we improve the video boards? Do we need more video boards? Do we need a broader menu in the food court?’ We look at every single facet to improve the experience.”

The Indian Wells Tennis Garden, situated in the heart of the town of barely 5,000 people, has hosted the BNP Paribas Open since it opened in March 2000 boasting a 16,100-seat centre court, still the second-largest tennis stadium in the world after the US Open’s Arthur Ashe Stadium. Moore himself was integral in the creation of the site, setting up PM Sports Management alongside thentournament chairman and owner Charlie Pasarell and funding the US$77 million facility in collaboration with IMG. Moving to its impressive new setting gave the Open a solid foundation on which to steadily expand year on year into its current

The indian Wells Tennis gardens dominates a tiny desert town of just 5,000 people and has become a popular stop on the aTp and WTa tours since 2000

status as the most-attended tennis tournament in the world outside of the four slams, but not until late 2009 when Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder and chief executive of Oracle Corporation, purchased the site and the tournament through his company Tennis Ventures LLC, did the tournament receive the financial boost it needed to exceed even itself.

Shortly after Ellison’s acquisition Pasarell stood down from his position at the event, but the three-man team of Ellison, Moore – who was installed as chief executive last year – and tournament director Steve Simon have since continued and refined the Puerto Rican’s founding vision. They are pushing ahead with his plan to make the Indian Wells Tennis Garden – as the facility’s website now loftily proclaims – ‘the standard by which all tennis facilities past, present, and future, will be judged.’

“We want to strengthen our brand, the Indian Wells Tennis Garden BNP Paribas Open brand,” says Moore, speaking in early May. “We want the players and the fans and the press to look forward and say ‘Wow, we’re going out to Indian Wells.’ To a large extent we’ve achieved that but again, we’re not going to be complacent and sit back and say, ‘Oh well, we’ve done it and it’s just going to happen forever.’ It’s under constant review and we have to keep raising the benchmark because it’s a competitive environment out there, not only in our sport but in all other sports. You’ve got all kinds of people that are struggling for attention and people can just flip the channel, go watch another sport; we don’t want them to do that and the only way to do that is for us to really pay attention to our brand and strengthen it and enhance the experience.”

As part of that overarching ambition, Indian Wells authorities gave the green light ahead of this year’s event in March on a major expansion and renovation of the 54-acre Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Plans include the construction of a state of the art 8,000-seat arena known as Stadium 2, a 19,000 square foot shade structure, expanded entrances, new parking facilities and practice courts, and a wide-scale landscaping project.

Several top players attended a groundbreaking ceremony in the days prior to the tournament, and construction work, which began immediately after Rafael Nadal claimed victory in this year’s men’s singles final, has since gathered pace as organisers strive to have the site fully functional in time for next year’s event. “Everything is going full speed ahead,” reports Moore, who, having been involved with the event since 1985, The Destinations Report 2014 | 81

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is bringing considerable experience to the project alongside Jody Watkins from Watkins Landmark Construction, the foreman who oversaw construction of the main stadium project 14 years ago and whose back-ofthe-hand knowledge of the site is proving invaluable today. “He knows where all the skeletons are buried,” Moore laughs. “He knows where everything is, all the utilities, all the electrical outlets, so we’re lucky in that we have that kind of experience available to us.”

Located to the east of the main arena Stadium 2, the centrepiece of the renovation project, has been specifically designed with the spectator in mind. Unobstructed sightlines from every seat and four ground-level video screens will ensure the best possible viewing experience, while three restaurants overlooking the court will enable fans to dine and watch tennis simultaneously. But the attention to detail doesn’t stop there: “Here at Indian Wells we sink our courts so we go down 27 feet for the main court floor,” Moore adds. “It lends to a better atmosphere and it also makes the whole site look better, because what you don’t have at Indian Wells is any of those ugly fences that you see around every single tennis court in the world.”

With the construction site abuzz daily with contractors and heavy machinery, Stadium 2 is emerging at pace from the desert sand. Moore himself keeps a watchful eye over the process, chairing a meeting each Tuesday to discuss the progress of all aspects of the work being done with the many parties involved and periodically flicking to a live video of the site streamed via webcam direct to his office elsewhere on the grounds. “I can see who’s taking a nap and who isn’t,” he jokes. “It’s interesting.”

Outside the stadium, hundreds of palm trees will be planted to provide shade and transform the garden into a veritable desert oasis. But as much as the improvements are being made for aesthetic and experiential purposes, there is also the practical necessity of increasing the site’s parking capacity to enable organisers to meet the existing spectator demand for tickets.

“One of the reasons that we needed to increase our capacity is that we could have sold more seats but it was a function of parking,” Moore explains. “Here in the city of Indian Wells they don’t allow cars to park 82 | www.sportspromedia.com

a digital rendering of a new entrance to the indian Wells complex after its us$100 million revamp

The new stadium 2 is a key part of the redevelopment project which will greatly increase capacity

a shaded structureflex dining area: facilities for indian Wells spectators are set for major upgrades

indian Wells chief executive raymond Moore

on the streets and as a safety measure the fire marshal and chief of police shut us down when they think we’ve reached capacity in the parking lots. So we end up with inventory available to be sold, people that want to buy it, but we’re not allowed to sell it. The way to cure that was to produce more parking and then more seating capacity, and with those two elements we proposed to increase our attendance. So we did 382,000 people this year and our goal is within five years to get to 500,000 people and hopefully we can achieve that.”

Moore anticipates the entire project to cost anything up to US$100 million, not including the land that was purchased for the expansion beforehand. Those funds will be stumped up by Ellison himself, though Moore is quick to add that there is by no means “a deep well” from which he “can just go and dip into all the time”.

“I sit down with Mr Ellison and I show him our plans,” he continues. “He then gives thumbs up or thumbs down. If he gives thumbs up, then we know he likes the concept, he likes the new stadium, he likes the architecture, he likes the landscaping, he likes the parking and the flow of the parking – now how much will it cost? We produce a budget for him and then he says to me, ‘Raymond, how will you pay for this?’ I then give him a detailed proposal on how we, over the next ten years, can amortise these payments and pay it back through the profits of the tennis tournament. So that’s how it works.”

Ellison’s fortune is undoubtedly the ace up Indian Wells’ sleeve but it is the American’s love of tennis, not his money, that is providing the source of inspiration for the renovation project. Attributing “100 per cent” of the Tennis Garden’s expansion to Ellison himself, Moore speaks highly of the man who is an ever-present in the stands come tournament time. “He probably knows more about tennis than any other person on this planet that is not actually a professional tennis player,” Moore says. “I’d stack his knowledge and grasp of the game up against anyone, including myself. He is a real fan, follows the sport, knows the players, understands technique and understands the business element; obviously, he’s one of the richest men in the world. He didn’t get there through luck; he’s a self-made man. He didn’t inherit his money; he made it.”

Ultimately, Moore continues, it all comes back to the product: the players who he says have collectively – and indeed publicly – shown “overwhelming support and enthusiasm” for the project. “They are totally in support of what we’re doing here,” he says. “They know what we’re trying to do.

We’re trying to make the sport more popular.

We are sharing in the wealth with them by increasing the prize money, etc, and so we’ve had terrific support from the players.”

Indian Wells’ much-publicised attempts to increase its prize money have run more or less parallel to the early stages of the renovation project. However, the former effort has not gone quite as smoothly as the latter.

Last autumn a proposal put forward by Moore and his team to increase overall prize money for the 2013 edition by US$1.6 million – US$800,000 each to the men’s and women’s draws – was vetoed by the ATP’s Board of Directors on the grounds that the increase did not conform with ATP distribution guidelines. Suffice to say Moore was not impressed.

“We were absolutely staggered!” he exclaims. “We could not believe that they could make such a silly decision. I mean, we didn’t just do it willy-nilly, as a knee-jerk reaction. We analysed it, we went to the players to whom the money is going, and we submitted a breakdown of the anticipated prize money increase, and we got unanimous support from the players, unanimous

support from the WTA, their entire board.

And then for the ATP, the tournament directors to vote it down: we were staggered, couldn’t believe it. Here we are offering free money and the people to whom its going, the recipients, embraced it, endorsed it, approved it, and then you have politicians saying, ‘We’re not going to accept it.’ We were totally amazed.”

With Indian Wells organisers reportedly threatening to cut prize money if a decision was not made before this year’s event in March, the ATP was forced to act and an 11th hour about-turn finally came in February. Prize money for the men’s draw was subsequently increased to a record US$5,030,402 this year and, while the issue appeared far more unsavoury than it perhaps might have been, Moore believes at least some good has come of it.

“A positive that has come out of that is that the ATP is now in the throes of drafting a new rule,” he explains. “The rule is there is a minimum requirement for the category of event you are, and if the tournament of their own free will wants to increase the prize money, there will be a rule now that is going to govern that and a formula. I think the result, even though the process wasn’t really very pleasant, is positive.”

Looking ahead, the signs are that Indian Wells’ investment, whether in its venue or prize money, will pay off in the long run. As long as the sun shines hordes of fans, the majority of them holidaymakers from outside the Coachella Valley, will continue to pile into the resort each year, contributing in excess of US$300 million to the local economy. As long as the tennis and hospitality impress members of the media will continue to write their glowing reviews and sponsors will keep investing. And as long as the players remain unanimously onside the tournament’s status as the leader among non-Grand Slams will be safe for the foreseeable future, never mind that other events around the world, namely the top-level tournaments in Miami, Shanghai and Madrid, are mounting their own challenges to that title.

“We’re very ambitious,” declares Moore.

“We will continue to move the needle in our direction and raise the bar in trying to push ourselves to be the best tennis tournament outside of the four Grand Slams.”

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The Grand Slam master plans Wimbledon – all England club

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reserving its much-loved character whilst keeping pace with other, more modern venues is a challenge the All England Club has risen to masterfully over the years, enabling the Wimbledon championships to maintain a unique identity within tennis and the wider sporting world.

The club’s stated aim for its new ‘Wimbledon Master Plan’, which sets out the vision for the future of the historic venue, is to ensure SW19 remains ‘the premier tennis tournament in the world and on grass’. The focal point of the planned renovations, which will take place gradually over the next ten to 20 years, is the addition of a new retractable roof on Court One, the site’s secondlargest show court. Slated for completion in 2019, it will employ the same airconditioning system used on Centre

Court since its roof was installed in 2009 and enable over 26,500 spectators in total to enjoy uninterrupted play.

Meanwhile hospitality will be improved and more, bigger seats will be added to the 11,430-capacity arena.

Improvements elsewhere in the grounds will see player facilities remodelled, three new championship courts added, public walkways around outer courts widened,

entrances enlarged, and the old Aorangi Pavilion, located near the practice courts, knocked down. In addition, new public concessions will be created beneath several courts to free up space elsewhere, more unreserved seating will be made available in No. 2 and No. 3 Courts to create a better atmosphere, and new clay courts will be repositioned adjacent to the site’s handful of indoor courts.

a roof for the arena is not part of the current plan.

The first project to be undertaken will be the rebuilding of the practice court area, which will boast a new, two-level elevated viewing platform for up to 1,000 fans. Meanwhile, the two car parks closest to the facility will be replaced with multistorey car parks.

The final phase of the project will involve replacing the Louis Armstrong Stadium. A

new 15,000-seat stadium will be built on the same site, while infrastructure will be put in place to enable the possibility of adding a roof at a later date.

Additional improvements will attempt to ease pedestrian congestion and improve the safety and comfort of spectators.

Under the proposal fan capacity will increase by 10,000 each day during the event, which already welcomes more than 700,000 visitors each year.

us Open – Billie Jean King national Tennis center

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n a bid to keep up with venue developments elsewhere in the US, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) has proposed a US$500 million plan to expand and renovate the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, home of the US Open.

Slated improvements, which are set to begin in the autumn of 2013 and take six to eight years to complete, include cosmetic improvements to the centrepiece Arthur Ashe Stadium, the complete rebuilding of the Louis Armstrong Stadium – the Grand Slam event’s second show court – and the building of a new 8,000-seat Grandstand Stadium in the south-west corner of the 42-acre site.

The USTA has been looking at ways of installing a roof on the 25,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium for a number of years to combat rain delays for top matches but

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French Open – stade roland garros

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he French Tennis Federation’s (FFT) redevelopment of Roland Garros, site of the French Open, has been a politically complex affair dogged by public opposition. While Parisian authorities approved the FFT’s €275 million scheme in 2011, a tribunal held at the end of February 2013 ruled against proposals to expand the site into neighbouring botanical gardens, where plans call for a new 5,000-seat court to be built.

On the main site a retractable roof, deployable in ten minutes, is due to be installed on Roland Garros’s, centerpiece Court Philippe Chatrier by 2016. The stadium will be fitted with new seating and have newly designated areas for all tournament participants, from players and the media to spectators and event partners.

Adjacent to the stadium a building to house the tournament management team

will be constructed, complete with new public relations and welcome areas, administrative offices and equipment areas pertaining to both sporting and logistical aspects of the event’s operation, including umpires, ball kids, racquet stringers and maintenance rooms.

Elsewhere a giant screen will be installed on the east side of Philippe Chatrier to allow fans to watch matches from a grassy space called Place des Mousquetaires, and the Fonds des Princes outer-court area will be reconfigured to include a new 2,000seat court and several others.

incorporating eight new indoor courts and 13 outdoor courts for elite training and public use, will also be created.

Other plans include the addition of

more open spaces and shade, rainwater harvesting and treatment facilities, additional parking and better access to public transport and the city.

australian Open – Melbourne park

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ver eager to modernise, Melbourne Park, home of the Australian Open, continues to lead the way among the Grand Slams, with its latest AUS$366 million project, which began on site in April 2010 and is scheduled for completion by 2015, providing something of an example to its three cousins.

A key part of the new project will see a major upgrade to fully enclose the Margaret Court Arena, including the installation of a retractable roof, the park’s third court covering which is slated to be ready by 2016, and additional seating to increase crowd capacity to 7,500.

Meanwhile the south-west end of the external concourse surrounding Rod Laver Arena, the site’s centre court, will be extended, while a new Eastern Plaza,

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InsTallaTIon for The naTIon

By David Cushnan Originally published July 2013 edition of SportsPro

The organisers of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow have come up with an innovative solution to their athletics venue conundrum.

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he city of Glasgow has its fair share of world class soccer stadiums.

There’s Ibrox, still the imposing home of Rangers despite the club’s dramatic recent fall, with its capacity of just over 51,000. Further west, Celtic Park, the 60,335-seater venue that is home to champions Celtic, looms large, while south of both lies Hampden Park, Scotland’s bowl-like national stadium. All three venues will play their part when Glasgow hosts

next year’s Commonwealth Games but, while Celtic Park will host the opening ceremony and Ibrox stages the rugby sevens tournament, it is Hampden that promises to be the focal point of Scotland’s largest-ever sporting pageant as the host of the track and field competition.

In order for that to happen, however, a complex and possibly unique transformation must first take place. Hampden, which has hosted international games as well as

domestic and European cup finals and was once the largest stadium in the world, will, for one year only, be transformed into an international athletics venue.

The project will cost between UK£12 and UK£14 million and is being overseen by Suzanne McCormack, Glasgow 2014’s venue development overlay manager. McCormack is fresh from working on London’s Olympic velodrome but has returned to her native Scotland to tackle a project she suspects will

scotland’s national soccer stadium hampden Park will be a temporary athletics venue for the duration of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games

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an artist’s impression of how the stadium will look during the Games, with the playing surface raised and seats cleared to make way for a running track

ultimately result in “the proudest moment of my entire life”.

“Certainly from Glasgow 2014’s point of view it’s the one project that we really deliver entirely as an organising committee,” McCormack says, speaking midway through May during a frenetic period of planning before construction begins in November.

“What we’re doing, we don’t actually believe has been done before so it’s certainly complex from that point of view. We have expertise from right across the board on it, so it’s not without the right knowledge behind it.”

Turning Hampden, which has a current capacity of 52,063, into an IAAF-standard athletics venue capable of hosting the Commonwealth Games was part of the plan from the moment Glasgow decided to bid for the 2014 event. McCormack didn’t

join the organising committee north of the border until May 2011 so was not part of the decision-making process during the bid, but says: “It’s a core requirement for a Commonwealth Games to have a stadium with a minimum capacity of 40,000. The bid team at the time obviously looked at the facilities they’d got in Glasgow and there is no athletics facility with that capacity. We didn’t need a new football stadium or athletics stadium, so we’re trying to do something that fits within the budget – an international athletics facility but on a Commonwealth Games scale.

“Hampden itself is an oval stadium but it just isn’t quite big enough – there were feasibility studies done then and since then there have been numerous feasibility studies on it; now we’re right down the track of building it.”

Glasgow 2014 therefore hatched a plan which will see the surface of the stadium raised by 1.9 metres, with the track, which will be installed during the process, sitting on a complex, scaffolding-like decking.

Games-time capacity will be 44,000, a reduction on the soccer-specification numbers but well within Commonwealth Games rules. The organising committee will effectively hire the venue for a year, starting from November, and then hand it back, with a few revisions but essentially as it was, to the stadium’s owner, Scottish fourth-tier team Queen’s Park FC. Queen’s Park also own Lesser Hampden, a smaller pitch on the site which will also be commandeered by Glasgow 2014 and replaced by a warm-up track and other essential facilities for the Games.

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“From the first day I’ve been here and a long time before that there’s been various groups set up to engage with them – communications groups, steering groups,” McCormack says, underlining the close working relationships which have formed out of the collective Glasgow desire to make the most of the Games. “I’m over at Hampden pretty much every other day, so it’s complex but there’s good communication.

We work in Glasgow, there are statutory authorities that we need to deal with. I look at it from the venue point of view but we’re delivering a Games as well, so we have to make sure all the venues get over the line – this is key, it’s a core sport, but it’s not the only one so there’s a bigger picture where all the partners come together.”

Glasgow 2014 has already appointed specialists including architects Holmes Miller, Waterman for engineering, cost consultants Gardiner & Theobold and project managers Mace to work on the project, while a contractor was set to be announced in June. Although there is no underestimating the technical intricacy of the project, McCormack insists there is a quiet confidence around it borne out of very careful planning. “I come from an engineering and architectural background so to me it’s nuts and bolts – I think it’s fine and so do all of my consultants,” she says, “but that’s not to be flippant about it, it’s just that we understand the technicalities of it.

We’ve done all the dynamic tests on it, we’ve done numerous surveys on the stadium itself to see if it’s big enough or engineering surveys to check what the structure is.”

One complication facing Glasgow 2014 is that Hampden has been renovated several times since it opened as a 100,000-plus capacity venue in 1903. At its peak the stadium could hold 150,000. There were major upgrades in 1981 and 1992, the latter converting the stadium into an all-seater venue as per new British legislation. A further lottery-funded upgrade in 1997 resulted in the current capacity of 52,063 and allowed for the staging of Uefa’s showpiece game in 2002, a Champions League final lit up by a famous volleyed goal from Real Madrid’s Zinedine Zidane.

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“

What we’re doing, we don’t actually believe has been done before so it’s certainly complex from that point of view. different parts of the stadium take different loadings. We’ve checked all that to make sure that point-loads and live-loads on any particular area can be maintained within the limits we need. We’ve set a very strict parameter which means we get the dynamic response required for the athletes, so they don’t feel vibration, but there’s also numerous other engineering aspects as well to make sure there’s no movement laterally across the stadium and also that we’re not affecting the stadium detrimentally as well.

“At the end of the day we need to convert it back into a football stadium and nobody will ever know there was an athletics track in there, other than the bits we’re doing around and about it for legacy – but if you take the track on its own, the deck will go up over a number of weeks and then we’ll be laying the track on top of it.”

McCormack says Glasgow 2014 “toyed” with the idea of leaving the existing grass pitch in place and building the decking – in layman’s terms, a more complex, stable form of scaffolding – on top, but ultimately decided to remove it. “We’ll take away all the material and replace that with a new pitch in November 2014,” she explains. “We will basically then build, off the sub-soil zone, the surrounding track area and the lower eight tiers of the seating deck, which obviously incrementally get higher. Each leg of the structure is a different length but we are making sure they are adjustable.

Scaffolding has things called ‘scafftags’ on them, which you check on a daily basis to make sure there’s no movement on them and that they’re safe. It’s an enhanced version of that to make sure everything is exactly where we intend it to be from the day it goes in to the day of the closing ceremony – and then obviously it will come out after that.”

Aside from the track installation new, larger scoreboards will be erected at either end

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of the stadium – “athletics has a different requirement from football for results,” McCormack notes, “as you don’t just have Scotland 5-0 England, you have all the race results” – while floodlights will be fine-tuned for track and field events.

Beyond the bowl of the stadium itself, work will take place across the Hampden and Lesser Hampden sites, although McCormack says there will be no encroachment on the surrounding residential areas. “Hampden’s been there for over 100 years and it is slapbang in the middle of a residential area but the site itself is actually quite well designed,” she says. “The campus itself is actually fairly large. There’s an existing football pitch which has some existing office accommodation so we need to change that. We extend the football pitch at Lesser Hampden to put in a 400m warm-up track and that takes in a bit of the site ground. By doing that we take down some temporary accommodation that’s been there for years and we’ll replace that with a permanent boundary wall, which is going to be far more aesthetically pleasing. The portacabins will come away, Queen’s Park get housed in a new pavilion building which is definitely an improvement to the whole area.

“Beyond that when we get into overlay mode we’ve got 900 athletes as opposed to a home and away football team so we do have temporary overlay required to accommodate them – team tents, first call and final call areas.”

While Hampden won’t officially pass into Glasgow 2014’s hands until November, part of the construction works has already been carried out. International Stadia Group was hired to undertake a UK£2.8 million upgrade of the north stand, the oldest part of the venue and one which didn’t suit the needs of an international athletics venue.

That initial project was completed at the end of May. Queen’s Park have already

hampden Park was first opened in 1903 and has undergone several upgrades in its eventful lifetime

The stadium in its soccer configuration: its capacity will be cut from 52,063 to 44,000 for athletics

The temporary track at hampden will be built on on a bespoke system of scaffolding-like decking

cleared their existing offices to allow work on the warm-up track to begin. “We’re bringing the contractor on from June even though they won’t start until November,” says McCormack of the main bowl element of the project. “That’s to make sure all the materials are ordered and everything’s sitting there ready to go – we’ve built major bits of the structure already so that when we’re in there over the winter months we can deliver it on time and we’ve left ourselves a couple of months contingency at the end of it.”

16th May 2014 has been pegged as the completion date, with the first day of Games athletics scheduled for 27th July.

“Obviously we’ll have other overlay to bump in around that but we’re just making sure that we’ve got time up our sleeve,” McCormack explains. “It’s just really, really careful planning that’s required and a lot of planning has gone into it over the last couple of years by a lot of people.” Operational and technical testing will follow, with a smallscale athletics meeting likely to be staged in June 2014. A familiarisation programme for the staff and volunteers who will operate the stadium will also be rolled out to ensure that, like McCormack, they are able to “walk round it blindfolded”.

Once the Games are over next summer, however, the venue must be returned to its owners and converted back into a football stadium. That process has been built into the plan from day one: for every drawing of how the upgrades will look, there is a reinstatement drawing which sits alongside.

“It’s an area where we’ve worked very closely with our stakeholders,” McCormack says.

“We’re hiring a venue for a year but at the end of the day they don’t need an athletics track, they need their venue back exactly as we got it. At every progress meeting we’re making sure we’re providing them with their stadium back in a fully functional manner, in exactly the same way that we pick it up.

There’s a full set of engineering drawings of how it’s all going to go back together again.

“The Olympic velodrome was an amazing experience to be involved in,” she adds, “but I’ve got to say this one, because it’s unique and has not been done before, I think trumps it. And we’re hoping what we’re doing here is something that can be looked at elsewhere in the world as well.”

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Dr Ken Chu succeeded his late father, David, as the chairman of China’s colossal Mission Hills golf and leisure empire in 2012

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THe swIng DoCToR

By David Cushnan Originally published May 2013 edition of SportsPro

David Chu was the visionary developer who planted the seed of golf in mainland China. That has blossomed into three vast golfing resorts and it is Chu’s son Ken who is now tasked with pruning them for further growth.

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n 1992, Hong Kong investor Dr David Chu broke ground on a new project on the Chinese mainland, some 30 minutes from the border of the then-British territory. It was, all things considered, something of a gamble but Chu believed sincerely that the creation of a major golf resort on wasteground near the city of Shenzhen was a risk worth taking – an all-new resort, for an all-new sport in the country. He was right. The first shots were struck just two years later. Mission Hills was born and the face of Chinese golf was changed forever.

Fast forward 20 years and Mission Hills has become the leading brand in Chinese golf, an internationally recognised symbol of golf in China and a thriving, pacy business, with three vast resorts, multiple revenue streams and extravagant expansion plans.

The numbers are telling: across three south China resorts, in the cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan and, since 2010, on the island of Hainan, Mission Hills has built 22 golf courses since 1992. Two more will have been added by the end of this year. Factor in an array of surrounding facilities – hotels, conference venues, food and beverage outlets – in each location and it quickly becomes clear that the Mission Hills empire stretches well beyond golf, but the sport remains the DNA of the business, just as it was when Chu put the first spade in the ground and took his gamble.

“His position was to promote international goodwill through golf,” explains Dr Ken Chu, son of the man who came to be known as the ‘father of golf ’ in China and among the global golf community. When David Chu succumbed to cancer in August 2011, aged 61, the mantle passed to his sons,

“

now it is up to me to help popularise the game of golf in China. I need to grow the business. I don’t want to sustain the business.

Ken and Tenniel. While Tenniel remains vice chairman of Mission Hills and an increasingly influential face in the global golf industry, 38-year-old Ken, once the head of Mission Hills’ property development arm, has formally stepped into his father’s shoes as chairman and chief executive of the company. The next generation of Chus have taken on both the business and their father’s mission to develop the sport throughout China and beyond.

“My father created this integrated leisure complex, featuring golf, world class travel and leisure facilities – what we call ‘golf and more’,” Ken Chu says now. “It’s more than a golf club. Mission Hills was a pioneer in introducing hotels, a lot of F&B outlets and conference facilities attached to the Mission Hills complex. Therefore it drew in a lot more customers and tourists. My father had a very courageous vision and was very forward thinking. He completed a world record in a very short time, only ten years: Mission Hills became the largest golf facility in the world.”

More numbers: the 12 courses split across the Shenzhen and Dongguan sites, plus the additional facilities, and the newer Haikou resort on Hainan Island cover around 40

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square kilometres in total, roughly the size of the English university town of Oxford.

Mission Hills currently employs 14,000 people, including over 4,000 caddies, with those figures poised to rise. The facilities require a fleet of some 2,000 golf carts to cope with an average of 1,500 rounds per day and peaks of 3,000 – 70 per cent from China, with 30 per cent and rising from further afield. On peak days Mission Hills is less a golf resort, more a complex logistical jigsaw, with Chu suggesting that getting 3,000 golf bags from hotel to tee, each at precisely the right moment, requires the same coordination and management as a baggage operation at a major airport.

The figures and the scale are undeniably impressive, but Chu insists it is not simply grandstanding. “We did not build this facility for ego,” he says. “We built this facility because China has the largest population in the world.”

As the son of the father, in more sense than one, Chu lacks nothing in ambition.

The man who is, in his own words, “carrying Mission Hills forward” is a veritable bundle of energy. Conversation is swift, but always considered, and he describes his management style without hesitation as The Destinations Report 2014 | 91

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Mission Hills: its five-point action plan to develop Chinese golfing talent

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here are flickering green shoots of promise amongst the youngsters who have grown up playing at Mission Hills.

23-year-old Hu Mu, who now practises in the US, and 14-year-old Guan Tianlang, who in 2012 won the AsiaPacific Amateur Championship, a result which saw him earn a place at the 2013 Masters at Augusta, are both graduates of the Mission Hills training system. As Ken Chu explains, Mission Hills has a five-point plan to develop more young Chinese golfers.

1. Recognisable faces “In the early years, we brought in a lot of international tournaments. In Asia we only got to see tournaments from the European Tour and the US Tour, so the faces became very recognisable. Bringing in these golf celebrities to help promote the game, to arouse the general interest, was the first thing we did.”

2. A collection of designers “We created a collection of international designers, all legends and well-renowned golf professionals. We worked with them on golf course design but we also

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created a lot of junior training series and tournaments with them, including Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, Annika Sorenstam.”

3. Competitive action “Every year Mission Hills hosts over 20 junior tournaments. The way I see junior training is you need to give them more than just training at the academy, driving range and on the golf course. They need tournament experience.”

4. Free access “We have three golf courses designated as free access for 16-year-olds and below, free any time of the day, any week – just so people can come and play golf for free” 5. Amateur tournaments “We host 24 amateur tournaments on a yearly basis, so two a month. We know it will take some time for Chinese players to take part on the international platforms but we believe these five things we are doing, from the grassroots to the amateurs, and also being a medium in bridging the juniors and amateurs with the professionals, is beneficial to growing the game.”

“pace and speed, pace and speed”. He is quirky, too, laughingly describing how he plays a round of golf for exercise, running between every shot to complete 18 holes and a full eight-kilometre workout in an hour.

“My handicap is golf,” he chuckles.

“To me, time is not money, time is use – it’s how much you can get done in your lifetime,” Chu explains. “My father had the incredible foresight in turning wasteland into the largest golf facility and was able to put China on to the world map of golf. Now it is up to me to help popularise the game of golf in China. I need to grow the business. I don’t want to sustain the business.”

In its first two decades, there were three core strands to the Mission Hills business: golf, including golf operations, membership drives and golf tourism; real estate development, which has seen 3,000 properties so far sold around the resort, some for as much as US$20 million according to local reports; and a hotel and resort operations business, including the MICE [meeting, incentive, conference and exhibition] market. Chu, in order to expand the business, is in the process of adding three more: wellness tourism, commercial development and golf club management.

While the latter is a natural extension of Mission Hills’ core competency – “there are so many cities and city governments that come knocking on our door asking us to invest in their cities, because of our know-how, because of our database and also because of the tournaments we have,” says Chu, “and there are a lot of golf clubs in China that run on a deficit and they also need the expertise, the database, the sales and marketing engine that we have, to help them grow the business” – the other two areas represent significant departures.

While Chu’s intention is for golf to remain Mission Hills’ core offering, he believes expanding the business can tap into the growing disposable income available to China’s rapidly increasing middle class.

In wellness tourism, for example, he has already overseen the opening of the world’s largest spa and mineral hot spring, including 168 plunge pools. It is in commercial development, however, where he is at his most ambitious. “By the end of next year we will be opening up another 800 shops,

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Destinations Report 2014 VENUES

Mission Hills: The scorecard

24: courses at three Mission Hills resorts, playable by the end of 2013 30: percentage of foreign visitors to Mission Hills 40: square kilometres, the size of the three sites combined 800: new entertainment properties to be opened by Mission Hills by the end of 2014 1,200: bunkers 3,000: rounds on a peak day 4,000: caddies employed by Mission Hills 14,000: employees at Mission Hills 100,000: golfers in China in 1995 3,000,000: golfers in China in 2012

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restaurants, bars, pubs, clubs, retail in the Mission Hills facilities,” he explains, adding that he expects Mission Hills to soon be the only golf club in the world with its own Imax cinema. Over the next two years Chu plans six new hotels, which will be built in collaboration with some of the world’s leading chains. “I’m adding a lot more entertainment and lifestyle experiences into the facility,” he says, with no little relish. “If you imagine what Las Vegas looks like, that’s what I’m building – except for the gambling.

“In a lot of countries the golf population is deteriorating. My analysis is people have more family values now. They don’t want to be away from families to play golf, because there is more responsibility. The second is people are much busier, with emails, BlackBerrys, people are working 24 hours a day.

“The reason why I’m adding so much into Mission Hills is so the father will not feel guilty for leaving the kids and wife when they go and play golf. You have to have something for everybody to do, a destination where people will want to go together. Mission Hills’ mission statement is to create and inspire happiness, healthy and harmonious lifestyle and experiences for all – just like Disney.”

Backed by significant investment from governments around China keen to take a slice of the golf tourism market, Chu says Mission Hills is piggy-backing on the current Chinese focus on developing the Third Industry, or service sector, in the same way as city authorities previously promoted agriculture and manufacturing.

“Leisure, tourism development is very well supported by the government and financial institutions,” he points out. “That, plus all the real estate and development that we’ve been developing over the years has helped to pay for the growth of Mission Hills. It is a lifestyle we’re creating.” Almost casually, Chu throws into the conversation a plan for five more Mission Hills resorts, dotted around the Chinese mainland, to be built over the next five years, although not on the scale of the existing mega-developments.

While building the Mission Hills business is at the heart of Chu’s vision, never far away is his desire to continue the rapid development of golf in China. Indeed, if

Since construction of Mission Hills first began in 1992, it has grown to become the biggest golf facility in the world

Mission Hills was built, at least in part, to promote golf in China, Chinese golf has now come to rely on Mission Hills to spread its message. It has become a regular host of international tournaments, a run stretching back to 1995 when it staged China’s first international tournament, the World Cup of Golf. Before then, Chu says there were around 20,000 golfers in China; immediately afterwards the number swelled to around 100,000. Six years later Tiger Woods, then the world’s undisputed number one player, came to town for the first time, prompting another spurt.

“Before Tiger came the golf population had grown to 500,000 and after Tiger it doubled to one million,” Chu says. In 2007,

the World Cup – a now biennial men’s national team competition with two players per country – returned to Shenzhen as part of a long-term agreement which tied the competition to Mission Hills for 12 editions.

Shenzhen hosted the tournament in 2007, 2008 and 2009, before it became a biennial event. The new Mission Hills Haiku hosted the 2011 edition. In 2012, meanwhile, Mission Hills Shenzhen hosted the WGCHSBC Champions event, one of the four annual World Golf Championship (WGC) tournaments, for the first time – with the spoils taken by Ian Poulter.

“All of these tournaments have helped the golf population grow, but also the number of golf courses in China,” Chu

says, reporting that the number of regular golfers in China now exceeds three million.

“There were only a handful of golf courses 20 years ago and now there are 698 golf courses in China,” he points out. “The game is still picking up but the word I would use is ‘snowballing’.

“Obviously, golf in China is still in its infancy,” he adds. “Just like any other country, when golf began it was a very niche sport – it was a business sport. That is even more so in China. Golf is more than a sport; it’s a business language, it’s a social networking tool. What Mission Hills is doing right now, one thing I’ve done since my father’s departure is commission a new Mission Hills project for Mission

Hills Hainan Island to become a public golf resort. That means there is no barrier, no financial barrier, no need to invest in a membership, to have the right to play golf.

I’ve positioned that ten-course facility, 180hole facility, to be all public golf, to help popularise the game of golf to the general public.”

The development of junior talent capable of ultimately joining the professional ranks of the game will, Chu insists, be accelerated by golf ’s inclusion in the Olympic Games, with the promise of more funding from government and private enterprise. Mission Hills has predictably forged strong links with China’s national golf federation and it houses the Chinese national teams. “The The Destinations Report 2014 | 95

Destinations Report 2014 VENUES

“

There were only a handful of golf courses 20 years ago and now there are 698 golf courses in China.

”

“It is a lifestyle we’re creating,” says Ken Chu of the ongoing – and evolving – Mission Hills project

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golf club has a lot of the hardware and services,” Chu says, “but there’s so much more than the facilities and housing, such as medical facilities and equipment, psychology, physiotherapy, that goes into a sporting body and that comes from the sporting body.”

Nonetheless, Chu maintains that “achieving some medals” when golf makes its Olympic bow in Rio three years from now is the ultimate, if distinctly ambitious, target. In other ways, too, he is doing what he can to try and develop Chinese golf at the elite level, including a push to try and have a Chinese player included in the President’s Cup, the biennial matchplay tournament between the US and a non-European international team.

But as much as Chu believes in promoting golf in China, he also believes what has been created at Mission Hills will help the sport at a global level. “The way I see it is there’s only three million golfers in China,” Chu says. “What percentage is that compared to the number of people we have in China? It’s nought point something per cent. Look at the percentage in Great Britain, perhaps it’s 10 or 20 per cent. To begin with, for golf to be an international sport you have to have the support and participation of the Chinese nation. If the sport is only played in Europe and North America, it’s not an international sport.

If we all want golf to be an international sport that means you need to have Chinese participation, because we have a quarter of the world’s population. We all know that the Chinese are explorers, we love to travel.

If we are able to bring up the golf interest in China it will also help the tourism as well. We will be able to send much more golf tourism into Europe and North America, and any city welcomes tourism and welcomes golf tourism. This is not just about the game of golf, it’s about the tourism market.”

Chu confirms there will be no physical international expansion of Mission Hills, at least “not in the next five years”. There is, he says, plenty of work still to do at home, building an empire, creating a lifestyle and popularising a sport. When China gets its first Major winner, though, Mission Hills and the Chu family will be able to take a healthy slice of the credit.

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Destinations report 2014 VENUES

The Singapore Sports Hub will combine the citystate’s elite venues with a selection of high-end community facilities in a unique project

Singapore’S neXT STep

by David Cushnan Originally published October 2013 edition of SportsPro

The Singapore Sports Hub is the city-state’s billion-dollar baby. after a painstaking planning process, former Stade de France chief philippe Delavaud is poised to deliver the project to the line.

T

he 25th March 2014. The date has been etched in the mind of Philippe Delavaud for some time. The Frenchman, a veteran of the stadium management and operations industry, has found himself in Singapore overseeing the final months of building and planning for the city-state’s new billion-dollar Sports Hub. When it opens, on the aforementioned date, it will instantly become one of the world’s leading multi-sport venues, a monument to Singapore’s international

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ambitions and the realisation of a sporting strategy that has been decades in the making.

The centrepiece of the project is the new National Stadium, a 55,000-capacity facility which will face the Singapore skyline and feature a retractable roof and retractable seating, the latter a flexible innovation which will make the stadium the first in the world to be able to host rugby, cricket, soccer and athletics. The venue will also host concerts and Singapore’s National Day parade, ensuring it will play a central role in

the city-state’s national psyche.

Surrounding the stadium will be a host of new facilities, along with the existing Singapore Indoor Stadium, which has been incorporated into the Sports Hub. A FINA-approved aquatics centre, with 3,000 seats but the ability to double capacity when necessary, will contain two 50-metre pools and a diving pool; a multi-purpose indoor arena will feature six sport halls, with capacity for up to 3,000 spectators, for sports such as badminton, fencing,

taekwondo, netball and volleyball; a water sports centre, located alongside the Kallang Basin waterfront area, will include canoeing, kayaking, rowing and dragon boat racing facilities; a dedicated sports lifestyle zone will be community-focused and include a skate park, wave pool, fitness centres, rock climbing, and jogging and cycling areas.

The sports facilities will be supplemented by a 41,000 square metre retail and leisure complex dotted along the waterfront and promenade areas, while there are also plans

for a sports library and a museum dedicated to Singapore’s sporting history on the site.

The city-state has not seen anything like the Sports Hub before. It is one of the largest sporting infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) projects in the world and the largest ever attempted in Singapore. In effect, it is a 25-year agreement – there are 22 years to run – between the Singapore Sports Council, a government agency, and a consortium known as SportsHub Pte, which comprises investment firm InfraRed Capital

Partners, design and building subcontractor Dragages Singapore, facility maintenance firm DTZ and venue operator Global Spectrum Asia.

“What we jointly manage is all the strategic issues,” explains Delavaud, a former chief executive of the Stade de France in Paris who now heads up the consortium. “We have a permanent interaction with our public partners for strategic decisions, a joint body to discuss event planning, marketing and major decisions.”

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Construction of the Singapore Sports Hub is entering its final stage ahead of a March 2014 launch

Four subcontractors have also been hired: the World Sport Group agency, responsible for procuring events; IT service provider T-Systems; SMRT Alpha, which will lease the retail space; and Sports Catering Services. Mastercard, Singapore Airlines, Canon, Carlsberg, Coca-Cola and Mercedes-Benz are amongst the corporate sponsors already on board.

The public element of the PPP is the Singapore Sports Council (SSC), a body formed in 1973 to coincide with the opening of Singapore’s original National Stadium.

Now, as then, its mandate is to develop Singapore’s sporting culture and to use sport as a tool for wider growth.

In 2001 the SSC drew up a ten-year programme of targets, containing five key principles: healthy citizens, community bonding, national pride, a vibrant society and economy, and international friendship.

The decade that followed saw the arrival of Formula One on the streets of Singapore’s Marina Bay district in 2008, with an event which has quickly become one of the glamour races on the sport’s annual schedule, and

THe Singapore SporTS Hub in nuMberS

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culminated in the successful staging of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010.

When it comes to sport, Singapore is no longer a new player, but Delavaud insists the Sports Hub represents an important development for a city-state of just over five million with international aspirations. “Singapore is used to being on the world map,” he points out, “but I’m sure this will be a new step for Singaporeans because we are breaking so many records, in terms of construction and innovation. It will be a subject of pride.”

In 2008 Oon Jin Teik, the former Olympic swimmer who was then the chief executive of the SSC, told SportsPro the vision behind the Sports Hub was to create an “ecosystem” of sport and leisure. He added: “We said we needed a new stadium but getting one is easy to say. When you start designing it, it becomes very challenging.

We had to get it right so we did quite a bit of research, looking at other models and venues. We didn’t just look at how the venue was constructed but the business model in running it. Our version is very practical in the sense that we don’t want a white elephant, and there is a very big emphasis on programming. We want it open 24/7.”

Oon has since returned to the private sector but the vision he outlined remains on track,

even if the project has suffered significant delays. Though the Sports Hub was originally slated to open in 2011, construction work only began in earnest in October 2010 when the existing National Stadium was demolished, freeing up the necessary land.

Delavaud explains that some 40,000 piles had to be inserted in the soil before construction on the new arena could begin, due to poor soil conditions. It is just one example, he says, of a project not without its challenges.

“The stadium is full of innovation and full of first-time [projects], so most of what we do is prototype,” he admits. “There has been a learning curve.”

Delavaud cites the National Stadium’s roof as but one example. Designed by Arup, the dome structure is ultra-thin, designed specifically to provide shade but also allowing for a state of the art, energy efficient cooling system for spectators. “It is a prototype,” Devalaud repeats, “so we have had to take the time, which was in our schedule, to learn how to implement it. We had it designed, we did feasibility studies, but we had a concept to prove and deliver.”

The flexibility which has been designed into the stadium, and indeed all the surrounding facilities, has ensured that the Sports Hub will be in a position to host a broad range of events, be they international or local.

Operationally, the Sports Hub management have a mandate to ensure that happens.

“Our strategy has been very clear,” Delavaud outlines. “We have performance indicators for international events, for local events, for community events, so we cannot just decide tomorrow that we will just take care of, say, international football. We have to do it and the governing bodies, with our public partner, are able to check that we are in line with the strategy. It’s a segmented and holistic approach, which fits our strategy and that of the country.”

The importance of Singapore’s wider sports development strategy will be demonstrated by the fact that all Sports Hub facilities will be open to the public. Delavaud calls the project a “game-changer”, adding: “It’s really about creating momentum and acceleration. All the spotlight will be focused on us: the international community will look at us, the Singaporean community will look at us, people practising sports, people watching

The national Stadium will boast a high-end retractable roof and be able to host a range of sports

sports. Everyone, in the next years, will be looking at what we are going to deliver.

“When the Sports Hub is opened it will be different to how it was before the Sports Hub in terms of how to watch live sports – something that has not been very developed in Singapore before. People will have a huge amount of opportunity to watch live sport, but also to practise sports because all our facilities will be open to everyone, not just elite athletes. Everyone will have an opportunity to participate, watch and support at the Sports Hub.” The full calendar of Sports Hub-hosted events has yet to be revealed – it is expected in October – but one global event already secured is the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour Championships, the season finale featuring the eight top-ranked players of the year. In May, Singapore was awarded the contract to host the tournament, which has been played in Istanbul since 2011, for five years, starting in 2014. It saw off bids from Tianjin in China and Mexico’s Monterrey to stage the US$6.5 million showpiece.

“It’s a best-of-its-kind event,” Delavaud says, “and there’s no comparable event in women’s tennis. It’s a way to show Singaporeans a best-of-its-kind event and it’s a way to show international tourists that they can get something in Singapore they cannot get in other places.

“The event will have a big impact. It’s thrilling: we will have a fanzone, public training, we will organise a convention, a fashion show and all types of content around sports and leisure, women in sport,

business in sport – it’s a comprehensive event and the Sports Hub is really designed for that. We are not only one stadium, we are not only one indoor arena – there are very efficient indoor arenas around the world, there are very efficient stadiums but here we have the opportunity to deliver something different, in a very compact way.”

Locally, Delavaud is negotiating with national sports federations in Singapore for the Sports Hub to become their new home. Further afield, he is already targeting a Rugby World Cup Sevens event as well as a “multi-sports event, which is internationally recognised”, although he insists he does not have a specific one in mind.

“We have a list,” he adds, explaining that a visit to May’s SportAccord Convention in St Petersburg was used to begin talks with international federations and rights holders and to begin to promote the new facilities.

The combination of the Singaporean government’s major events fund and a centre which Delavaud neatly describes as “pre-qualified for most international events” would appear to be a potent one.

The Frenchman also believes Singapore’s history of hosting major events adds an important layer of confidence. “Singapore has been able to deliver outstanding performance,” he says, “in terms of organisation, safety and security, public welcome, hosting, tourist hotel bookings, airport facilities, and so on.”

Singapore already has the experience; in just a few short months it will have the hardware to match.

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