LONG READ Mark Robinson: 'I want to make sure we focus on what our fans are really looking for.'

For the past six years, those familiar with rugby administration in the Southern Hemisphere will be used to seeing former NZ Rugby Chief Executive Mark Robinson bedecked in a black suit, white shirt and black tie, as befits the most senior administrator at rugby’s most iconic brand; the All Blacks.

The contrast was marked then, when speaking to the former Test centre, who won nine Test caps between 2000-2002, because Robinson, 52, was very much in dress-down mode.

With a baseball cap, tan, and longer hair than the public are used to seeing, the worry lines of a high-pressure job were starting to ease when this writer spoke to him. Indeed, he was at pains to say he was taking some downtime, before taking up a role with World Rugby as their newly appointed Chief of Rugby in May. “I’m very much in break and beach mode and it’s nice not to have to worry about my appearance too much”, he chuckles. “I will head to London later in the month for Shape of the Game conference, and Hong Kong for a World Rugby board meeting, but other than that, I’m not pouring over strategy, information, structures and budgets right now, I’m not in that space and I’m catching a breath.”

After being appointed in the wake of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and guiding New Zealand rugby through the financial tumult of the pandemic, which cut them off from the world and saw private equity investment pour into the sport. Robinson decided 2026 would be time for a fresh start. “I had my first conversations with the NZ Rugby board back in May. I’d been away from my wife and youngest son for nine months and 18-24 months with my two elder children who are at university in Australia. A few people reached out to me about ‘what’s next?’, but I was quite deliberate in parking those conversations because I had a few big projects I wanted to finish well, which I did.”

At the turn of the year, World Rugby’s CEO Alan Gilpin and chairman Brett Robinson approached the former Canterbury Crusader to chair a match officiating review, which in turn, initiated conversations about the future. “At the time, I was weighing up staying in sport, or leaving it altogether, in an executive, governance or consultancy, but we padded out what my role could look like and when I wrapped all those conversations together, the Chief of Rugby role really stood out for several reasons. Firstly, I’ve had an on-off involvement in rugby for the past 45-odd years, I love the game and care deeply about it, but it was also something super-exciting that I could help World Rugby at a critical juncture. An added bonus is that it will allow me to remain in Australia for a period of time to be with my family and have slightly less travel.”

Before switching flip-flops for brogues, Robinson will land in London on the morning of the England v Ireland for the Shape of the Game meetings, before catching up with his old alumni at Cambridge University, where he studied PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) in his early twenties, and hopes to catch the Varsity Match before flying home.

As a player, he was known as an intelligent, graceful outside-centre and he spent a near decade in professional rugby, where he played in New Zealand, England and Japan, Robinson says he was always drawn to the running of the game, which naturally led him towards rugby administration. “Near the end of my career with the Crusaders and All Blacks, it was clear there were certain guys who would head into coaching, but even then, I leant towards issues about the team environment and acted as a conduit between the team and the powers-that-be. They weren’t big gnarly issues, but issues that required a player’s voice. I was never the guy who walked around with a playbook or gravitated towards a whiteboard. I always had a fascination with the wider strategy of the game and how it was run.”

The business of sport, especially worldwide, piqued his interest, notably the American sporting landscape, which was exploding commercially, and his time in the UK further opened his eyes. “My time at Cambridge was incredible for broadening my horizons. I met so many amazing people there who were in different fields and different countries from around the world.”

If you look across the next five to seven-year period, we have some incredible tournaments.

Playing for the All Blacks also gave him an insight into the visceral power of sport. “I only lost once at Twickenham against England and I vividly remember thinking about the way it impacts people, especially Kiwis. What it did on that particular night in South-West London was also pretty eye-opening! When I hung up my boots, I was asked to stand for the NZ Rugby board and was fortunate enough to get the CEO role, and things snowballed from there.”

Robinson is all too aware of the pace of change in rugby and sees 2026 as a new start in the global calendar with a new media rights cycle finally in place. “If you look across the next five to seven-year period, we have some incredible tournaments; the Nations Championship, Rugby World Cups in Australia in 2027 and 2029, a Lions tour to New Zealand and down in my part of the world the Greatest Rivalry Series this summer. Domestically, there is work going on around the World club competition and then we have America in 2031 and 2033. The period we’re entering is one of immense excitement.”

While Robinson still has time before his start date to refine his role, he understands the core of it is making the ‘product’ the best it possible can be, even if the word itself grates. “I don’t like using ‘product’ in relation to rugby it’s a bit commercial and transactional, but it’s the world we are living in and it’s critically important to the success of our game. Another key tenet is access and how fans can engage. That’s where I see the biggest opportunity; to try and elevate the game to a level where it captures the attention of fans more regularly than it currently does. I want to make sure we attend to the needs of our fanbase and focus on what our fans are really looking for.”

Robinson says it is imperative that more work is done in that space and that World Rugby, the unions, national leagues and rugby as a whole, continues to listen anecdotally, to what fans are saying. “I don’t think anyone can argue with the fact that the primacy of the fans is absolutely critical and we can do a better job of responding to that. We need to think really hard about how we take the sport forward.”

The US has the biggest sports market in the world. Every time we go there, we learn more about where they’re coming from and what the fans out there like.

With the pandemic a painful chapter in the sport, thankfully behind them, Robinson feels rugby has reasons for optimism, while not being complacent. “We are close to getting back where we were in 2019-2020, but the next period is going to be critical. The Nations Championship and Challenger Series is pivotal for the 24 nations involved, and while there are still clearly challenges for some unions we’re in a better place than we were 2-3 years ago, and most definitely, 5-6 years ago – there’s no doubt about that. Looking forward, I do think we can make greater headway into the United States. A recent example being the game in Chicago between the All Blacks and Ireland and from what I understand, the game in Baltimore [between the All Blacks and the Springboks] is tracking really well. Japan has also staged some amazing events and while it’s early days, they have expressed an interest in hosting a World Cup in 2035.”

Talk of rugby’s growth strategy inevitably focuses on the US, which Robinson admits is a key target area, if they make the right decisions, especially after his learned knowledge of staging games there. “The US has the biggest sports market in the world. Every time we go there, we learn more about where they’re coming from and what the fans out there like. That’s hugely exciting for rugby and I see more games being announced in that part of the world.”

Robinson says it was imperative to have the calendar locked down, so rugby can stride, without being hamstrung into new markets and put unions onto a more solid financial footing. Not that rugby can afford to misstep, he says. “I wouldn’t want to paint a picture of everything being completely rosy because there are still challenges ahead. We have lot more work to do, but as I’ve said, there are hugely exciting opportunities ahead, too.”

Understanding the unique interests and demands of capturing the malleable minds of Gen-Z and Gen-A is also a battle for attention with other sports. It’s a sea change from Robinson’s bucolic upbringing in South Taranaki, where he was a family friend of Kevin ‘Smiley’ Barrett, father of Beauden, Scott and Jordie. “I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s in a small rural town where there weren’t many choices. It was rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer. That was it. We digested rugby by reading books, hearing stories around the dinner table and by going to games and watching games on TV. I never thought about not watching a match for its full duration.”

Fast-forward 30 years and Robinson has three kids of his own: Hunter 20, Maggie 19 and Will, 16. “They consume rugby very differently to me. The two boys play and love the game, but they watch games on highlights packages, dip in and out of games on a Friday or Saturday night and check their socials on other screens. They are heavily influenced by what’s going on through the week and what’s happening on TikTok and Instagram, whereas I used to read a rugby preview magazine, or read a newspaper for the weekend’s team sheet. It’s a different world.”

Football started professionalism 140 years ago, we’re only 30-odd years in. They’ve been dealing with commercial partners, investors, a different financial model and content creation for generations, so it’s a tough comparison

To engage with that sort of fandom, Robinson says rugby has to constantly innovate and think about how it markets the game. “Take New Zealand, we’ve been fortunate enough to call rugby our national game for a long period of time, but we can’t afford to be complacent or take it as our right. At community level, you have to change the laws to suit the participant. On a professional level, you have to keep evolving the game to suit the audience. You need to keep moving.”

With that generational change has come challenges and friction with how a proudly team-focused sport celebrates the individual gifts of hugely marketable players in what is still a nascent professional sport. “I’d say access has created a tension that has been sitting in the game for some time as the evolution of content creation has exploded. Now videographers and photographers sitting in the team environment has become the norm but that’s juxtaposed with the values and traditions of the sport which are still hugely influential in a high performance environment. In our defence, I’d say rugby is a young, almost immature sport. If you think football and the NFL started professionalism 140 years ago, we’re only 30-odd years in. They’ve been dealing with commercial partners, investors, a different financial model and content creation for generations, so it’s a tough comparison but we accept we have to do a better job when it comes to access.”

As well as nurturing the talent, Robinson says the sport has to be adaptable when it comes the different types of fan rugby attracts. “You need as many age groups and demographics as you can. There are differences between the core fan and the emerging casual fan, and how they will respond to different aspects of the game, be it social media or other areas they’re captivated by over 80 minutes.”

With some overdue family time to lock into, Robinson is keen to recharge the batteries for the pivotal role that awaits him. “I’m looking forward to collaborating with a lot of people I admire around the unions and within World Rugby. It’s an opportunity to rekindle relationships and build on them. Over the next couple of years, I really think we can make a difference by elevating and shifting a huge amount of focus towards the fan. They are the lifeblood of our sport.”