All Blacks: The business deals that were happening while Scott Robertson’s men played Fiji

While the All Blacks were showcasing their skills – and their brand – on the field against Fiji two weekends ago in San Diego, off the field New Zealand Rugby’s bosses were developing key business partnerships.

The United States is becoming familiar territory for the All Blacks, and they plan to keep it that way.

With the 2031 and 2033 men’s and women’s World Cups scheduled to be played in America, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) chief executive Mark Robinson wants to garner experience playing in those parts of the world.

“We’ve got to start thinking across a seven- to nine-year period,” Robinson told the Herald in San Diego. “This is not year-on-year – it’s trying to build a really positive road map over the long term.”

This month’s test against Fiji marked the third time the All Blacks had played rugby in San Diego and the sixth match in America since 1972. They’ve also played twice in Chicago, facing the USA and Ireland, and once more against the hosts in 2021 in Washington DC.

Robinson and NZR’s general manager Chris Lendrum used the trip to help build NZR’s profile and grow their brand.

“We had some really positive meetings with USA Rugby and World Rugby.”

The pair also went north to San Francisco, “developing connections” through “constructive conversations” with top US college Stanford University.

“We spent two days on campus and then also in some working-dinner situations with a whole lot of people who are venture capitalists working in AI [artificial intelligence], private equity, and design thinking.

“The meetings were to get a sense of what more broadly we could do around the game and how we could work more with New Zealand Inc, rather than just it solely being about the focus of the game inside the rectangle.

“We had a really interesting time there that got us thinking about what future possibilities could be between New Zealand Rugby and our teams in black on the West Coast of the States.”

Robinson told the Herald those possibilities included a commitment to seeing more than just the All Blacks get opportunities abroad.

“We’ve got the Māori All Blacks, we’ve got the All Blacks XV, we’ve got the Black Ferns. By virtue of having those four or five national teams, we certainly have a range of different vehicles that we can go into different markets, we can play in different-sized stadiums and we can target different-sized stadiums.”

NZR also caught up with fellow oval-ball team the Los Angeles Rams, who play in the NFL, where they built connections through leadership sessions.

Robinson said seeing the conversations take place between high-performance staff from the Rams and the All Blacks was intriguing.

“[The Rams] are really respectful of a lot of things that New Zealand Rugby do,” said Robinson.

As reported in the Herald, the All Blacks’ next trip to the US could come as soon as next year.

World Rugby confirmed that Ireland and the All Blacks will face each other in Chicago next year, a repeat of their classic meeting in 2016 when Ireland defeated the All Blacks for the first time.

Robinson wouldn’t confirm the reports, but did acknowledge NZR has a “really strong relationship with the Irish – a lot of respect for them”.

“They are a country that I think also see some wider benefits from exploring other markets, so we’ll just keep chipping away at that but there’s nothing more to respond to at the moment to the speculation.”

After the All Blacks’ most recent test, questions arose about the possibility of taking a test match to Fiji.

Fiji’s captain Waisea Nayacalevu said: “I would love to have that opportunity, it’s unlucky we couldn’t have that opportunity.”

Robinson said he isn’t ruling out the possibility but isn’t confident anything will be marked on the calendar soon.

“It’s something we certainly have on the radar for the future... It’s certainly something that I think the fans would want to see at some stage.”

He said playing fixtures in New Zealand regions as opposed to capital cities is something NZR is considering.

“I know that there’s some strong regions with really good ambitions such as Northland, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay and Tasman and those sorts of areas.

“We’re trying to think more long-term, hopefully, there’s a possibility to do something like [play in the regions], in the next few years.”

Bonnie Jansen is a multimedia journalist in the NZME sports team. She’s a football commentator and co-host of the Football Fever podcast and was part of the Te Rito cadetship scheme before becoming a fulltime journalist.