SPORT. BUSINESS. LEADERSHIP. CULTURE.

What a great morning at the SEN Exclusive Network, hearing from some absolute legends of Australian sport.

Matty Johns — former NRL star turned media star.

Mark Bosnich — former Socceroos and Manchester United goalkeeper, now one of the great voices in sports media.

And Hutchy steering the conversation.

The event was sponsored by Travis Miller and Mark Sherwood of iPartners, who are doing some fascinating work giving high-net-worth private investors access to institutional-grade investment opportunities.

A few examples they discussed included Murray Cod Australia, Harvest Hotels and Port Wallaroo — providing structured debt at stages before traditional institutional lenders step in.

But what really got me thinking was the conversation around sport, leadership and building winning environments.

🏉 Great teams need great coaches and great halfbacks

Tony Hayek of Blue Wealth Properties shared an interesting insight . “We spend enormous amounts developing athletes — but how much do we invest in educating the coaches who develop the athletes?”

There is a huge opportunity to teach the next generation of coaches about leadership, teamwork, culture, communication and performance.

Soccer , FIFA and Lessons Learnt

⚽ Then Mark Bosnich made a great observation about football (soccer) in Australia.

His analogy was simple:

“It’s the soil. You need to water it.”

Talent isn’t enough.

You need the right environment, infrastructure, investment and culture for something to flourish.

That applies just as much to business as it does to sport.

We talked about the extraordinary economics of global sport —the commercialisation of competitions such as the World Cup - how FIFA has become a global brand with $10b in cash!!

And the question every entrepreneur should be asking:

What is the 10X factor?

What changes an organisation from simply participating in an industry to owning more of the value chain?

Sport building Community 

And then the conversation steered to PNG and Rugby League — where the sport has potentially becomes much bigger than sport.

It can help build infrastructure, identity, opportunity and a common culture across a country with hundreds of languages and dialects.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway for me:

**Popularity of a sport follows the money”

Talent follows opportunity.

Performance follows environment.

And great teams follow great leadership.**

Whether you’re building a sporting team, a business or a community, get the soil right — then water it.

Great conversation. Great people. And plenty to think about.

#Leadership #Sport #Business #Teamwork #Culture #Investment #RugbyLeague #Football #SEN