NZR has told the Herald since that no approach to George has ever been made. <\/p>\n
George didn\u2019t want to comment on any possible approaches and assured that he was solely focused on continuing to grow the NRL club, on and off the field. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy whole interest and my whole passion and commitment is to the Warriors,\u201d George told the Herald. \u201cThat\u2019s my dream \u2013 to be here and be successful \u2013 and that\u2019s all I need to say.\u201d <\/p>\n
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n Asked if it was a compliment to be linked to such a massive role, George deflected. <\/p>\n \u201cOh, I don\u2019t read into that,\u201d said George. \u201cI\u2019d rather have the compliment of winning a [NRL] premiership. My focus is just to do the best job I can, mate. You can\u2019t control that stuff.\u201d <\/p>\n However, the revival of the Warriors has turned heads across the sporting and corporate landscapes in New Zealand. In terms of franchise sport, they have become the hottest ticket in town, with crowd numbers through the roof and unprecedented commercial interest, including an army of sponsors and partners. <\/p>\n They are also enjoying bumper television audiences, promising success on the field and have diversified investments into property. <\/p>\n Discover more<\/p>\n George has overseen a major overhaul \u2013 since the Covid pandemic left the club marooned in Australia for three seasons \u2013 and also had to deal with significant ownership challenges in the early years of his tenure (2018-2019). <\/p>\n He hasn\u2019t got everything right \u2013 with the circumstances of the Shaun Johnson exit in 2018 an obvious black mark \u2013 but it\u2019s hard to find fault with many of his decisions, with the recruitment of Andrew Webster<\/a> and Andrew McFadden recent masterstrokes. <\/p>\n The Warriors have also built a remarkable connection with the community, something most Super Rugby clubs can only admire from afar, and are making significant inroads in pathways and development, with academy structures across the country. <\/p>\n NZR is a much bigger beast \u2013 having probably eight times the revenue of the NRL club \u2013 with layers and layers of stakeholders, many and varied arms of the business, complex broadcasting deals and a global presence. <\/p>\n There are also the constant push and pull factors between competing parties and private investment, which are less of a factor in an NRL environment. But there would be some synergies. <\/p>\n The NZR CEO role<\/a> has yet to be advertised but it\u2019s understood that global recruitment companies have already been engaged. It will be a lucrative but demanding post, even more so than Robinson faced. <\/p>\n AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.<\/a><\/p>\n That\u2019s because of the likely restructure of NZR, with the new chief executive to lead NZR and NZ Rugby Commercial, in what is more akin to a group CEO role.<\/p>\n Michael Burgess<\/a> has been a Sports Journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America\u2019s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NZR has told the Herald since that no approach to George has ever been made. George didn\u2019t want…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[3202,3204,64,63,3199,3200,3201,3208,3127,158,3210,3206,760,3207,3203,85,3209,3198,3205],"class_list":["post-2124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-addresses","tag-around","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boss","tag-cameron","tag-george","tag-interest","tag-new","tag-nrl","tag-nzr","tag-role","tag-rugby","tag-ruled","tag-speculation","tag-sports","tag-taking","tag-warriors","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}