Beau Ryan reveals how he became host of the Amazing Race
Beau Ryan has built a $15 million post-NRL empire - but an early drinking session with Wests Tigers teammates proves he started at the bottom. Don’t miss our series Life After League.
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Caked in cologne and wearing his best shirt – a black Benji Marshall hand-me down – Beau Ryan had done his best to dress just like them.
White trainers dirty but black jeans clean, faux mohawk lightly waxed, he even felt like a footballer as he walked across the street.
All that work, all that sacrifice … finally paying off.
Tiled walls and walnut coloured wood, The Palace Hotel was not quite what he had expected.
He’d heard all the stories, but never been. Until now, never invited. He was excited to finally join them for a team drink, but also a little worried about a thing called “chop”. He had heard them talk about it at training. A drinking game.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Ryan said after telling Robbie Farah he’d start with a bourbon. He followed Farah, only a year older then him but already a rugby league rock star, to the bar. The premiership winning hooker ordered the drinks before handing the bartender a $100 note. But Ryan’s jaw didn’t drop until he saw the change.
‘Na keep it mate,’ Farah said as the bartender tried to give him a handful of coins.
“Bourbon right,” Farah, back at the table, said as he handed out the drinks
“Umm,” Ryan muttered.
“Na. Forgot I had to drive. I’m actually not much of a drinker.”
Truth was Ryan couldn’t afford to buy a shout.
“Yeah it was a bit embarrassing,” Ryan said.
“I wanted to drink with them. I said I didn’t drink because I couldn’t afford it. I was on a $30,000 contract and struggling just to live.”
Struggling. That is not a word too many people would associate with Ryan – an all-star rugby league graduate. But Ryan’s life has been a series of struggles. And that is why he is a success.
Back to the bar …
“Chop,” Benji screamed.
Liam Fulton had been caught holding a drink in his right hand. Ryan decided he was glad not to be drinking after he watched the young forward drain an entire schooner with a single sip.
STRUGGLE STREET
This success story begins on Struggle Street, which is about every street in Albion Park. Dissected by a train track and a highway, the just South of Wollongong town is as hard as the Illawarra steel that sustains it.
“We didn’t have a lot growing up,” Ryan said. “My mum and Dad had to work for everything they had. Money was always hard to come by. And that made it a little awkward later on. I remember thinking ‘what a waste’ when I saw the boys throw money around and my parents were struggling to pay bills.“
But living on Struggle Street had its perks. Ryan’s road to the NRL began in 1998 thanks to a neighbour who was also a coach.
“My team at Albion Park folded and I didn’t have anywhere to play,” Ryan said.
“I might have stopped altogether had it not been for a guy in my street. He was the coach of a gun team at Wests, which had guys like Brett Stewart and he asked me to come play. That‘s when I started showing some potential.”
So much so that he made the Illawarra Steelers team, where he would play alongside future first graders Stewart, Justin Poore, Ashton Simms and Ben Creagh.
“I guess that is where the footy dream started,“ Ryan said.
JUST A DREAM
Ryan set his alarm for 4.30am before tucking himself into bed. He then said his prayers.
“Yeah I prayed every night,” Ryan said.
“Not for world peace or hunger, but for rain. I started working with Dad as a labourer as soon as I left school and I friggin hated it. Torture. Lifting trusses and digging holes. I literally went to bed and prayed for bad weather because that was the only way I would get out of going.”
Ryan still loved rugby league, but rugby league did not love him. One of the only players in his team not to progress straight to SG Ball, he had to begin thinking about a life without football towards the end of school.
“Mum wanted me to go to university,” Ryan said.
“But It wasn’t for me. I was okay at school but was more interested in being a pest. So, I decided to go into the building interested, which started labouring for my Dad.”
His old footy mates were not digging ditches. They sat in cafe’s spending their rugby league contract money on coffee.
“It probably lit a bit of a fire,” Ryan said. “I had made the NSW schoolboys side when I was 17 so I knew I had a bit of talent. But I also knew, after playing in that side with guys like Benji Marshall, Todd Carney and Karmichael Hunt, that I didn’t have enough.”
Ryan knew what he had to do.
“I had to work,” Ryan said.
“I had to work harder than everyone else.”
And that wouldn’t be so hard considering he already was.
MAKE OR BREAK
So Ryan got to it, building houses by day and his body by night. Trusses and timber followed by runs and weights.
“It became my dream to pay in the NRL,” Ryan said. “But I just needed an opportunity. I was a hard worker and knew that I could do something if I got a chance.”
Ryan finally caught a break when he was selected to play Jersey Flegg for newly formed St George Illawarra Dragons. But while most of the players in his team, which now included Brett and Josh Morris, had contracts that meant they didn’t have to work, Ryan was now spending his days lifting boxes and lugging loads.
“I got a job at StarTrack and was working from 5am to 1pm,“ Ryan said.
“I started off there unloading the B double and ended up driving vans. I was being paid $17 an hour. I also started doing a bunch of TAFE courses that I never finished.”
Ryan was forced to reconsider resuming those courses when his dream of becoming a full-time footballer was crushed by a selection snub.
“I was told I didn’t have a future at the Dragons after Jersey Flegg,” Ryan said. “I was one of the only blokes from my team that didn’t, at the least, get a training deal. I was shattered. I didn’t know what to do.”
Turns out a bloke called Matt Cooper did.
“I drove to his house,” Ryan said.
“He was obviously playing NRL and was also a mate. I needed some advice. I told him what had happened.”
Cooper asked Ryan if playing in the NRL was still his dream. If he was willing to give it is all.
“Of course I was,” Ryan said.
“I was prepared to give it my all and then some more. I didn’t want to be one of those guys that ended up saying that I could have been one of those guys while watching a game in the pub. I went back to the Dragons and them for a shot. For anything. Even if I could just train.”
TIGER TOWN
The future NRL coach could see the fire. While not as talented as those that had made the grade, Ryan was flaming with drive and desire. Steve Price had seen it during his time as Ryan’s Jersey Flegg coach. And he was certainly seeing it now, the likeable larrikin gone, a desperate man begging for his chance.
While Price, who would go on to become the Dragons NRL coach in 2012, couldn’t give Ryan his shot, he knew someone that could.
“Pricey knew a few guys at the Tigers and gave me the recommendation that got me a $20,000 training deal,” Ryan said.
“I was so pumped. It was all I needed. I just wanted a shot.”
Determined to leave no stone unturned, Ryan quit his courier job. He ended up doing plenty of driving all the same.
“I was still living in Albion Park and would have to leave my house at 4.30am to get to Sydney for training,” Ryan said.
“I remember the drive well because I used to have to dry my one and only training singlet by hanging it out the window. I wasn’t getting home until 10pm so I had to put it in the washing machine before I went to sleep and pull it out in the morning.”
JUST A WINGER
Ryan, of course, not only got his shot, but also got a contract. He was upgraded to $50,000 when he finally made the NRL.
“It felt like a fortune,” Ryan said.
“And I was stoked. I knew I was on nothing compared to the others, but I didn’t care.”
Well not until he went to the pub.
“It was a little tough at times when we were hanging out,” Ryan said. “I could never spend money like them. You could feel on the outer a bit at times but I ended up driving everywhere and got around it.”
Ryan always knew he would never earn the sort of money that some of his teammates were on. He would never be on $600,000 a year like Benji. Wouldn’t even get close to the $500,000 a year Robbie earned.
“Because of that I always had to plan for what I would do after football,” Ryan said.
“My career could end at any moment and I would never get that big contract to set myself up. I started doing TAFE courses again and made some inquiries about training to be a real estate agent. I also spent a lot of time learning from Robbie, who I would live with for a while. Robbie was a genius. A super smart guy who was into investing and studying business. He had a lot of contacts and a really good network.
“I had to think about my post career more than the other guys because I was never going to earn enough through footy to be comfortable. I was one of the few that had to think and plan seriously. I was never on good money. I always had to think about the future. I had to treat every year as It was my last.”
Even the $200,000 he would earn in his biggest contract as Tiger wouldn’t be enough to set him up. But the TV career that started when he “dumped shit on Heighno” would.
BEAU KNOWS
The call came out of the blue.
“It was my manager,” Ryan said. “He told me that Garry Burns (Former Channel 9 Head of Sport) wanted to meet me.”
Ryan thought his manager, Wayne Beavis, had gotten him confused with someone else. By 2009, when he answered that call, Beau had been a first grader for just two years.
“I was a nobody,” Ryan said. “I asked him if he had the right bloke.”
Beavis did not just have the right bloke. He had the perfect bloke. Without a profile or the expectations that come with big money, Ryan could do things others couldn’t. And just two years into his career, Ryan had not become an expert in cliche. He was also a funny bastard.
“I went into Channel 9 and took Chris Heighington along,” Ryan said. “I sat across from Burns and he got straight to it.”
Burns put Ryan on the spot.
“He told me to say something funny,” Ryan said.
“I couldn’t’ think of anything so I just put some shit on Heighno. He laughed so I did it again. I ended up sitting there dumping on poor Heighno for about 10 minutes. He must have liked it because he organised to have a camera meet me after training to do some voxpops out at Leichhardt the following day.”
And the rest is history. Or it certainly would have been if he had played “shit” the following week.
DON’T PLAY BAD
It was the 80 minutes that would make or break Beau Ryan’s dream of becoming a TV star. The game that would determine if he would continue the three Tafe courses he had resumed or sign a TV contract with Nine.
“Tim Sheens came and spoke to me the day after I appeared on the Footy Show,“ Ryan said.
“I had been trying to avoid him because I didn’t think he would be impressed. I had managed to steer clear of him but he got me at the cafe during lunch.
The conversation went a little like this:
“You did the Footy Show,” Sheens asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You didn’t ask me if you could do it?’
“Can I do it?” I asked.
“Bit late now,” Sheens said.
“They want me back. Can I do it?
“Yes if you play well this weekend. No if you play shit.”
Ryan played well.
“It was mostly thanks to Benji,” Ryan said. “It was one of the games where he had it on a string.”
THE CELEBRITY
Ryan knew what he wanted to do after his first day filming: “I was nervous as hell until the camera was turned on. And then it just felt natural.”
With the help of James Rochford, who went on to become “the Professor”, Ryan soon became a media drawcard. His segment “Beau Knows” was an immediate hit and was widely regarded as the best thing on the NRL Footy Show.
“I knew that it was what I wanted to do with my life and pursued it from there. It became my focus away from football and I worked bloody hard at it. I stopped doing all the courses and training and focused fully on my media career. It was my apprenticeship and training. I had ten years of experience by the time I retired from football.”
Ryan’s success was not dumb luck. He worked as hard on a TV career as he did to make it into the NRL.
And the fact that he was able to continue his career outside of league following the collapse of the Footy Show proves as much.
“I had a couple of years to go on my contract when the Footy Show finished and I kept on asking for a chance to show my skills away from football,” Ryan said.
“I think they just saw me as part of the football show. I knew I could do something else. Get into the entertainment sphere. Again, I just needed an opportunity.”
Most thought he was washed up. Just another one trick pony that had bitten the dust.
“That first real opportunity came when I was asked to fill in for Kyle and host the morning show with Jackie on Kiss,” Ryan said. “It gave me an opportunity to show I was more than a footy guy and it really paved the way for what was to come next.”
Which turned out to be nothing short of Amazing.
SIMPLY AMAZING
Ryan walked away from Channel 9 and also knocked back a four year offer to host a 2GB sports show to pursue his latest dream, another long shot.
Forging a TV career outside of sport seemed almost unlikely as his bid to play NRL.
“I wanted to prove myself outside of football,” Ryan said. “And Channel 10 were willing to give me a shot.”
Proving himself meant starting at the bottom and working his way to the top.
“I started out with a couple of tough gigs like a live show called Sunday Takeaway,” he said. “It wasn’t quite what I wanted to do but they said to be patient. That they had something in mind for me. That they would have a show for me. That show ended up being the Amazing Race.”
Again Ryan thought they had the wrong bloke.
“I went home and watched some tapes,” he said. “I ended up calling them and telling them they had the wrong guy. That I couldn’t be like the other hosts. And they said that is exactly why they wanted me.”
LIVING THE DREAM
Gorgeous wife, a pigeon pair and a palatial home near the beach, Ryan has used rugby league to swap his rags for riches.
“I often think about where I was and how far I have come,” Ryan said.
“Every time I drive past a building site. It reminds me of what I have got and how hard I have worked for it. I have had all these opportunities because of my work ethic. Rugby league players know how to work hard. I believe they can all be a success after their careers. And I think they need to be active after retirement. They need to fill the void that is left with new challenges.”
Ryan wants his story to inspire the next generation of NRL players to off field success.
“I hate seeing some of the blokes I played with doing it tough,” Ryan said.
“Some guys just think they will fall into something when they finish. Some might, but most won’t. And there is no secret when it comes to getting something you want. You have to go for it. Have to give it everything you’ve got.”
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Originally published as Beau Ryan reveals how he became host of the Amazing Race
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