Melbourne boss wants Storm to be bigger than Collingwood and Richmond

Melbourne Storm chair Matt Tripp made his money in bookmaking and he is backing his club to become the biggest sporting organisation in the country.

Storm chairman Matthew Tripp, left, has high hopes for his club. Picture: Michael Klein

Melbourne chair Matt Tripp can’t help but aim high. So as the Storm prepare for their fourth grand final in five years at ANZ Stadium on Sunday night, Tripp — a bookmaker by trade who made his millions building and selling Sportsbet — is backing the club to become the biggest sporting team in the country.

Not just bigger than Brisbane and South Sydney. Bigger than Collingwood and Essendon. Bigger than Richmond and Geelong.

“I said to the guys at the start of the year that I cannot sit back and not want to dream big, that is to be the most prominent sporting team in the country,” Tripp told The Australian.
“In Melbourne we have Richmond and Collingwood and Essendon and the Demons. They are all bashing each other to death now to try to get market share.

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“We have Melbourne to ourselves, albeit a slightly foreign game. I don’t buy anymore that people don’t know rugby league or the Melbourne Storm.

“They are everyone’s second favourite team in Victoria. What the guys do on the field is taking us a long way to meeting some of those goals.

“You talk about seven years ago when we got involved with the club, the club was losing $6-7 million a year.

“We’re profitable. We had 12,000 members. We now have 26,000. We will have played in four of the past five grand finals.
“The club is in great shape and I need to make sure we maintain that. I didn’t take over the club to play second fiddle to the Broncos or to Souths, or for that matter to Richmond or Collingwood.

“We need to be the best we can be and that is where our sights need to be set — on becoming the most powerful sporting organisation in the country.”

Storm coach Craig Bellamy and captain Cameron Smith have kept the club at the top

Tripp developed an affinity for the Storm when he was working in Vanuatu in the 1990s. Back then, there was only one television station and rugby league was on repeat.

When there was talk of a Storm sale about a decade ago, Tripp was asked whether he would be interested. At the time, he owned and ran Sportsbet and simply didn’t have the time.

Two years later, the club’s founding father John Ribot asked Tripp whether he would reconsider and join a consortium with his predecessor as chair Bart Campbell and Jaycar giant Gerry Ryan.

This time, Tripp jumped at the chance.

“John Ribot introduced me to Bart,” Tripp said.

“When Bart was looking at it I had just sold out of Sportsbet and had a three-year non-compete. I had a little window and thought I might be able to contribute something there.

“That sparked my interest. I really enjoyed Bart’s company the first time I met him. He, Gerry and I got together and talked through some plans on what it might look like.

“We put together a five-year business plan that was pretty bullish and ambitious at the time — to double membership, win a premiership and be standing on our own two feet financially.

“Bart and the team have done a huge job in getting it to where it got too. It is my job now to get it to the next level.”

They took over a Storm outfit at the peak of their powers on the field. The constants since then have been coach Craig Bellamy, head of football Frank Ponissi and ageless captain Cameron Smith.

They have driven standards and maintained a culture that is unrivalled in the NRL, potentially in Australian sport. It is a standard Tripp is intent on maintaining no matter what happens in the aftermath to Sunday night’s grand final.

The expectation is that Smith will retire and Bellamy is weighing up an offer to move to the Broncos at the end of next season. The sense is that an era is coming to an end, although Tripp insists he will fight tooth and nail to ensure that the standards and culture are maintained no matter who remains.

“I marvel at them,” Tripp said.
“To have the season broken up, be told we couldn’t be in Victoria and not know when you can come home to family and young ones, to be able to front up every week and compete the way they have at the top level — we had a call earlier and I said to them I can’t think of a sporting team anywhere in the country who has given such satisfaction to their supporters in terms of knowing what they are going to get week in and week out.

“To consistently do it when the chips are down like these guys have done is remarkable. I think it has been incredible. I used to think what is it I could learn from this place that I could adapt in any business.

“I was quite curious and fascinated by how they kept fronting up every year, sometimes dealing with adversity be it the salary cap (scandal) or that they are Melbourne, a team in a foreign land so to speak.

“Now I am in the inner sanctum I understand how the place ticks. I just have to make sure I leave the club in better shape than when I got there.

“That is not easy because it was in great shape when I arrived.”