New Delhi: Australia-based Richmond Football Club has roped in Indian-born sports marketing veteran Ravi Krishnan with the aim to drive Indian fan engagement.
Krishnan will spearhead a strategic initiative designed to position Richmond as an Australian Football League (AFL) club, which connects to Indians, across Australia and the global diaspora. He will also lead a comprehensive discovery programme to better understand how Australian Indians engage with the sport and popular culture.
“I became a Richmond fan at five years old. Football helped me assimilate into Australia at a time when this country looked very different and Indian faces were few and far between. That experience taught me something I’ve carried ever since: the power of football to build community and belonging,” said Krishnan.
Krishnan’s career spans more than thirty years across Australia, India, UK. He has an extensive hands-on experience creating and commercialising sporting properties, developing and monetising strategic partnerships, and building fans.
“Indians represent Australia’s fastest-growing community. We believe there is a significant opportunity for Richmond to build genuine, long-term relationships that extends well beyond football. This is about the future of our Club,” said Simon Matthews, Chief Operating Officer at Richmond Football Club, in a press release.
Matthews added they chose to work with Krishnan because they want Richmond to become the club Indians genuinely feel connected to—and that means taking the time to listen, understand and build trust before making decisions.
“There is no one better credentialed in this market to guide that journey. Ravi has lived and worked on the ground in India at the highest levels of sport and entertainment, and grew up in Australia understanding the power of football firsthand,” she said.
The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers or colloquially the Tiges, is a professional Australian rules football team competing in the AFL. It was founded in 1885 in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. The club won its most recent premiership in 2020.
Who is Ravi Krishnan?
Ravi Krishnan grew up in Melbourne and began his career as a lawyer before leading New York-based International Management Group’s expansion across India and South Asia.
Krishnan has worked across cricket, tennis, golf, football, fashion and lifestyle, including, as Vice Chairman, helping establish the Rajasthan Royals along with close friend and cricketer Shane Warne, during the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) season.
More recently, his work has focused on advising sporting organisations on fan engagement, audience growth, monetisation and long-term commercial strategy.
Krishnan has built a reputation as one of the few global sports marketing veterans to have successfully bridged the sporting, commercial and cultural landscapes of both Australia and India. He said that living and working across Australia and India has reinforced one simple truth: fans follow teams, not leagues.
“Fans don’t support the AFL, the IPL, the NFL or any competition in the abstract — they support their team and their heroes,” Krishnan said.
He added that the AFL is doing important work at a macro level, but it’s what individual clubs do that will decide where fans place their feet, their hearts, their minds and ultimately their wallets.
“And when it comes to engaging Indians in India specifically, my experience is that you have to approach them with both head and heart,” said Krishnan.