Perfectionist driven to make Classics the best
Karl Budge admits he is a “bit obsessed”. Well, perhaps very obsessed. Not just about tennis, though the ASB Classic tournament director admits he has spent almost his entire adult life “chasing yellow, fluffy balls”, but also about every minute detail of his two flagship events.
When we meet a few days before the women’s tournament, which starts tomorrow, Budge is unimpressed with what seems a trivial matter.
Some sponsorship boards on an outside court are dusty and stained, while the balcony railings inside a corporate area are also far from spick and span.
“I’m not happy with dirty signage turning up,” Budge tells the Herald on Sunday. “Dirty signage quickly turns into dirty courts, which turns into dirty appearances . . . it catches on very quickly. I realise we will never be a grand slam. But if we act like one, the rest will take care of itself.”
Budge drives himself hard, with 18-hour days across the tournament fortnight, and is also relentless with his staff and suppliers.
“Do I upset people? Probably,” says Budge. “I’m quite hard, high expectations, and you have to sometimes drag people with you when you do that. Close enough is not good enough. I set the goal when I came back that I wanted to turn these tournaments into New Zealand’s best annual sporting events. I knew we could raise the level and I am bloodyminded enough to want to do it.”
Budge was appointed to the role in July 2012, his chances helped by references from Maria Sharapova’s agent, the head of the WTA Tour and the Australian Open chief executive.
“I wanted to blow them away and knew no one would be able to match those,” Budge says. “I’m an egotistical chap — I had no interest in applying
for a job if I wasn’t going to get it.”
At the time, he stated that he wanted to transform the event “from a Toyota Camry to a BMW”.
“It was a very good tournament before,” said Budge. “It did everything you would want it to do. It had good players, good following, good sponsorship. It was good. But I thought it could be more.”
By any measure Budge, who dropped out of school aged 16, has succeeded.
He says that net profit has risen 230 per cent and tickets sales 200 per cent since 2012, and food and beverage sales have jumped from $1.2 million to $2.8 million.
Much of that growth has been driven by off-court changes around the site, from pie cart to fine dining, but it still hinges on the ability to attract marquee players every year, which Budge has done.
“If you want to come out and make a statement, you don’t come out and say ‘we will start here and grow to that point’,” says Budge. “You are never going to get to that point, you will fall over before you get there. For me, you come out and get the best, and then when you get the best, everyone will go on that journey with you.”
That has occurred in recent years, when some of the most recognisable sportswomen on the planet turned up at Stanley Street.
“Ana [Ivanovic], Venus [Williams] and Caroline [Wozniacki] really helped transform this tournament,” said Budge. “I don’t think we could have turned it around had we not gone after those players.”
Budge has a limited budget compared with many other tournaments but isn’t afraid to splash the cash. He estimates he has overspent on his recruitment budget each year, including close to $200,000 to secure Serena Williams’ signature last year.
“People ask me all the time, ‘was Serena worth it?’ Well, on that Monday morning, we had seven tickets left to sell for the rest of the week, so I’d say she was worth it.”
Budge left Pukekohe High at 16 — “It wasn’t so much only turning up to eat my lunch, but turning up to play rugby at lunchtime” — with a highest School Certificate mark of 56 in geography.
After a job in telesales — “By far the best learning curve I’ve ever had” — he did an internship at the Warriors after a chance encounter with then chief executive Mick Watson at a conference.
Budge then spent four years at Tennis Australia before heading up business development for the WTA Tour. He was close to a job at Manchester United but was stymied by work visa issues before the Auckland opportunity arose.
He is no longer star struck by the big names he constantly encounters, but admits there are still pinch yourself moments, like having breakfast in London this year with Ivanovic and husband Bastian Schweinsteiger, the former Bayern Munich and Manchester United midfielder who won the 2014 World Cup with Germany.
“Ana [Ivanovic] has been off tour for a year-and-a-half and we still talk every other week,” says Budge. “That is pretty cool. We all caught up for breakfast together during Wimbledon this year and as I was walking back to the Tube, I wondered how many Instagram followers I just had breakfast with [more than 10 million, for the record]. But they were just two people, no different to catching up with your friends on a Saturday.”
Budge prides himself on the relationships he has built with players and agents, and always strives to go the extra mile. He arranged for Serena Williams to have a karaoke machine in her hotel room, while sister Venus drinks only one particular brand of mineral water. Another player arrived with a new sponsorship deal, and wanted all her clothing embroidered with the new logo, even though it was Boxing Day in Auckland.
“Somehow we had to make it happen,” said Budge. “But it is good that players know they can ask, ‘hey Karl, can I have this?’ At other tournaments, there possibly wouldn’t be that same rapport.”
Budge has other sporting projects in the pipeline — he plans to bring the Formula E racing series to Auckland in 2019 — but is also committed to expanding the ASB Classic.
“I’ve got more ideas to make this event bigger and better,” said Budge. “I spent 94 days out of the country last year, which isn’t good for the family, and going to Wimbledon these days is almost a frustration as opposed to something you look forward to. But I still love what I do . . . I’ve got one of the best jobs in the world.”