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The slam dunk success of the Plymouth Raiders


It’s just over two years since Richard Mollard and Ross Mackenzie took over the reins of the city’s only top flight sports team, the Plymouth Raiders Basketball Club. In just their second season the two local businessmen saw their club not only reach the playoffs for the first time in six seasons, but also caused the biggest upset of the season when they beat the League’s number one seed the London Lions in the competition’s Quarter Final. Recently, Chamber Profile caught up with Raiders’ Co-owner and Director, Richard Mollard to discover how the journey has been so far.


Running a professional sports club is notoriously difficult. What was it that tempted you into taking the club on?


For me it’s quite simply a case of family, as my father Keith Mollard was one of the founders of the club back in 1983. I was a ball boy in the very first season and, until I moved away from Plymouth in 1998 I was heavily involved with just about every aspect of the club, from helping set-up game nights and designing the programme, to playing as a junior and finally representing the club as a senior player. So, basketball and the


Raiders are very much in my blood and when the opportunity arose I was excited about the challenge.


With two years now under your belt, has it been everything you expected and what have been your biggest challenges?


When the takeover finally went through we were just six weeks away from the start of the season and we had no coach and no team. Although we’d been having some discussions in the background, until the ink was dry on the contract we were in no position to start formal recruitment. With so little time to prepare, as


you can imagine, just getting to the end of season one was a challenge and that showed with the results on the court. This was incredibly frustrating, as although we were working hard behind the scenes to build a firm foundation both on


and off the court, it’s the results on the court that are most visible to our fans and followers and understandably they were not where we hoped they would be.


As you say, a lot of what goes on at a sports club is unseen. What were your particular areas of focus from a business perspective once you had got your feet under the table?


Initially it was about just taking stock and getting to know the intricacies of the Raiders’ business model and evaluating what worked and what didn’t. There are so many moving parts to a basketball club it can be like running five different businesses. First and foremost, we wanted to


‘Basketball


and the Raiders are very much in my blood’


recapture the family feel of the club again, as we’d felt for some time that this was an aspect that had fallen away in recent years. We wanted to reconnect with our fan base and we did this by just being open and honest as much as we could. Even through the difficult first season, where results didn’t go our way, having this open approach reassured fans that we were taking the club in the right


direction. Secondly, it was about getting


to know our corporate partners and understanding their needs. We should not be relying on the goodwill of sponsors and partners to invest in the club, we need to be sure that we’re also delivering a vital service to them in return. Every time I meet with existing or new partners the conversation is the same: ‘what do you want to achieve by working with the Raiders and are we delivering to expectation?’ By ensuring we are delivering


what our partners require, whether that be brand awareness or driving


6Chamber Profile Autumn 2019


business sales for example, we can grow long term partnerships based on mutual benefit and trust. Finally, it’s about having the right


people around you to breed success. Our job is to make sure we have the right people in the right positions, such as the Coach and General Manager and do everything in our power to enable them to do the best job possible.


You are one of three professional sports clubs in the city. What is it that sets the Raiders apart from Plymouth Argyle and Plymouth Albion?


Well, firstly we play in the warm and there’s only ever been one time in the club’s history where a game has been affected by rain. In all seriousness, we have a


great working relationship with both professional clubs in the city and we’ve been working together for some time regarding collaborating ready for next year’s Mayflower 400 celebrations. However, I feel over the past two


years that we’ve finally positioned ourselves as the top family sport in the city and we’re seeing more and more partners coming onboard on


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