Brad Harris and James Sinclair founded The Sporting Globe brand in 2009, and they’re about to open their first franchise – which comes as no surprise considering their backgrounds.

Sinclair’s father is the CEO of San Churro, meanwhile Harris’s father Geoff was one of the founders of Flight Centre and a major investor in Boost Juice.

“The Sporting Globe model was always created with the idea of franchising in mind – in the US many of the successful sports bar models have often been franchised and some of them have several hundred locations over there, so the business was designed with distinct branding, product specialisation and operating systems to allow it to eventually become a successful franchise,” Sinclair explains.

THE BRAND

He describes The Sporting Globe as “a hospitality and sports entertainment brand inspired by America’s popular sports bar concept,” and the pair currently has three company owned venues in operation across Victoria – Geelong, Fountain Gate and Moonee Ponds.

Each offers a pub-style food and drink menu as well as extensive sports coverage. “We provide a high quality casual food environment, a large range of beers on tap and a welcoming atmosphere.

“All of our venues are fit out with state-of-the-art audio visual equipment, so they’ve usually got a huge hero screen as well as multiple LED panels and displays so that if there’s a game on you can catch it from every angle – it just creates a really good, exciting environment for not only major sports but everything in between.”

Sinclair explains the concept is unlike the stereotypical Australian pub where males sit together and bet on the horse races, for example.

“It’s a family friendly dining environment and women attend our venues – The Sporting Globe is far more a social hangout than necessarily a dedicated sports bar.

“Sport is something that I think crosses all demographics – everyone’s got an interest in some sort of sport so it’s a really good talking point,” he explains.

THE FIRST FRANCHISE

Sinclair and Harris will open their first franchise in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond by mid-May and it’ll be headed up by retired Richmond fullback Kelvin Moore and his business partner Sean Kagan.

“Kelvin retired two years ago yet he’s still got a passion for sport and he’s a really good people person. He was in the club’s leadership group too, so is really confident in leading and working with a young team of people, which works well considering he and Sean will have around 55 staff aged around 18 to 20-something –it’s a similar age bracket to a football club in that respect.

“Sean has worked in cafes and pubs so he has more of a hospitality background,” adds Sinclair.

The Richmond site is set to be the company’s largest yet, and it’s licensed to hold 625 people. “It’s got a rooftop deck, large function room, a restaurant that caters for about 140 people plus another large sports bar that’s complete with about 65 screens,” he says.

THE IDEAL FRANCHISEE

While it’s considered a bonus, Sinclair and Harris value personality traits above prior experience.

“We’re looking for people that are honest, good with people and able to manage and lead a team. It’s really important that they have the skills to be able to motivate, coach, manage and develop a large number of people – that’s probably the most important thing we are looking for,” he explains.

“We can teach people how to make different bar items or elements of the kitchen and how to run the business – it’s the people management skills that are a huge benefit.”

Sinclair acknowledges the sheer size of the brand’s franchises may influence who invests. “It’s a more expensive set-up, fit-out and business overall than franchises such as Boost Juice and San Churro, so I think we could foresee our future franchisees in some circumstances being a partnership of two people rather than just one individual.”

TRAINING

When franchisees enter the system they’ll first take part in staff induction training and then they’ll undergo the management training process.

“It involves training across what are the key management KPIs including cost and revenue centres, marketing, managing people, operational support on the night – which covers what the managers should be doing to support their staff, and learning how to train staff in different systems.”

Ongoing support is extensive, and includes:

• Ongoing venue audits to make sure franchisees are following systems and procedures.
• Marketing support, which includes the management of social media, upcoming promotions, EDMs and the company’s club loyalty program.
• Menu design and development.
• Management accounting and reporting.
• Payroll execution.
• Supplier procurement.
• Fit-out design and development assistance.

“I guess the goal was to offer people who aspire to own the own business a competitive advantage over independent operators because they are able to focus on the one thing that matters the most, which is looking after the customer and of course their staff,” Sinclair explains.

EXPANSION

Sinclair and Harris hope to eventually open sites across the country; however Victoria is currently the key focus.

“We’d like to open another two sites in Victoria within the next 12 months and our goal for 2015 is to find a site and hopefully a good franchisee interstate.

“Certainly we would love to be in all of the states around Australia and we’re keen to embark on that journey next year,” he adds.

COST

The cost of a franchise will vary according to the size of the site – the brand’s Fountain Gate store is around 400sqm meanwhile its Geelong venue is over 1000sqm.

“Typically initial investment can start at around $750,000 and can go up to $1.5 to $2M plus for a really big venue,” Sinclair says. 

Images: sportingglobe.com.au