PRESS RELEASE: Richmond Football Club appoints global sports marketing leader Ravi Krishnan to spearhead landmark initiative to build Australia’s strongest connection with Indians
Richmond Football Club has appointed Indian – born, Australian – raised global sports marketing veteran Ravi Krishnan to spearhead a landmark strategic initiative designed to position Richmond as THE AFL club to which Indians – across the Australian and global diaspora and in India – feel most connected.
The initiative represents a long – term commitment to understanding one of Australia’s fastest – growing and most significant communities, recognising the opportunity to build enduring relationships through genuine partnership, cultural understanding and shared experiences.
Richmond is the one club to take what Ravi describes as a ‘Strong and Bold’ step (a deliberate echo of the Club’s own theme song) to developing and executable strategy in a substantive and structured manner. It is a decision Ravi says reflects genuine understanding on Richmond’s part of what it takes to build trust with the Indian community.
Working closely with Richmond, Ravi is leading a comprehensive discovery programme to better understand how Australian Indians engage with sport and popular culture, how sporting allegiances are formed across generations, and what enables a football club to build genuine trust, relevance and long – term loyalty within diverse communities. It also is a true Australia–India partnership: Ravi’s Mumbai office, led on the ground by Shivam Srivastava, working in tandem with the Australian effort throughout.
The work engages students, young professionals, families, community organisations and grassroots sporting participants while examining the cultural, demographic and behavioural factors that shape fandom. It will also identify opportunities for Richmond to strengthen future decisions across memberships, match – day experiences, community engagement, partnerships and broader commercial growth, including how Richmond can better monetise its connection with fans, through a long – term, evidence – based strategy.
With a career spanning more than thirty years across Australia, India, UK and other Global Territories, Ravi brings extensive hands – on experience creating and commercialising sporting properties, developing and monetising strategic partnerships, and building fan.
Ravi grew up in Melbourne and began his career as a lawyer before leading IMG’s expansion across India and South Asia. He has worked across cricket, tennis, golf, football, fashion and lifestyle, including, as Vice Chairman, helping establish the Rajasthan Royals along with close friend and Mentone Grammar School and St Kilda Cricket Club teammate Shane Warne, during the inaugural Indian Premier League season. More recently, his work has focused on advising sporting organisations on fan engagement, audience growth, monetisation and long – term commercial strategy.
The initiative reflects Richmond’s belief that meaningful engagement begins with understanding communities before seeking to engage them, creating a framework that can support sustained relationships for years to come.
Speaking about the project, Simon Matthews, Chief Operating Officer, Richmond Football Club said “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. We took a decisive step in choosing to work with Ravi, because we 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, grew up in Australia understanding the power of football firsthand.”
Ravi Krishnan added “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.
Living and working across Australia and India and global sport 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. Whilst 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.”
About Richmond
The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers or colloquially the Tiges, is a professional Australian rules football team competing in the Australian Football League (AFL). Founded in 1885 in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, the club competed in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) from 1885 to 1907, winning two premierships. Richmond then joined the Victorian Football League (now known as the AFL) from the 1908 season and has since won 13 premierships, most recently in 2020.
Richmond traditionally wears a black guernsey with a yellow sash. The club song, “We’re From Tigerland”, is well known for its “yellow and black” refrain.
About Ravi Krishnan
Over more than three decades, Melbourne – raised, Indian – born Ravi 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.
Beginning his career in Melbourne before helping build IMG India and South Asia into one of the region’s leading sports and entertainment businesses, Ravi, referred to as the ‘First Man of Sports’ by leading sports journal Sportzpower, created and commercialised a portfolio of properties that remain fixtures of the Indian sporting and cultural calendar. Among them: the Sahara Cup, the India–Pakistan cricket series staged in Toronto; the Chennai Open, India’s only ATP tennis tournament; the Philips National Football League, the country’s first national football competition; and Lakmé India Fashion Week, now Lakmé Fashion Week, which has run for more than twenty – five years and remains India’s largest fashion and lifestyle property.
In golf he brought Royal Challenge to the Indian Open, the national championship, and later the Avantha Masters on the European Tour. Alongside the properties themselves, Ravi negotiated the partnerships that funded them, including Sahara India Parivar’s sponsorship of the Indian cricket team, at the time the largest team sponsorship deal in the sport, and Mahindra’s title sponsorship of the inaugural Sri Lanka Premier League. His career has spanned cricket, tennis, golf, football, fashion, mass participation events and fan engagement, always with a focus on building, and monetising, enduring commercial and community value.
During the inaugural Indian Premier League season, Ravi served as Vice Chairman of the Rajasthan Royals, working alongside the late Shane Warne as the franchise captured the inaugural IPL title.
Ravi’s ability to combine strategic thinking with disciplined execution has also earned the respect of leading business figures. Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group, has described Ravi as “one of the most result – oriented and practical businessmen I know.” He added, “When he does business, you can be sure no time will be wasted in defining and achieving outcomes. In addition, he clearly excels at building and maintaining a large network of social and business relationships.”
Following his time at IMG, Ravi founded a global engagement platform that reached close to one million participants across sixty – five countries before evolving into an international fan engagement business working with organisations including Manchester City, the Women’s Rugby World Cup, the Gujarat Titans and now Richmond Football Club.
Ravi is also connected to a network of investors spanning ultra – high – net – worth individuals and senior sports marketing executives across Australia and India, giving him access to a broad and influential range of people across both markets.
Today, Ravi advises sporting organisations, rights holders and brands on fan engagement, commercial strategy, intellectual property and market expansion. His perspective is shaped not only by decades spent in boardrooms, but by hands – on experience creating businesses, forging partnerships and building fan communities across two of the world’s most dynamic sporting markets.
