The Ultimate PLAIbook

Deacon Manu's rugby journey is a remarkable one - from a university student eating instant noodles to captaining Fiji at the 2011 Rugby World Cup, by way of the Chiefs, the Māori All Blacks, and more than 15 years as a professional player. Today, Deacon is a world rugby educator, Chairman of the Pacific Rugby Players, and a senior leader at Dulwich College in Singapore. In this episode, host Scott...

The Real ROI of Running a Sports Club (It's Not What You Think) ROI in community sport isn't just about money – it's the time you get back, the culture you build, and the community you hold together. In this solo episode, PLAI founder Scott McKechnie delivers a frank, practical breakdown of what separates well-run grassroots clubs from ones that are one bad decision away from serious trouble. Draw...

What does it actually cost a sports club to get governance wrong? More than most realise. In this episode, Scott McKechnie sits down with Kelly Reynolds - a sports governance expert with board-level experience across Golf Australia, elite women's sport, and high-performance rugby - to unpack what separates thriving clubs from those quietly dying. They go deep on the uncomfortable truths most club...

Episode 5 of The Ultimate PLAIbook is LIVE: Sport is the Hook, but Community is the Glue . This is our second Inside the PLAIbook founder monologue, where Scott McKechnie goes deeper on one of the biggest truths in grassroots sport: people may join for the game, but they stay for the feeling . Following ⁠Episode 4 ⁠ with David Jones (former General Manager of Singapore Cricket Club), Scott unpacks...

In Episode 4 of The Ultimate PLAIbook , Scott McKechnie sits down with David Jones , General Manager of the Singapore Cricket Club, to unpack one of the most important & least understood drivers of success in community sport: community itself. Because while sport may be the thing that first brings people through the gate, it’s community, culture, belonging and connection that make them stay, c...

Community sport looks simple from the outside. Matches on weekends. Parents on the sidelines. Kids in kit. Volunteers making it happen. But behind every session is a complex balancing act of several factors such as time, money, expectations, governance, culture and sustainability. In this episode, we sit down with Corentin Balmet and Toby Rakison to unpack what’s really happening inside grassroots...

Cash poor. Time poor. People poor. This Inside the PLAIbook episode unpacks the themes from our recent discussion with Prantik Mazumdar and turns them into a practical action plan for community sports clubs. We go deeper into: • Knowing your numbers and stopping revenue leakage • Building sustainable margins as a non profit • Moving to 12 month subscription models • Reducing admin through centrali...

Community sports clubs do vital work, but many of them are quietly struggling. In this conversation, Scott sits down with Prantik Mazumdar to unpack a hard truth most clubs avoid: sport may be community-driven, but it is still a business. When clubs don’t treat it like one, volunteers burn out, money leaks through the cracks, and organisations slowly disappear. Drawing on decades of experience acr...