The 2024 Paris Olympics helped shine a light on some niche sports which do not usually enjoy the limelight in the other sports like football, rugby, tennis and boxing do.
Rowing is one such example of this. The sport has a very long history in the UK, where events like the Henley Royal Regatta and Oxford Cambridge boat race stand out as some of its biggest fixtures.
In part two of this interview with Insider Sport, Richard Phelps, Chair of the Henley Royal Regatta, explains the sport’s long-term approach to growth and sustainability.
The Henley Royal Regatta has a motto of ‘evolution not revolution’. Can you explain what this entails? How does this influence the event’s approach to both governance and business?
We believe in respecting tradition while embracing innovation to ensure growth without losing authenticity. This means preserving our heritage while adapting to modern demands.
Sustainable growth requires meaningful, lasting transformation. A key part of our long-term vision is achieving gender parity – not through symbolic gestures but through structural change.
In 2025, we are introducing a new women’s event and rebalancing existing events to create greater equity across the racing programme. These steps are designed not just for today, but to establish a foundation for lasting progress, ensuring that opportunities for female athletes continue to expand and that parity becomes an integral part of the Regatta’s future.
At the same time, we remain committed to financial stability, carefully introducing innovations that strengthen the Regatta’s position while maintaining fiscal responsibility. Whether it’s modernising aspects of the event, enhancing accessibility, or broadening engagement, every decision is made with long-term sustainability in mind.
The Regatta is overseen by a body of Stewards, who embody the principle of Stewardship – a responsibility to preserve and improve the event for future generations. It is our duty to ensure that we hand the event on to the next generation in a better state than we found it.
Finance is a difficult area for many different sports; what financial challenges have you faced in recent years, and how has the Regatta responded?
Rowing is a relatively expensive sport which doesn’t have the income of other mainstream sports. Somewhere between those two extremes, the sport has to survive and we need to provide a window for rowing clubs to attract funding.
It is therefore important for Henley Royal Regatta to raise its profile and bring the sport to the masses.
Rowing is traditionally, perhaps stereotypically, viewed as a sport for privileged males — can you outline how Henley Royal Regatta will contribute to more inclusivity in the sport?
We have a commitment to gender parity – this means not only expanding opportunities for women’s events but also increasing visibility for female athletes.
Following our AGM on 10 December, Henley Royal Regatta confirmed the introduction of a new Women’s 8+ event, “The Bridge Challenge Plate,” for the 2025 Regatta – the first-ever Women’s event in the Intermediate category. This new 8+ event aims to bridge the gap between Premier and Club/Student levels, reinforcing the Regatta’s commitment to gender parity and expanding opportunities for female competitors.
We support initiatives that bring rowing to communities that might not typically have access to the sport, including scholarships and outreach programs facilitated through our Charitable Trust.
By modernising aspects of the Regatta, like live streaming and digital engagement, we’re making rowing more accessible to all audiences and, in turn, inspiring the next generation of rowers.
As sports consumption habits change and technologies continue to evolve, how does the Regatta aim to keep its event as engaging for spectators and viewers as possible?
This can be broken up into the on-event experience and online viewing experience.
For the spectators, we have around 70 races per day in the early part of the week, with a race every five minutes. Those spectators always have something to watch, and we try to balance the racing schedule across all the different cohorts – with a good ratio of men’s and women’s races, universities, student crews and Olympic athletes.
Meanwhile, online, we’ve innovated the broadcast offering and our social media content. We were the first sports event to broadcast live footage from a drone, putting us at the forefront of that change in how the sport of rowing is consumed. The drone has revolutionised the filming of rowing, allowing us to really capture the excitement of the racing.
The advent of every race being live broadcast free-to-view has radically improved our ability to engage spectators. Moving forwards, we are exploring how we can show more data on-screen during the broadcast to further engage our audience.
Thanks for taking the time to speak with us, Richard. To close things off, how would you summarise your long-term strategy for the future of the Regatta?
It is three-fold. The first is inclusion through gender parity and increasing the accessibility of our event both in-person and online, fostering excellence within the sport and ensuring Henley is a welcoming, inclusive event.
The second is digital access, expanding our digital presence and storytelling to reach new audiences globally, continuing to bring in new fans and athletes alike.
The final point is sustainability – both environmentally and economically – which all goes back to the Stewardship and making sure the Regatta is handed on to the next generation in a stronger position.
