Mick Watson

Watson attended Marist Brothers Parramatta in Sydney's western suburbs, representing the school in cricket, rugby league, athletics and swimming.^{[citation needed]}

He spent 12 years working in the 'Cola Wars'. From 1986 to 1992, he worked for Coca-Cola, moving through the ranks of marketing and sales. From 1992 to 1998 he was with Pepsi Cola, working with athletes, creating sports sponsorship and was also responsible for sports and event marketing.^[2]

He joined Kellogg's in 1998. He was responsible for re-engineering sports properties and helping Kellogg's deliver their business plan for the first time in 19 years.^[3]

In November 2000, Watson was appointed chief executive officer of the New Zealand Warriors, shortly after chairman Eric Watson purchased the New Zealand licence to compete in the National Rugby League.^[4] He was involved with the club when they made the finals series of the NRL for 3 consecutive years (2001, 2002 and 2003).^[5][6][7] Under his leadership the club secured its first title, winning the J.J. Giltinan Shield for the minor premiership in 2002. The same year the Warriors made its NRL Grand Final for the first time.^[8]

Watson resigned from the Warriors at the end of the 2005 season.^[9] Warriors' majority shareholder Eric Watson said Watson had played a huge role in rebuilding the club. "When we had problems in 2004, Mick had to remove himself from Cullen Sports projects and come back into the rugby league business," he said.^[10] During Watson's time at the Warriors, the club reached the NRL finals for the first time in their history (2001), repeated the feat the next two seasons and, in 2002, also won the minor premiership and made the grand final for the first time but in the past two years he has fallen out with leading media outlets for periods.^[11]