Client background
TGI Sport works across Australia's biggest codes, from AFL and NRL to cricket, rugby, netball and Olympic sports. It connects leagues, clubs, venues and brands with fans through stadium signage, media, partnerships and talent management. In 2024 it started a 10-year partnership with the AFL at the MCG and Marvel Stadium.
Its talent team represents athletes nationally, negotiating their playing contracts and brand deals. Clubs pay the fees, and finance tracks every contract year, bonus and payment. TGI Sport has run on Salesforce since 2013. In 2020, it brought in Fluent Group to support the platform and keep improving it.
The challenge
Salesforce was in place, but nobody had the time to keep improving it.
No one owning the next step
Finance owned the platform alongside its day job. The org was looked after, but there was no one looking at how it was used and what else it could do.
Contracts built in spreadsheets
A detailed player contract could take 15 to 20 minutes to set up, with incentives and payment schedules worked out in Excel first. An AFL contract has a different amount each year, no commission in a new signing's first year, games milestones, bonuses and match payments, and a standard opportunity couldn't hold all of it.
Changes meant starting again
When money moved on a contract, every payment schedule line had to be deleted one by one, then rebuilt. Each line took several clicks.
Why it mattered
Finance needs accurate contract figures for budgeting and forecasting, and the talent managers need the same numbers to manage their players. Contracts get renegotiated mid-year, so the figures have to be easy to change and easy to trust.
Our solution
We took a small step at a time, testing each change in a sandbox before it went live.
One set of numbers
We connected NetSuite to Salesforce on 1 September 2020, in the middle of the move from Classic to Lightning. Only new orders synced from go-live, so historical reporting stayed intact.
Booking to payment in one place
A talent booking starts as an opportunity and generates its own payment schedules. Invoices are produced as PDFs inside Salesforce, and ABA files handle the payments. When TLA rebranded to TGI Sport, we updated the Salesforce templates to match.
Fluent Care in the background
Salesforce releases, retired features and package upgrades are handled through Fluent Care, including moving old Workflow Rules and Process Builder automation to Flow before Salesforce switched them off.
Payment schedules in one click
Early in 2026, we changed how contracts are updated. Instead of deleting every schedule line, the team updates the figures for each year and presses one button. Salesforce rebuilds the schedules correctly.
Player contracts, properly
This year we built the player contract tools the team had wanted for a long time. Each contract year has its own amount and commission rate. Pick one of four templates and the full set of incentives appears, ready to edit. Bonuses, match payments and base pay each run on their own schedule, and rugby option years stay out of the money until they're triggered. Testing with the team is underway.
The results
Contract changes in one click
Updating a contract's payment schedules used to mean deleting every line and starting again. Now it's one button, saving around 15 minutes each time a contract changes.
That in itself is an incredible time saver. Previously, to update payment schedules on a contract, if money had moved or we needed to fix something, you had to delete every single line. Now it's literally update our figures per year, press one button and it generates them correctly again. I'd hate to think the amount of hours that have been saved there.
Tim GoodmanSenior Administrator (AFL), TGI SportOne source of truth for player contracts
The new player contract build gives finance and the talent team the same numbers. It's in testing now, and the team expects it to save around two hours a week, or 100 hours a year.
I honestly think the player contract one's probably been the game changer for us. It's always been a bit of a wish list item to get done properly.
Lachlan FoxGM of Finance, TGI SportIt's not only the time. It's having a central source of information that everyone who needs to see it can see, and it's accurate.
Tim GoodmanSenior Administrator (AFL), TGI SportMaintenance they don't have to think about
Salesforce updates and upkeep are handled through Fluent Care, so the team can focus on their own work.
With Fluent Care, I know the work's happening behind the scenes. Every time I get an email from Salesforce about updates, I know it's under control. I don't have to do anything.
Lachlan FoxGM of Finance, TGI SportSupport the whole team uses
What started with one main contact is now a relationship across the business, so it doesn't depend on one person.
The team at Fluent's always been very responsive and easy to deal with. People within our business are now connecting with the broader Fluent team, using the support and logging tickets in their client dashboard, which gives everyone full visibility of what's happening.
Lachlan FoxGM of Finance, TGI SportIn short
TGI Sport had Salesforce for seven years before we arrived. Since 2020, finance has had a partner looking after the platform and building what the team asks for, from a one-click schedule update to the player contract tools it had wanted for years.
