Wayne's plan will make Telford Tigers roar

"They probably spent five or six hours calling every hotel in Miami and asking for Mr Scholes's room," says the new owner of Shropshire's ice hockey team, Telford Tigers.

"This guy was really angry. After five minutes, he admitted he wasn't so mad as what I had told him made a lot of sense, but he said 'I still hate you, and if I see you I'll kill you'."

He chuckles at the thought. "He had the motivation to do something, he could have created something awesome, but he chose to do this."

Suffice to say, people were unhappy about the Wellington-born entrepreneur's big bucks takeover of the Tigers, but it presented another opportunity for Wayne to do what he does best.

"Our whole strategy is to disrupt businesses wherever we go and thriving in the chaos. People said you're going to destroy the league. We actually made it a million times more competitive, where nobody knew who would win until a week before the end. Before, everybody knew who would win at Christmas. How boring is that?

"All we've done is build a competitive league. Annoying people was about 90 per cent of the fun."

So far, through his businesses Wayne has committed $500,000 (£300,000) to the Tigers, but insists he is not simply buying the league, but putting in infrastructure to make the team self-sufficient within two years.

He got involved when the trust that owned the club asked for sponsorship after seeing his company, Red Touch Media, sponsoring the Daytime Emmys.

At first, he put in £40,000, but found the deal reignited a passion for hockey that had been dormant since he was the team's own stick man 25 years hence.

Now, he says, he is turning the Tigers into best team in the country.

"There's no point doing things halfway," he says. "We've six full time staff and five full time players. It's a commitment. We've to open an office in Telford. Red Touch will open an office which will be Red Hockey, and we've been looking at Wellington.

"We want to expand our market, the whole point is to bring hockey back to the forefront of sports in Telford. Around 700-800 people attend, we used to have 2,500 and that means I see massive market growth. The heart and soul of Shropshire is the Wellingtons, Madeleys Newports and Shrewsburys. You've to bring those people to the ice rink.

"I personally know at least 40-50 people that come from Shrewsbury for every game. I refer to it as Tigers as people come from Wolverhampton, Bridgnorth, Shrewsbury, even Stoke to watch the Tigers. It's a local Midlands team. From a business perspective that's attractive."

A committed Mormon, living in Salt Lake City in Utah, the spiritual home of the church where 50 per cent of the population are fellow disciples of the Church of LatterDay Saints, Wayne grew up in Wellington,.

His mother Enid, now retired but still living in the town, was a cleaner working four jobs, while his father Peter was a trolley pusher in Morrisons in the town before he died in 2000 – "the most successful unsuccessful entrepreneur I ever met," his son says. "He would try anything, and never give up, but nothing ever worked."

Wayne's own path to a fortune was chequered, but altogether more successful.

He moved to London aged 16 before carrying out missionary work in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, where he learned the disciplines that have served him in business.

He moved to America, went broke in 2009, then to Africa to set up a television channel in Nigeria. While there he launched his own business while sleeping, family in tow, on a friend's floor.

Named after his 'really epic' Staffordshire Bull Terrier mutt Patch that he grew up with in Shropshire, Really Epic Dog is a collection of businesses including media company Red Touch, which turns over nearly £50 million, and incorporates the company that made him redundant.

Still a box holder at Liverpool FC, he has missed just three home games this season despite the long trip.

He is also often accompanied by his Californian wife Amber and four children, Bethia, Luke, Bradley and Lauren.

Wayne's other love in sport, though, was ice hockey, and he has now set up a new company, Red Hockey, to hold Telford Tigers.

Part of the investment in the club is through the Red Hockey Academy, which will open up the sport to disadvantaged local children and establish a girls' team. "A huge deal for us," he calls it, as he looks to build Telford Tigers into a self-supporting hockey giant in the UK.

"We think we can get back to 2,500 fans a week," says Wayne. "We've grown four-fold this year and will see the same again in the next two years. I think we could arguably get to 4,000 a game in five years.

"The capacity is 2,500 and that presents a fabulous problem to have in four years time. You have to talk to the council or build your own ice rink. You have to be able to meet the needs of the consumer and it's a great thing to expect.

"You can build a decent rink for £1.6-£2m. We would rather partner with the council and like dealing with the council. Who knows, maybe there's a reason to expand the ice rink."

He also believes the potential exists to turn hockey into a sport with viewers online and on television.

"Content is our business, we know how to make money out of it," he added. "There's money to be had from leveraging the brand from sponsorship and money to be had from things on match night.

"There's a million ideas you can come up with and it doesn't all have to come down to ticket sales."

"We are picking from a list of 70-80 ideas. Next season food will be taken to the crowd, for example. People can text us and say I want a hot dog, pay for it on their app, and we will deliver food to their seat. We want sponsors to get maximum value from their time in the rink. They don't get that if fans are in a line for food.

"People will be wandering around with bags of popcorn and candy floss to bring entertainment to the crowd. We will have more sponsorship on the ice during those breaks."

Now the Tigers are partnering with US teams for visits, including the Utah Grizzlies and an as-yet unnamed top tier NHL side, to be announced this summer. It's all about bringing people back again and again.

"It's about doing it the right way. It's no different to a hockey team in LA or New York," Wayne says.

"If we want people to bring friends, they'd better have a great story to tell. I want things to be fun.

"People came to me after the play offs and said 'that was such a fun night, we had a blast', and we say this – they haven't seen anything yet."