Ep 38: Richard Scudamore in conversation with Jimmy Worrall

Leaders CEO Jimmy Worrall sits down with English Premier League Executive Chairman Richard Scudamore.

 

In a rare and comprehensive one-on-one, Scudamore reflects on his tenure at the top of England’s biggest sports league, and arguably the country’s most visible and successful foreign export.

 

Since taking charge in 1999, Scudamore has spearheaded an era of unprecedented and extraordinary growth in English football, cementing and extending the Premier League’s status as the number one league in world football. Financial growth has been built largely on the back of pioneering work on the league as a broadcast product. Under Scudamore, domestic rights deals have grown from $900 million for a four-year cycle, to the current three-year domestic deals which are worth over $6.7 billion. International rights in the current cycle are worth another $5.1 billion.

 

Last week, shortly after concluding a game-changing deal with Amazon that will see the digital retail behemoth move into Premier League broadcasting for the first time, and having reached an agreement with the 20 Premier League teams to tweak the revenue distribution model, Scudamore announced that he would be stepping down from his role at the end of the year.

 

In the first of a series of conversations between Leaders CEO Jimmy Worrall and the most senior figures in world sport, Scudamore sat down for a recording of the Leaders Podcast in the final week of the Premier League season, a few weeks before the announcements were made.

 

On the conversational agenda:

 

• The future of media consumption and why ‘moderated content’ will remain compelling and valuable;
• The Premier League’s commitment to social intervention and community programming;
• The league’s ambitions in esports;
• The potential consequences of Brexit for English football;
• The skillsets required to keep 20 Premier League teams together, all ‘equally dissatisfied’;
• The benefits of government and media scrutiny;
• The leaders Scudamore most admires and his advice for his younger self.