E45: The Champions League Question

At any sports business conference, there will be a moment when a strategy geek or rights owner will say they are pivoting to ‘more of a Champions League model’. So we asked one of the architects of the UEFA Champions League to explain why it’s not as straightforward as it sounds. Craig Thompson was a founding member of TEAM Marketing in the early 1990s, creating one of global sport’s most resilient and valuable brands. We talk about scarcity and choice, the failings of Michel Platini, how ’the Champions League model’ really works and why most rights owners can’t do it.A big thank you to our mates at Twelfth Man for helping set this interview up and for hosting us at their offices in Brick Lane, east London. And for letting us in their local afterwards. And then in their office bar after that.

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