Unofficial Partner Podcast

The market for in-game advertising and sponsorship is valued at around $8billion, and is predicted to more than double by the end of the decade. The audience is young, affluent and increasingly diverse, so it's unsurprising that big brand names are seeking ways in to this world, via the publishers of mobile and big box console game titles such as League of Legends, Call of Duty or FIFA. Great for brands, but what do gamers think of commercial messages gatecrashing their party? We asked today's guests, Ryan Snyder and David Wynn. David is Head of Solutions Consulting at Google Cloud for Games and Ryan is Head of Esports and Games at Nielsen Sports. To help frame the conversation, we asked Ryan to commission a special Unofficial Partner research panel, using Nielsen's Video Game Tracking survey, the premiere source for measuring consumer sentiment towards video game software on PC and console.The top line results are as follows:Gamers think Advertisements will disrupt gameplay (74%)Particularly acute among males 18-24 (82%)Youngest gamers (7-12) least likely to agree (70%)Willing to have brands advertise, if it means cheaper or free games (70%)Males (74%) more likely than females (64%) to agreeYoung males 7-12 are the most likely to agree (81%) while young females 7-12 are the least likely (58%)Appreciate advertisements that do not disrupt viewing experience (79%)Older males 35-54 most likely to agree (84%)Females 18-24 are the least likely to agree (71%)Advertisers are improving the gaming experience (57%)Strong split between males (62%) and females (48%)Even more stark among the 18-24 demo where males (69%) strongly agree while females (37%) languish behindBrands who advertise in game have a stronger connection to the gaming community (62%)Same story as "advertisers are improving" split between males (66%) and females (56%)Most stark in 18-24 demo males (65%) and females (45%)Listen to the podcast for analysis of this data and other questions facing the commercial side of esports.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

What's going to happen to the sports media and streaming market in 2023? We asked Bundle regulars Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett for their hopes, fears and predictions for the year ahead.Price hikes, subscription wars, economic woes and OTT white elephants; it's all here. Plus what the year holds for Disney, Sky, DAZN, the FAANGs and the a host of Drive to Survive wannabes. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Why are so many leading athletes putting their money in to early stage sports tech ventures? What are the pros and cons of having Serena Williams, LeBron James, Naomi Osaka, Tiger Woods or Lewis Hamilton on the cap table of investors? What is being traded for equity in the business, is it cash or fame, or access to the opportunity? And below the 1% of superstar athletes, how is this trend impacting the athlete endorsement market, where the nature of sport sponsorship is changing rapidly.To help us answer these and other questions are Ishveen Jolly and Andrew Petcash.Ishveen Jolly is CEO and Founder of OpenSponsorship, a global marketplace platform for sports sponsorship, matching brands to professional athletes, creators and influencers. Andrew Petcash is a former elite college basketball player turned sports entrepreneur, investor and author of the Profluence Sports newsletter and podcast that breaks down the business issues surrounding the emergence of the NIL market that allows college athletes to trade on their own name, image and likeness for commercial gain.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Kat Craig is an award winning human rights lawyer who has represented victims of some of sport’s most traumatising sexual abuse cases and played a central role in the remarkable story of the evacuation of women footballers from Afghanistan following the American withdrawal from the country and the subsequent Taliban-led regime in Kabul.In 2016, Craig co-founded Athlead sport and social-impact consultancy with her husband, Nick Wigmore to create the UK’s first not-for-profit consultancy specialising in athlete-led charity and social change.Athlead’s clients include UN agencies, national governments, major sport-for-development funders, and former Premier League footballers and Premiership rugby players. Kat and her team have developed and managed projects relating to gender equality, systemic racial injustice, refugee rights and social inclusion, mental health and childhood trauma. We talk about the potential and limits of sport's ability to affect social change, what's needed from those running institutions such as FIFA and the IOC and the challenges faced by athletes seeking to use their fame as a platform for good causes. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

How was it for you? That's the question we're asking in this final episode of 2022, in our review of the year in the sports business.Our guests are Sanjay Bhandari, who you just heard, Preeti Shetty, Joel Seymour Hyde and Matt Cutler. Sanjay is a lawyer, investor and Chair of Kick It Out, the football anti racism charity.Preeti is non executive board member of Brentford Football Club and founder of tech firm Upshot System.Joel Seymour Hyde is UK Managing Director of the sports marketing agency Octagon. And former SportBusiness editor Matt Cutler was until this week, the head of comms at Two Circles from where he's branching out in to new things in 2023.The recording took place at Two Circles offices in London.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

This year's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham was the biggest and costliest sports event held in the UK since the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Birmingham 2022 was the largest Commonwealth Games ever held, with 72 participating nations and over 1.3 million tickets sold. It was also the first to have more events for women than men and the first integrated event, with the para competition held at the same time. Alongside the Games, a cultural festival ran across the West Midlands, as well as a number of trade events and a Games specific esports event. It marked the last time that the Games were held under Queen Elizabeth II prior to her death on 8 September this year, which was exactly one month after the conclusion of the Games. According to UK government figures, the cost of the 11 day event was £778 million,  split between the central and local government in the form of Birmingham City Council, with the former paying three quarters (UK£594 million) of the total funding.So, what is the Commonwealth Games for? What does its sporting programme say about how international federations view the job of attracting new audiences? How vibrant is the sponsorship and media rights market around the event and beyond the ticket buying audience, who is watching?To help answer these questions is the person in charge, Kate Sadleir, Commonwealth Games Federation CEO, who took over the organisation in November 2021, the first woman to hold that post. A former Olympic and Commonwealth Games athlete, Sadleir held several senior sports roles within her native New Zealand before spending five years at World Rugby, where she was head of the women's game. This is episode 18 of ReThinking Sport, our series created in collaboration with Portas, the global strategy consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity.  The other voice you'll hear on the podcast is Peter Whight of Portas, who worked on secondment in the run up and through the Games. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

The Bundle is our regular series on the sports media and streaming market with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett, both fresh from appearing at SportsPro's OTT Summit in Madrid. Yannick is head of OTT at One Football and Murray is director of the DTC Consultancy, founder of 28West Sport and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN. Today, we talk about the return of Bob Iger to Disney, what that might mean for ESPN and why they've just bought the remaining bit of BAMTech they don't yet own. Then it's onto what 2023 holds for Warner Brothers Discovery, what that brand means, why FuboTV is getting out of betting, Amazon are getting into NFL talk shows and what the price of Apple's first MLS Season Ticket might mean for the market for sport.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Martin O'Neill, OBE won two European Cups as a player for Nottingham Forest under the legendary management duo of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor and earning 64 international caps for Northern Ireland including captaining the side at the 1982 World Cup. As a manager O'Neill became one of the most in-demand leaders of his generation, building a reputation as a deep thinker on the game from his start at Wycombe Wanderers, moving through stints in charge at Norwich City, Leicester City, Celtic, Aston Villa and Sunderland. In 2013, O'Neill was appointed Republic of Ireland manager, with Roy Keane as his assistant, and led them to qualification for the 2016 UEFA European Championship, for only the third time in the nation's history, beating the reigning world champions, Germany in the process. O'Neill remains one of the most interesting and erudite people in football, so it's fitting he's written a book detailing the story of his life and career. On Days Like These is published by Pan Macmillan. So we took the opportunity to ask Martin O'Neill what he's learnt about how football works, from the dugout to the boardroom. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

There's a race on to define the next era of the sports business. The winners will reap enormous financial returns. The losers will likely disappear from view. Sports media and gambling have always been bedfellows. But what comes next is a complete convergence of the two, a seamless offer that puts betting at the very centre of the business model.  The appeal is obvious: Gambling companies gain access to valuable new customers; sports teams and leagues gain new licensing opportunities and fan engagement channels; and media companies retain and increase viewer interest, driving increased advertising revenue. But there are barriers too: cost of technology, the threat of legislation and the basic marketing problem of differentiation between the mass of platforms now available to fans.We discuss each of these with today's guest Sam Sadi, CEO of gaming and media business, LiveScore Group, one of the runners in the convergence race which delivers real-time sports scores and free-to-air live streams along with gambling opportunities via LiveScore Bet and Virgin Bet. The company recently received a £50m strategic investment from Swiss media company Ringier, which values the LiveScore Group business at £500m.As you'll hear, this is a frank and often revealing conversation about one of the most important macro trends in the sports business today. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Everything you need to know about ambush marketing, the dark art of associating with a major event without paying to be an official sponsor. We've gathered a posse of the smartest experts in fields such as brand marketing, sponsorship, sports law, creative and sales promotions agencies. Together we pick apart the idea of official partnership, that underpins the commercial model of FIFA and other sports governing bodies. Official partners buy category exclusivity and have contracted rights to the imagery and marques, protecting their investment from rival brands trying to leverage the massive global interest in the World Cup. But...does it work? Is category exclusivity a promise that can be delivered? Do fans and customers know or care about the official - unofficial divide? Are ambushers seen as exciting mavericks or boring chancers, and can the sports economy evolve beyond the official partner concept to a model that better suits today's marketing environment?  Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.