Unofficial Partner Podcast

Our guests today are Ben Nicholas and David Tryhorn, the creators behind a new Netflix documentary, The Figo Affair: The Transfer That Changed Football. The film chronicles a three week period in 2000 when the superstar Portuguese player Luis Figo left Barcelona for arch rivals Real Madrid. The result was a political storm, the legacy of which remains in place today. The deal heralded the beginning of Real Madrid’s galáctico era and with it a shift in how football transfer market works, all told by a cast including some very familiar faces, such as Pep Guardiola and Real Madrid president Florent Perez. We talk about how Netflix works, the problem of sourcing archive footage and the motives of famous sports stars when it comes to making high profile documentaries. This podcast is sponsored by Leaders Week London, which kicks off on Monday 26th September and culminates in the two day Leaders Summit at Twickenham Stadium in west London on the 28th and 29th. See the full Leaders Week agenda via leadersinsport.com/UP and as a listener to Unofficial Partner you can bag a 15% discount on your pass for The Summit, just enter the discount code ‘UP15’ at the checkout.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.

September always has a back to school vibe and with it comes the start of conference season, an opportunity for all us to get away from our computer screens and meet people out there in the real world.This brings with it the subject of networking, the skill of building valuable relationships with people who may or may not be of use to your personal professional development. To talk about the best and worst ways to do this are Laura McQueen, Managing Director of Leaders in Sport, who's in charge of Leaders Week London, taking place from Monday 26th September, and Sean Singleton, the co-founder of Unofficial Partner, who has blagged his way through more conference free lunches than anyone in Western Europe. We talk about how to plan to get the best results, the worst food to eat while standing up and how to avoid getting stuck with boring people who are of no commercial use to you.If you want to extend your own sports business network, join us for Wise UP, the Unofficial Partner Web3 Brainstorm, taking place at Emirates Stadium in London on the evening of Wednesday 21st September. And, sign up for our weekly newsletter, that goes direct to thousands of people across sport, every Thursday. You can find links to both of these at UnofficialPartner.comUnofficial 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.

Adam Kelly has been at IMG for over twenty years and is now the president of IMG Media, overseeing the four core units of rights sales, production, betting and digital media, the latter part via the recently acquired Seven League.In May this year IMG announced a twelve year strategic partnership with The Rugby Football League (RFL) and Super League Europe, with the headline objective to ‘reimagine Rugby League and its competitions in the UK’. The agreement follows the recent decision for the RFL and Super League to realign and form a new joint venture company.So what does IMG see in the sport of Rugby League and what does re-imagining mean in 2022? This is a way in to a conversation about how the storied agency views the sports landscape today, the pitfalls that await nascent sports, and the challenge of communisation in the sports marketing agency sector. This podcast is sponsored by Leaders Week London which returns this at the slightly earlier than usual date of 26th to 29th September 2022. Over 70% of LW LDN attendees are at Director level or above. From the Premier League to WWE, BT Sport to DP World Tour, they’ll all be there this September. In addition to the talks going on across three stages, there’s networking breakfasts, forums (like the Brand and Sponsorship Forum), think tanks (the Broadcast Disruptors Think Tank for example), tech showcases on the exhibition floor and the list goes on – you can tailor your Leaders Week London experience to best suit you.The two day Summit, part of Leaders Week, will be held at Twickenham Stadium on 28th and 29th September. Even better, you can use UP15 for a 15% discount on your Summit passes. Visit leadersinsport.com/UP for more information.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 acronym OTT has become ubiquitous in recent years, but what does it really mean, and what are the implications of the decisions being made today by sports organisations big and small.  OTT stands for “Over The Top” and refers to the way a streaming service delivers content over the internet. The service is delivered “over the top” of another platform. The term has become ubiquitous across the sports business in recent years, talking to the options now available to fans, beyond the traditional cable TV subscription. OTT comes with a set of questions, about the ability of individual sports federations, governing bodies, leagues and teams to go direct to their customer, mirroring services such as Netflix, Spotify or Disney+.  It’s an appealing idea, enabling sports bodies to capture first party customer data, build competitive tension in the rights market and ultimately, hopefully, make more money. But, as we hear from our guests Mike Emery and Murray Barnett, there’s no one size fits all solution and often a gulf between the idea of ‘going OTT’ and the reality. Mike is CEO and Founder of Joymo.tv, a streaming platform that makes it easy for any sport club, federation, league and event, anywhere in the world, to broadcast their valuable content to fans across the globe. In addition to being a regular panellist on The Bundle, the Unofficial Partner series on the sports media market, Murray Barnett is Director of D2C Sport, specialists in direct to consumer media, and Founder of 26West Sport, a sports commercial advisory consultancy.This podcast is sponsored by Leaders Week London which returns this at the slightly earlier than usual date of 26th to 29th September 2022. Over 70% of LW LDN attendees are at Director level or above. From the Premier League to WWE, BT Sport to DP World Tour, they’ll all be there this September. In addition to the talks going on across three stages, there’s networking breakfasts, forums (like the Brand and Sponsorship Forum), think tanks (the Broadcast Disruptors Think Tank for example), tech showcases on the exhibition floor and the list goes on – you can tailor your Leaders Week London experience to best suit you.The two day Summit, part of Leaders Week, will be held at Twickenham Stadium on 28th and 29th September. Even better, you can use UP15 for a 15% discount on your Summit passes. VisitUnofficial 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.

Today we're going deep in to football's relationship with NFTs, crypto, blockchain and all things web3, as preparation for our inaugural Unofficial Partner event: Wise UP - the Live Web3 Brainstorm which his being held on the evening of Wednesday 21st September at The Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club in London. Tickets are £50 each and are available to buy here. Our guests today are two of several experts who will be joining me on stage on the night. Alex Amsel (@Sillytuna) is an award winning game developer, investor, and blockchain expert. After 15+ years running a game studio he moved into the blockchain field in 2012, selling NFT startup Ownage in 2018 before most even knew the term, and made the 3rd highest NFT sale of 2021 via Sotheby's. He's currently co-founder of Soulcast, a customisable NFT platform, and key backer of Clodhoppers, a stop-motion animated multiplayer brawler.Alex is an early stage investor and advisor in numerous NFT, DAO, DEFI and infrastructure projects including being one of Axie Infinity's earliest backers. He is also a partner at Outlier Ventures.Pet Betrisha was formerly head of web3 and crypto at Copa90 and is the creator behind Sporting Crypto, the number 1 Web3 Sports newsletter exploring the intersection of sport and the crypto world.This podcast is sponsored by Leaders Week London which returns this at the slightly earlier than usual date of 26th to 29th September 2022. Over 70% of LW LDN attendees are at Director level or above. From the Premier League to WWE, BT Sport to DP World Tour, they’ll all be there this September. In addition to the talks going on across three stages, there’s networking breakfasts, forums (like the Brand and Sponsorship Forum), think tanks (the Broadcast Disruptors Think Tank for example), tech showcases on the exhibition floor and the list goes on – you can tailor your Leaders Week London experience to best suit you.The two day Summit, part of Leaders Week, will be held at Twickenham Stadium on 28th and 29th September. Even better, you can use UP15 for a 15% discount on your Summit passes. VisitUnofficial 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 deep dive in to the sports broadcast and streaming market with regular guests Yannick Ramcke, head of OTT for OneFootball, and Murray Barnett, Director of D2C Sport, specialists in direct to consumer media, and Founder of 26West Sport, a sports commercial advisory consultancy.This conversation was recorded just after the deadline for broadcaster submissions for UEFA's Champions League rights tender in North America and so much of the podcast focuses on the US sports market, with reference to ESPN's recent price rises, and its potential as an acquisition target for Apple. For the first time, ESPN+ is more expensive in the US than its cable subscription. The streaming service has 22.5million subscribers, which is still dwarfed by the cable bundle that boasts 75.7million paying customers. And Premflix, the oft mentioned Premier League direct to consumer play, is given another airing, in the light of recent comments by new Chelsea owner Todd Boehler. Leaders Week London returns this September - mark your diaries. Slightly earlier date than you may be used to, this year it will be from 26 to 29 September 2022, just 5 weeks away.There's a good stat that talks to the calibre of people in the room – over 70% of LW LDN attendees are at Director level or above. From the Premier League to WWE, BT Sport to DP World Tour, they’ll all be there this September.In addition to the talks going on across three stages, there’s networking breakfasts, forums (like the Brand and Sponsorship Forum), think tanks (the Broadcast Disruptors Think Tank for example), tech showcases on the exhibition floor and the list goes on – you can tailor your Leaders Week London experience to best suit you.The two day Summit, part of Leaders Week, will be held at Twickenham Stadium on 28th and 29th September. Even better, you can use UP15 for a 15% discount on your Summit passes. Visit leadersinsport.com/UP for more information.Another date to remember is the inaugural Unofficial Partner Live eventUnofficial 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.

Who, or what, is a Southampton (Saints) fan? It's a trickier question than it first appears, because when the sports business conversation moves to describing fans, it often refers to them as a homogenous blob of cliches and replica shirt wearing stereotypes. In reality, obviously, they are a collection of individual people, with different reasons for supporting a club. This makes pleasing them difficult. And this is the job of today's guest Sarah Batters, Director of Marketing and Partnerships of Premier League club Southampton.Do the normal marketing tropes of funnels and customer acquisition strategies apply to the tribal nature of sports fandom? And is a Saints fan also a Saints Women's team fan?With Sarah is Asa Sherrill, Senior Vice President of Product and Design at InfrontX, the digital media consultancy whose clients include PGA TOUR, Verizon, NASCAR, FOX, Chelsea FC, AS Roma, the International Ski Federation among many others.This is a build on a previous episode, Elements of Value, which is referenced in the conversation. You can find that here: But Does Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs Work On A Wet Tuesday At Stoke?Don't forget, if you can get to London in the evening of Wednesday September 21st we're holding our first live event, Wise UP, the Unofficial Partner Web3 Brainstorm at The Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club. You can buy tickets to the event HERE. To find out more about it, subscribe to the Unofficial Partner newsletter, that goes direct to thousands of people across sport every Thursday.  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.

Actor and playwright Hannah Kumari has been performing her own one woman play 'Eng-ger-land' at football clubs around Britain. The play was written in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests and is inspired by Hannah’s own experiences of going to football matches as a mixed-race teenager in the 90s.ENG-ER-LAND blends 90s nostalgia with themes of racism, identity politics, lad culture and the idea of Englishness; what does it mean to be English and who gets to define that? Her story gives a view rarely heard within the sports business conversation and gives much needed context to debates about fandom, athlete activism and the relationship between women and football.If you enjoy the podcasts, make sure you're signed up to the Unofficial Partner newsletter that goes out every Thursday where you'll also find details of our upcoming live event, in the evening of 21st September, in partnership with Arsenal Football Club, at the Emirates Stadium in London. You can buy tickets for that event here.And if that's not enough...Leaders Week London returns this September - mark your diaries. Slightly earlier date than you may be used to, this year it will be from 26 to 29 September 2022, just 6 weeks away. For those who don't know, Leaders Week London is so much more than just your average conference - it's a 4-day festival of industry insight, connection building and relationship nurturing. The Summit, part of Leaders Week, will be held at Twickenham Stadium on 28th and 29th September. Use UP15 for a 15% discount on your Summit passes. Visit leadersinsport.com/UP for more information.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 is episode 4 of our series looking at the business of esports, in collaboration with Nielsen Sport, the world’s leading source of sports measurement and analytics.Today’s conversation moves the focus to the subject of influencer marketing: what is it, who is being influenced, how much brand marketing money is being spent, what evidence is there of its impact and what is the effect on the sport sponsorship market more generally of the rise of esport creators?Our guests are Seb Carmichael Brown and Salvatore De Angelis.Seb co-founded Hashtag Utd with his brother, the Youtube personality Spencer FC,  and is a content creator in his own right; his ‘Seb on Golf’ YouTube channel has over 130,000 subscribers.Salvatore is Head of Digital, International at Nielsen Sports & Entertainment, based in Milan.To keep in touch with the rest of the series, make sure you subscribe to Unofficial Partner via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. If you like the podcasts you’ll love the Unofficial Partner newsletter, that goes direct to the inbox of thousands of senior executives across the global sports business every Thursday. To join them, sign up via unofficialpartner.com where you'll also find details of the first Unofficial Partner Live event, at The Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club. You can buy tickets to that here. 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 is an episode of ReThinking Sport, our series created in collaboration with Portas, the global strategy consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity.  Our guests are Dawn Airey, who chairs the Barclays FA Women's Super League and Championship board and Elise Kossaifi, head of the women and sport practice at Portas. The conversation was recorded a few days after England's Lionesses beat Germany at Wembley to win the UEFA Women's Euros. So the topic is, what now? How can the WSL capitalise on this moment? What's The FA's commercial plan for the league, where is the money going to come from and what are the opportunities and threats that lie ahead?Dawn Airey has had one of the most high profile careers in British and European media, running or holding very senior positions at some of the biggest broadcasters including Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV, Sky, Yahoo and Getty Images. This episode refers to others in the Portas series in which we've talked to the biggest decision makers in women's football including The FA's Mark Bullingham,  Baroness Sue Campbell and Kelly Simmons. You can also hear Emi Aluko, the sporting director of Angel City and Maggie Murphy, chief executive of Lewes FC. The inaugural Unofficial Partner Live event takes place on Wednesday 21st September at The Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club. Tickets have just gone on sale and you can buy them via THIS LINK.You’ll find more detail about the content and format for the evening and keep up to date with guest announcements via the Unofficial Partner Newsletter that goes direct to the inbox of thousands of people across sport, every Thursday. Sign up via UnofficialPartner.com 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.