Unofficial Partner Podcast

Today’s guest is Ed Warner OBE, who was Chair of UK Athletics from 2007 to 2017, and has been Chair of World Para Athletics for the International Paralympic Committee since 2011. He led the successful bid to stage the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London’s Olympic Stadium, and was subsequently Chair of the London 2017 organising committee. And as you’ll hear he brings a view from what he calls his day job as a city financier and chair of a private equity group.This podcast is sponsored by Leaders in Sport, and we’ll be at Twickenham Stadium between the 5th to the 7th of October to do a live Unofficial Partner podcast. Listeners can get a 15% discount by clicking here  and quote the code UnofficialPartner15. Come and say hello when you get there. As ever, 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 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 the first in a new series looking at the business of esports, in collaboration with Nielsen Sports, the world’s leading source of sports measurement and analytics.Today’s guests are Matthew Archambault, head of partnerships for North America at Riot Games, publishers of the phenomenally successful League of Legends franchise. Matt manages strategic partnerships, national sponsorships, media rights, and merchandising for the League Championship Series (LCS). Joining Matthew is Matt Boyd, Vice President of Nielsen Esports and Games. Based in North America, Matt leads client relationships with teams, publishers/leagues, and brands, providing the data analysis to help them maximize the value of commercial partnerships. So this is a conversation unpicking how the business of esports works through the lens of the industry's multiple stakeholders, from the game publishers to the media platforms and commercial partners through to the teams, leagues, players and fans. 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 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.

Today’s guest is Mike Keegan, sports news correspondent of the Daily Mail, who inherited that paper’s Sports Agenda column from the legendary Charlie Sale, a two time guest on the podcast. So we talk about some of the regular themes that crop up as part of the sports news agenda, what he describes as the ‘cult-like’ obsession with youth audiences at BBC Sport, what it was like attending the Euro 2020 final and then we talk about Mike’s new book, called This Is How It Feels: An English Football Miracle, which celebrates the glory days of Oldham Athletic in the early 1990s. This podcast is sponsored by our friends at the Professional Triathlete Organisation, who have a big new event coming up at the end of August. The Collins Cup has a $1.5million prize purse and is a reformatting of the sport along the lines of golf’s Ryder Cup. If you’d like to find out more, link here.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 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 a special episode of Re:Thinking Sport, our collaboration with Portas, the global strategy consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity.  Our guest is Mark Bullingham, who is the Chief Executive of The FA, the governing body for football in England, one of the biggest jobs in sport. His remit covers the entire game, from England teams to grassroots, the Women’s Super League to Wembley Stadium. Bullingham was promoted to the top job in March 2019 following the departure of Martin Glenn, the man who recruited him to The FA as the commercial director. Before that he ran Fuse, Omnicom’s sport and entertainment agency and was marketing director of the America’s Cup sailing race. It’s a conversation that covers a lot of ground, including The FA’s relationship with the commercial sector and innovation, the future funding model for the Women’s Super League, what he thought of The Hundred and what he’s learning about politics and politicians from Euro 2020 and The FA’s joint bid for the 2030 FIFA World Cup. 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 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.

It’s become fashionable to use the term Gold Rush to describe the North American betting market. In 2018 the US Supreme Court overturned a federal bill banning gambling, which effectively signalled a shift that turned sports betting from an unregulated market to a regulated one. Estimates as to the size of the sports betting marketplace vary wildly. But all agree that it’s growing quickly, and that media technology is going to play a major role. Today’s podcast looks at the role broadcast technology is playing to make betting easier and more accessible to sports fans. Our guests are Miheer Walavalkar, Co-founder and CEO of broadcast technology company LiveLike and Brian Josephs, Vice President of Digital Sport at Sportradar US, a leading global provider of sports data, betting and entertainment products. Together, LiveLike and Sportradar have launched emBET, that integrates live betting content and data into sports broadcast OTT streams in real time. We talk about what this means for all concerned, from the sports leagues and event rights holders through to TV companies and of course, sports fans. 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 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.

On Wednesday 8th September, more than a thousand lucky invitees will make their way to Battersea in south London for the 20th edition of the Sports Industry Awards, which has grown from the inaugural event back in 2001 to a staple of the UK industry calendar, boasting a cast of world famous faces from sport, politics, showbiz and the media.So, enjoy the next fifty minutes or so in the company of the event’s founder Nick Keller and a group of people we asked to recall their memories of the event, including Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson, Steve Martin of M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment, Alex Willis head of marketing at Wimbledon and the All England Club and Alex Coulson, Sport Industry Group managing director.  This week’s podcast is sponsored by our friends at the Professional Triathlete Organisation, who have a big new event coming up at the end of August. The Collins Cup has a $1.5million prize purse and is a reformatting of the sport along the lines of golf’s Ryder Cup. If you’d like to find out more, then click here.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 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 another episode in our series Talking To Women About The Sports Business with my regular co-host Laura Weston. Our guest today is Sue Anstiss MBE, who has written a good book called Game On: The Unstoppable Rise of Women’s Sport, featuring many of the guests from Sue’s own successful podcast series The Gamechangers, where she interviews trailblazing women from across sport and beyond. This week’s podcast is sponsored by our friends at the Professional Triathlete Organisation, who have a big new event coming up at the end of August. The Collins Cup has a $1.5million prize purse and is a reformatting of the sport along the lines of golf’s Ryder Cup. If you’d like to find out more, then click here.  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 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 five of our series of Re-Thinking Sport, with Portas, the global strategy consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity. Today we’re talking about government regulation of football with our guests Rick Parry, the chairman of the EFL, and Adam Paker from Portas. Rick Parry is the former chief executive of Liverpool, the original CEO of the Premier League and a board member at New York Cosmos.He was recruited from his position as a senior management consultant with leading UK firm Ernst & Young in 1991 to assist in planning the new Premier League. Appointed Chief Executive in February 1992, the competition was officially ratified just seven days later by The Football Association, allowing Parry to proceed with negotiations for a television deal which was eventually awarded to BSkyB and the BBC for a then record bid of £304 million over five years.The context of the conversation is the recent review of English football carried out by Tracey Crouch MP, the former sports minister and a previous guest on Unofficial Partner. Her review was set up following the failure of The Super League, which features six of the Premier League’s leading teams. UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden announced he had “no choice” but to move quickly and launch the Government’s manifesto commitment of a fan-led review.The review he said will be wide-ranging in nature and will examine the potential for changes to ownership models, governance, how finance flows through the game and how to give supporters a greater say in the running of the game.The launch of the fan-led review comes following a number of high profile collapses in recent years including Bury Football Club that went into administration last year after being expelled from the Football League in 2019.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 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 Buy Side is our series with brand marketers about sport and sponsorship.Today we’re talking about how Microsoft views sport, with Monica Robbins, the tech giant’s global Director of Sports Partnerships who oversees relationships with among others the NFL, the NBA and more recently, the ECB, the governing body of cricket in the UK among several others.So this is a conversation about tech, the cloud, purpose based marketing, how devices drive consumption patterns and the view from Silicon Valley of sport’s role in showcasing brand and other types of messages. 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 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.

Today we’re talking about one of the most fundamental parts of the sports business: the product. And specifically the process of creating and adapting competition formats to increase jeopardy, fan connection and commercial value.  This is a conversation about the way in which leagues, tournaments and competitions are structured, and its relationship to the commercial value of sport, both as a way of driving demand but also on the supply side, creating opportunities for investment. This is true whether we’re talking about Twenty20 cricket and the rise of the IPL or the current questions around the ECB’s new brainchild, The Hundred; the Premier League play-offs; The Super League; or FIBA’s 3x3 basketball format and Rugby Sevens, both of which feature at the Olympics. Could a better format have saved The Super League? How can big tournaments be made more fun to watch but avoid contrived gimmicks? How can competitive balance be achieved without punishing excellence? And what does the data say about how women’s football, cricket and rugby could benefit by balancing components such as jeopardy, quality and connection with fans?  Our guests are Omar Chauduri and Ben Marlow, from Twenty First Group, who have thought about this question a great deal, and created a model that approaches the format question through a data led decision making framework. I find the results of their work fascinating, for what it says about sport and the questions it poses for everyone, from fans, teams and event rights holders through to television and media owners and financial investors. So wherever you are in the sports biz jungle, this is a topic that talks directly to your day job.   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. Subscribe via unofficialpartner.com or via Substack 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.