
Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. Our guests are a who's who of the international sports industry talking about the big issues.
Latest episodes

Oct 6, 2020 • 1h 3min
E112: Timo Lumme
We’ve been wanting to talk to Timo Lumme for ages - but he’s been quite busy apparently.It’s sometimes said Lumme has had the perfect sports business career: IMG then Nike then Disney/ESPN then for the last decade and a half, the IOC’s big commercial job overseeing broadcast revenue and the TOP sponsorship programme, the largest of its type in sport.(And we haven’t mentioned a stint running Quokka, an early sports tech startup around the first Dotcom boom).So it’s fair to say that with that CV, not much surprises him. But then came Covid, and Tokyo 2020 became Tokyo 2021. So this was a great chance to spend an hour or so in Timo’s company and peer in to the business of the Olympics and the future of the greatest show on earth.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.

Oct 2, 2020 • 52min
E111: The Bundle 7
This is episode 7 of The Bundle, our fortnightly show about the sports media market with regular co-host Yannick Ramcke.We revisit our controversial podcast with media analyst Claire Enders, look in depth at some of the stories coming out of the US market, and we ask what the big leagues can do to combat the enduring threat of piracy which is having real impacts on the value of rights in various parts of the world.Hope you enjoy it, and if you do, sign up to the Unofficial Partner newsletter via the site. 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.

Sep 29, 2020 • 34min
E110: The Buy Side - Just Eat
This the first of a series of podcasts interviewing senior decision makers on the brand side of the sponsorship market across different business categories.Today’s guest is Ben Carter from the food delivery company Just Eat. Ben’s current role is Global Director of Restaurants and Strategic Partnerships, which sees him charged with commercial growth and partnership strategy to support the business 112,000 restaurant partner globally.Our conversation takes in how sport and sponsorship applies to what is a very dynamic market category for many sports rights holders.We start by asking Ben about how the company makes money, the preconceptions people bring to the Just Eat brand and then the role that sport and sponsorship plays in the company’s marketing strategy now and in to the future.Just Eat UK is owned by Takeaway.com, the new ‘Official Food Delivery Platform Partner’ for UEFA Euro 2020, a spot which replaced McDonald’s official restaurant designation. Just Eat has a history of broadcast sponsorships around English football, including BT Sport’s Premier League and UEFA Champions League coverage.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.

Sep 25, 2020 • 52min
E109: Fifty-Three Six
This week we’re talking digital marketing with the founders of Fifty Three Six, Tom Fox and Marcus McDonnell. Often the digital conversation is about strategy and can be a bit abstract. This one isn’t like that. It’s an urgent conversation about how sports properties can use their digital assets to make money as we approach the race to the end of the year. Across the sports landscape, teams, leagues and events are facing a Covid driven existential crisis.The ability to uncover new sustainable sources of revenue to replace gate receipts and match day revenue isn’t just a question, it's the only question. During the podcast we reference a piece of research work carried out by Fifty Three Six, called Five Actionable Facebook Campaign Insights To Win Q4. It’s available to download for free via the agency’s website.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.

Sep 22, 2020 • 45min
E108: Kim Skildum Reid
Kim Skildum Reid founded Power Sponsorship in 1994 to provide advice to major corporate sponsors in the Asia-Pacific region for clients that include Target Stores, Unilever, Qantas, Dubai Government, SABMiller, ANZ Bank, QBE, Virgin Group, Singapore Government, Mazda, Estee Lauder, and many more.So the topic of the conversation is obviously the sponsorship market, what’s the difference between good and bad strategy and how the Covid crisis is impacting how brands are viewing sport across the APAC region. 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.

Sep 18, 2020 • 44min
E107: Claire Enders
Today’s guest is Claire Enders, who has been the UK’s pre-eminent media and technology analyst, strategist and forecaster for over thirty years. After working across cable, satellite, and commercial Public Sector Broadcasting she set up Enders Analysis in 1997, to build comprehensive models for all parts of the UK media, telecoms and technology sectors and provides its research and expertise to over 140 organisations. During this time Claire Enders has built a reputation for outspoken and contrarian analysis of the prospects for technology, telecoms and media across Europe. She famously predicted first Dotcom crash, the advertising collapse of 2009 and has analysed every major sports rights deal of the last three decades. Someone once said of her that clients credit her with the ability to "see through the walls of boardrooms, and intuit the decisions they will make”. So, of course, we talked about the market for sports media rights generally, and the Premier League specifically, Amazon and the FAANGs, DAZN, the Netflix for Sport hype, the lessons of Disney+, audience behaviours for sport, the implications of private equity bidding for sports rights and the Premier League’s China problem. As ever, Claire Enders did not pull her punches. 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.

Sep 15, 2020 • 41min
E106: The Bundle #6
This is episode 6 of The Bundle, the fortnightly sports media conversation with regular co-host Yannick Ramcke. This week’s topics are the Premier League’s China problem and we ask whether it has implications for other rights holders selling in to that country. Then it’s Barney Francis’ views on the OTT streaming market, DAZN’s potential IPO or SPAC, and finally, we peer below Nielsen’s announcement that they have a new approach to measuring out of home viewing, which could have significant ramifications on the value of sports rights in the future. Hope you enjoy it, get in touch via the website unofficialpartner.com and subscribe to the newsletter. 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.

Sep 11, 2020 • 39min
E105: Simon Hughes
This week we talk to Simon Hughes, the former professional cricketer, journalist, author and award winning broadcaster, which began as The Analyst on Channel 4’s ground breaking coverage of test cricket in the early noughties.Since then, Simon has been a regular presence on television and across social media, and has just co-written a book called A New Innings on the business of the IPL with Manoj Badale, the owner of the Rajasthan Royals. So this is a conversation about where cricket and business meet, and covers a lot of ground that regular listeners of Unofficial Partner will recognise, such as the role of private equity in sport, changes in audience behaviour and the role of innovation in 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.

Sep 8, 2020 • 48min
E104: Tomorrowland #3
This is the third in our Tomorrowland series about the sports tech and innovation, and we’re delighted to welcome two guests from two major sports governing bodies: Helen Rowbotham from British Rowing and Chris Pollard of the LTA.Helen moved to rowing in 2016 from CSM, where she was director of consulting. She has nearly 20 years experience in the sports and events industry, delivering projects both in the UK and internationally for local, city and national government organisations; event bidding and organising committees; Olympic Committees; event rights holders and many others. Her experience includes comprehensive strategic reviews of the Commonwealth Games Federation and Paralympic Games, the development of a High Performance Strategy for Saudi Arabia, multiple event feasibility and bidding projects (including the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games) and working on a wide range of facility development projects, including the 2012 Olympic Stadium and Singapore Sports Hub. Chris Pollard is another CSM alumni and was prevoiusly head of information and knowledge management for London 2012. Chris oversees the relationship between The LTA and Deloitte which aims to put digital transformation at the heart of the governing body’s work to grow tennis in Great Britain, devise new digital initiatives to support the LTA’s vision of ‘Tennis Opened Up’, encouraging anyone of any age, background or level of fitness to pick-up a racket, with the ultimate aim of growing participation and attracting a new generation of tennis fans.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.

Sep 4, 2020 • 48min
E103: Jeremy Dale: From Oprah to Otro
This week’s guest is Jeremy Dale, one of the original co-founders of the OTRO the football media platform, who has had a marketing career working for some of the world’s most famous companies. He was former VP of Worldwide retail for Microsoft, won a BAFTA for the launch of Pokemon and led Motorola’s Product (RED) Campaign in collaboration with Oprah and Bono, the latter of whom he claims gave him the inspiration for his new book, The Punk Rock of Business. Jeremy was listed in Total Films 100 Most Influential People in the Movies (between Tom Cruise and Matt Damon), not bad for someone who started as an accountant for Tarmac.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.