Unofficial Partner Podcast

This is a podcast about sports tech and innovation with our guest Angela Ruggiero.Angela is a four-time US Olympian and Gold Medalist in Ice Hockey and has been an IOC Executive Board Member for over a decade and served as the Chief Strategy Officer for the successful Los Angeles 2028 Olympic bid. This is mentioned here because we barely reference it in the podcast, because this is a conversation about the future and sport tech, it’s potential and its limitations. Angela is CEO & Co-Founder of The Sports Innovation Lab, a tech-powered market research firm and we start by talking about what that means, where she thinks the real excitement is when it comes to innovation in sport, both from an early adopter perspective but also to ask about what the challenges are when it comes to applying technology to the sports business.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.

In previous episodes of our digital series, All Models Are Wrong we’ve talked to people from across the industry about how digital transformation is impacting the sports business. Today we continue that conversation with Elliot Richardson, co-founder and chairman of Dugout, the football digital platform part owned by the biggest clubs in the world, including Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester City and Bayern Munich.Dugout is interesting because, as I say to Elliot during our conversation, it exists to solve a problem the football clubs have when it comes to digital, which is how maximise the return from their global popularity. So I ask him whether we’re at the end of the first social platform era, to sum up what the pros and cons have been of distributing football clips across YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the rest and how will the next era of digital alter the value of football clubs as a sponsorship and commercial proposition. As ever, Elliot has plenty to say, backed up by numbers.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.

Simon Oliveira is founder and Managing Director of KIN Partners, a sport and entertainment agency specialising in talent management & creative IP. Simon is well known as being a long time business adviser and ally of David Beckham so we talk about what he’s learnt from the experience about fame and celebrity and it’s relationship with the media and marketing world. KIN also has represented Owen Farrell, Ronnie O’Sullivan among others and Simon was also one of the Founders of OTRO, with Beckham, Neymar as well as Lionel Messi and Zinedine Zidane, which aspires to be a new global content and fan platform.Simon began his career at Lynne Franks PR before moving to Ketchum with Steve Martin and then to Simon Fuller’s company 19, the creator of Pop Idol and is the Svengali figure behind the Spice Girls and Brand Beckham. So it’s a chance to look at the rise of the superstar athlete as publisher and brand, and we talk about the obvious potential of that and also the limitations and mistakes that get made. As you’ll hear, Simon was up for a chat and I think you’ll find it an entertaining and insightful hour.If you enjoy the unofficial partner podcasts, you might like our weekly newsletter where we follow the threads of the conversation in more detail. You can sign up to that free of charge at unofficial partner.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 number three in Money Talks, our series on sport and finance. The two previous guests were Jason Traub of 23Capital and George Pyne founder of Bruin Sports Capital. Today’s guest is Kyle Charters who leads Inner Circle Sports tech division. Inner Circle is a New York based boutique investment bank focused on the global sports business, which has been involved in multiple high profile mergers and acquisitions including US franchises and European soccer clubs.I start by asking Kyle what a boutique investment bank does all day and then we go on to talk about how they value sports teams, the differences between the US and European market and some detail on Fenway Sports acquisition and running of Liverpool FC, a deal which Inner Circle helped put together.If you’re enjoying our podcasts, you might also like our weekly newsletter that goes deeper in to the topics we cover. It’s free and available 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 second episode of our series on the sports media market with regular co-host Yannick Ramcke. Every couple of weeks we choose three stories from around the world and pick them apart to see if there’s anything we can learn that’s part of a broader trend in relation to sport tv, streaming or OTT market. This week we talk about beIN Sport’s stand against piracy in Serie A and what the implications of that might be for other rights holders in the broadcaster’s considerable rights portfolio. Secondly we look at the details of the recent Bundesliga domestic rights tender, what it means for DAZN among others, and thirdly we talk about Mediapro in France, where they decided that when it comes to the number of teams they want in Ligue1 and how many games they want to screen, it’s a case of less is more. Plenty in here for anyone with an interest in the value of sport as a media property, which I guess means everyone.  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.

Sally Hancock and Sally Horrox created the Y-Sport consultancy to offer clients commercial, media and sports expertise and have built a reputation for helping rights holders and brands to use sport to drive social change and to promote the commercial opportunities in professional women’s sport.  We talk about the diversity question, Black Lives Matters and the impact of COVID19 on women’s sport.Unofficial Partner is listened to buy thousands of senior sports business professionals around the world every week. If you have a marketing challenge, our podcasts offer an innovative and cost effective solution. Get in touch with sean@unofficialpartner.co.uk.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 talk to George Pyne, the former Nascar and IMG CEO, who founded Bruin Sports Capital in 2015, which has emerged as one of the most interesting companies operating in the sports business today with nearly a billion dollars invested across the sector.Bruin was created with $250 million from Sir Martin Sorrell’s WPP; Dan Gilbert, the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Nassef Sawiris, executive chairman of Aston Villa among others. The fund was increased in size last November following a capital raise of $600million from CVC Capital Partners and the Jordan Group, which allows them to add to their portfolio of sports companies that includes Two Circles, Deltatre, Soulsight and Engine Shop.Before this, Pyne was CEO of IMG in Ted Forstmann era, part of the management team who sold the company to William Morris Endeavour in 2014. Before that was in charge of Nascar and The Portman Group. So a varied career that brought him in to day to day contact with some of the most influential characters in the American and European sports market over the last twenty five years, people like Forstmann and Sorrell to Brian France, Roger Penske and Ari Emanuel to name a few. We talk about his career and where he thinks Bruin will invest it’s considerable cash reserves now and in the future.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.

A third of all Alexa requests are about sport. But who’s answering them? Today’s podcast is about audio strategy for sports rights holders, we’re going to ask what does that mean, why has it become a thing and what are the creative and commercial opportunities and challenges that exist today and how those are quickly evolving, powered by advances in streaming technology and the move towards voice activated search led by among others Google and Amazon.To do this we’ve sought the advice of three experts in this field. The first person we talk to is Sophie Hind, managing director of Voiceworks, a company that specialises in technology, search and content solutions for the rapidly-growing digital assistant marketplace. Next up is Jim Salveson who is head of Sport Social, an award winning radio presenter, writer and producer.This part of the conversation is about content and creative: what are the production considerations for sports rights holders in the shift to audio engagement? And then the third bit of the jigsaw is a chat with Rob Gevertz of First Five Yards digital sport consultants, about the commercial opportunities that underpin sport’s engagement with its fans via audio and voice search.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.

If your job is to measure the impact of sponsorship, you owe a debt of gratitude to Lesa Ukman.She did the hard miles, doing more than anyone to pioneer and champion the role of sponsorship as a marketing form.So we get in to it all: the problem of trying to measure brand purpose, the rise of blackwashing, to add to sports washing, gaywashing and greenwashing; the ‘horrible’ experience of working for GroupM (Ukman created IEG in 1982 and sold to WPP’s GroupM in 2016), the sexism she encountered in London, the upside of which was getting to use the popular English term ‘wanker’ on a regular basis; the broken incentives of media agencies; the mafia-like politics of Chicago; tangibles v intangibles; what you buy when you buy an IOC TOP package; and loads, loads more.You won’t want to miss this one.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 new series of deep dives in to the sports media market where we’ll keep a watchful eye on the latest stories covering broadcast and digital platforms, this could be everything from changing fan habits, upcoming rights tenders, the D2C streaming trend and the decisions taken by the biggest broadcast and technology companies in the world.My copilot on this journey is Yannick Ramcke, one of the most insightful observers of broadcast and digital media out there.In each episode I ask Yannick to bring us the most interesting recent stories that we can pick apart to explore the broader trends.This week it’s the return of the Premier League, and the current rights tender being fought over for domestic rights to the Bundesliga.For future episodes we’d love to incorporate questions from listeners, which could be by email or if you want to send a WhatsApp message or something similar we can play that on the podcast. You can do this via the sign up page on unofficial partner.com just label it The Bundle.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.