Unofficial Partner Podcast

This week we talk to Henry Chappell in Pitch Marketing Group's Soho office overlooking the NCP Car Park on Brewer Street, which is now above a posh boutique but used to be a really good vintage magazine shop.The conversation is wide ranging, running from his time at IMG and then Freuds, before he launched Pitch in 2002 with help from then shareholder Matthew Freud. What I wanted to know is what twenty years in the agency world has taught him about how sport works, now and in the future. And that night in a Turkish prison.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 week Richard and Sean go to IBM’s headquarters on the South Bank to talk to Sam Seddon who guides the company’s relationship with the sport sector, most notably their long time partnerships with Wimbledon and England Rugby via the RFU. As ever, we want to know who have been the big winners and losers in the last thirty years when it comes to sport and tech, and we ask Sam for the inside line on IBM’s view of how the next ten years is going to pan out.If you enjoy our podcasts, there’s been 31 of them so far, please head to iTunes and rate us, it helps others find the podcast and makes us look popular.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.

Ellie Norman was Head of Advertising and Sponsorship at Virgin Media when Sean Bratches asked her to become the first ever Head of Marketing for Formula One. That was 2017 and much has happened on her watch, so we went to F1’s Mayfair office to talk boring drivers, grid girls, perception versus reality and what she learnt about the power of dreams while working at Honda. 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.

Richard Ayers has been selling the future for his whole career, since teaching John Humphreys to read out the BBC Today Programmes’ website address, to his current guise as a thought leader in sport’s great journey of digital transformation.We visit Richard at Seven League’s HQ deep in Islington, the epicentre of the north London metropolitan elite.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 week Richard and Sean visit the Hampstead home of Dave Bedford, legendary runner and 10,000 metre world record holder who played a pivotal role in the London Marathon for over three decades. We talk about the breaking the 2 hour barrier, Nike’s new shoes are different than drugs when It comes to running faster, the role of tech in sport and visiting all 92 pubs on the London Marathon route.Dave is working with his son Tom Bedford on the AIR:RUN, a brand new music/running concept consisting of a 10K and a Half Marathon on fully closed roads inside Richmond Park on the 31st May 2020. For more information www.airrun.londonUnofficial 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 week Richard and Sean meet Claire Parnell, Emma Newell and Laura Weston the organisers of a vital new business network called the Mums in Sport Community (Misc) - a positive, supportive community for women who work in sport, and who are also mums. This is a conversation that touches on some big themes that impact on every element of the industry. We talk about confidence, guilt, money and the ways in which companies can help mums return to work a more effective process.“You have a 7.30 awards dinner, or a breakfast event, and you’re there super early, smiling away and the reality is that it’s really hard to get out of the house early, to organise or negotiate pick ups, and there’s a trail of destruction left behind”.To connect with this great new group, here are their social channels.  Please follow and support!Twitter: https://twitter.com/MISCommunityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mis_community_/?hl=enLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13766439/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 it like moving from brand marketer to rights holder? We talk to Nathan Homer and Tim Ellerton, two high profile sports business execs who have made the jump and have tales to tell.Nathan was Global Sports Marketing and Olympics Director at Procter & Gamble and head of global partnerships at Barclays before moving over to the other side, as Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer of European Tour golf. (Breaking news: Nathan just got a new job as Director of Trading, Broadband and Sport at Sky/Now TV).Tim Ellerton worked in senior sports sponsorship roles at Coca-Cola and more recently Heineken. He became Commercial Director of the British Olympic Association in January 2017. 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 week's guest is Lucien Boyer who we interviewed at the private members club, Home House.Lucien is the Chairman and Co-Founder of the Global Sports Week, which launches in February 2020 in Paris. We talk about his time as global head of Havas Sport and Entertainment, the difference between the British and French sports markets and got in to the politics of the Olympic Games, comparing the role played by London 2012 to that expected of Paris 2024. Global Sports Week is backed by President Macron, so we talk about sport as a political asset, ask whether Macron is an Olympique Marseilles fan in the true sense of the word, or if it's like David Cameron's 'love of Aston Villa', or was it West Ham, they both played in claret and blue, so it's confusing. For the record, Macron knows the names of OM's players. 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 week’s guest is Martin Bayfield, the former England International rugby player who is now one of the busiest and most popular presenters and after dinner speakers. We talk about the upcoming Rugby World Cup, his hopes and fears for the sport he loved since his days balancing a playing career with being a police officer in the amateur era. It was at one speaking engagement that his career as film star began, when the man from Warner Brothers asked him if would become Hagrid’s body double in the Harry Potter films. For fifteen years, Martin hosted the Sport Industry Awards and we ask him what the sports business looked like from the stage.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 week’s guest is Jimmy Worrall, founder and CEO of Leaders in Sport, the conference and event business which he created in 2006. We talk about his career in sport which has included successful stints at The English FA, Soccerex and ENIC. The interview took place at Leaders’ offices in Wimbledon. During our conversation, Jimmy referenced Toby Hester, the leading sport sponsorship executive who had sadly passed away the day before we spoke. We join Jimmy in sending our deepest sympathies to Toby’s family.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.