Unofficial Partner Podcast

If you work in the sports business, you’ve probably heard of Nick Keller.He's the driving force behind Benchmark, the BT Sport Industry Awards, Beyond Sport and several other prominent sports biz ventures.But you won't have heard him talk in such an honest and candid way as he does in the latest Unofficial Partner podcast.It's an hour's conversation about life and career, from being one of the first player agents in rugby's professional era through to what the judging process of the Sport Industry Awards has taught him about how the sports business works and how it's changed over the last few decades.And then, we talked about cancer.Subscribe to the podcast and read Nick’s searingly honest account of his recent cancer diagnosis.Unofficial Partner is a specialist sports business publishing company.  To find out more visit our 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.

As Managing Director of Hearst UK’s Health and Lifestyle titles, Alun Williams sits at the centre of the multi-billion pound fitness and wellbeing market, with a direct line in to the trends shaping the lifestyle choices of men and women of all ages. The magazines in Hearst’s portfolio are among the biggest selling titles in the UK, offering direct feedback between the choice of cover star and sales.So, who are the most effective fitness influencers? Who can be relied on to shift product, and who are influencers in name only?The conversation covers everything from Crossfit, #WomenWhoLift, Tough Mudder and Parkrun through to the rise of the athleisure clothing market, the yoga boom and the research that links physical and mental wellbeing.Unofficial Partner is a specialist sports business publishing company.  To find out more visit our 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.

In a famous speech in 2008, then Prime Minister Gordon Brown proclaimed London 2012 as the start of a ‘Golden decade of sport’ in Britain, which will leave a lasting legacy from ‘elite to grass roots’. This week’s podcast asks, was he right, and what was the commercial legacy of the last ten years? Which governing bodies, sponsors and agencies have prospered and which have seen their star wane? Who were the people whose careers were made during the last decade and those who suffered from being in the spotlight?To discuss this and more, we asked along three people who held high profile roles in 2008: Ashling O’Connor (then Olympic Correspondent of The Times, now Director of SRI Executive), Nathan Homer (then head of sport at Proctor and Gamble before moving to Barclays and the European Tour) and Tim Crow (then CEO of Synergy Sponsorship, now advisor to global sport properties and brands).Unofficial Partner is a specialist sports business publishing company.  To find out more visit our 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.

Sport’s missing billionsGlobal brand spend on sports sponsorship will grow four per cent this year to £35 billion (US$46 billion), according to recent findings from Two Circles. But the report made the controversial claim that sports properties are missing out on an extra £14 billion due to unsold inventory, unreported engagement and outdated rights packaging.We ask the report’s author Phil Stephan where he got his numbers from and what he thinks rights holders can do to plug the gap. It’s a conversation that takes in many of the current dilemmas facing sports decision makers on all sides of the business, from the challenges of digital marketing, the role of creative in sponsorship activation and whether content marketing is living up to the promise of driving greater brand engagement.Unofficial Partner is a sports business publishing consultancy.  To find out more visit our 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.

Rory is Vice Chairman at advertising agency Ogilvy in the UK and author of a new book: Alchemy, The surprising Power of Ideas which don't make Sense. He has variously been President of the IPA, Chair of Judges at Cannes, and his TED Global talks have been downloaded seven million times. He writes regular columns for The Spectator and is married to a vicar. Our interview took place in a cupboard at the Rosewood Hotel in London.Unofficial Partner is a sports business publishing consultancy.  To find out more visit our 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.

This week’s guests are sports biz guru Tim Crow and Derek Pringle, the former England test cricketer turned journalist and author. We explore the links between the original breakaway ‘cricket circus’ of World Series Cricket in the late 1970s and later innovations including the emergence of Twenty20 in the noughties, the IPL and the ill fated Stanford debacle through to the ECB’s new brainchild, The Hundred which launches in 2020.  We also discussed Derek's new book, Pushing The Boundaries.www.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.

Groundbreaking sports editor Alison Kervin talks about The Mail on Sunday’s award winning concussion campaign, from the early resistance of sports governing bodies to the role of the media and sponsors in pushing important issues to the top of the news agenda.www.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.

The Three Ages of Brand TigerRichard Gillis is joined by the sports marketing world’s Tim Crow and token millennial @eoinfconnolly, editor at large of SportsPro. They start out with a plan to discuss three moments that shaped the Tiger Woods story, asking questions such as why didn’t Accenture know? Did Tiger really cause a boom in golf media rights? And, how did Tim Crow get a car park space at the Ryder Cup?Nike's first Tiger TV ad is also discussed.www.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.

As founder and editor of Loaded magazine in the 1990s, James Brown (@jamesjamesbrown) was the architect of Lad culture, the influence of which pervades the football media landscape today. A lifelong Leeds Utd fan, he’s now back in the world of magazine publishing at the helm of FourFourTwo. We talk about his plans for world domination, whether The Damned United was any good, what makes a great magazine and wonder if the current generation of football fans are missing something.www.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.

There's a bit in the podcast with Paul Hawksbee when he talks about how much previous knowledge you have to assume in the reader for a joke to work. This is a point that many people get wrong and it ruins everything.Hawksbee's mantra came from his days in magazines, when he created 90 Minutes, back in the days before Italia '90.There were jokes and cultural references in the mag that talked directly to the small group of people who read them and go them.Once you water these down, go for the bigger pool of readers, you bland the whole thing out. Hawksbee has written Bafta winning scripts for Harry Hill and worked with some of the best comics in the land. He knows how jokes work.'Sometimes you've just got to say, Keep up or fuck off'. Love that.unofficial partner.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.