Leaders Worth Knowing Podcast

An unfiltered discussion between the leaders of the BBC and Wimbledon.Leaders in Conversation is a new series that puts you in the room, fly-on-the-wall style, for a discussion between the most influential leaders in sports and media. Our first episode is with Tim Davie and Sally Bolton, both of whom took the helm at their historic British institutions just over a year ago.Tim Davie became Director-General of the BBC on 1st September 2020. He is the 17th Director-General of the Corporation. Prior to this, Davie was Chief Executive of BBC Studios, the BBC’s principal commercial subsidiary. Responsible for creating and distributing content globally; Davie led BBC Studios from April 2013. Whilst in the role, he oversaw the merger between the BBC’s production arm and BBC Worldwide, the Corporation’s distribution company, and was responsible for an annual turnover of over £1.4billion.Sally Bolton is Chief Executive at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, having previously held the roles of Strategic Planning & Operations Director and Head of Corporate Affairs at the Club. Prior to this, Bolton spent two years as Managing Director of the Organising Committee for the London World Athletic Championships in 2017. Bolton assumed this role having led the team that delivered a highly successful Rugby League World Cup in 2013, a role for which she was recognized with the award of an OBE.In this unmoderated conversation recorded as part of October’s Leaders Week London, the two leaders reflect on the challenges of reforming, modernising and pioneering in what was a fascinating glimpse in to the day-to-day of leading uniquely British establishments.

In conversation with the billionaire that has ownership interests across the NBA, NHL and Premier League. One Careful Owner is a new series from the Leaders Sport Business Podcast that features exclusive conversations with the people who invest billions into teams. Who have a unique handle on where the industry is going. On media rights. On globalisation. On asset creation. On trading players. On the risks, rewards and the pitfalls. On the pressures and demands. The unique challenges and often downright weird situations that only sports owners have experienced. And all while they’re doing their day job. Our latest guest is Josh Harris, the Co-Founder of Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s largest alternative investment firms. He is also one half of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the New Jersey Devils, the Philadelphia 76ers, the Prudential Center, the Dignitas esports team and has a stake in Elevate Sports Ventures, which provides venue, ticketing and hospitality solutions across the industry. In a keynote conversation conducted live as part of October’s Leaders Week London, Josh discusses his ownership philosophy, the differences between owning US and UK teams and where he sees brilliant investment potential. He also shares his perspective on the European Super League, the impact Covid has on team owners, changing consumption habits and paints a picture of what it’s really like in the room when team owners get together.  Our next sport business conference, Leaders Meet: Qatar 2022, takes place on 28 – 29 November (later this month) and will see global sports industry decision-makers connect, share insight and do business with international sponsors, clubs, leagues and broadcasters involved or investing in Qatar. Visit leadersinsport.com to find out more and to join us in person, or from wherever you are.   

Behind the scenes at Leaders Week, London.David Cushnan and James Emmett are joined by former FIS General Secretary Sarah Lewis to review the action from day two of an action-packed return to sports industry conferencing at Leaders Week, London.On the agenda:Contractual flexibility and long-term relationships in sports sponsorship;The best conference session of any conference in any industry from any time;'Proportionality' and reacting to crises, plus other golden gobbets of leadership wisdom;BBC Director General Tim Davie, Wimbledon CEO Sally Bolton, Purplebricks CMO Ben Carter, Rugby League World Cup CEO Jon Dutton;Reaching new diverse audiences, and (trying!) to create inclusive environments in sport (and at Leaders);Techno, techno, techno, techno.

Behind the scenes at the Leaders Sport Business Summit.David Cushnan and James Emmett are joined by Nielsen Sports' Samantha Lamberti to review the action from a barnstorming return to face-to-face conferencing at the first day of the Leaders Sport Business Summit in London.On the agenda:The buzz on the conference floor; and re-learning how to network;The big themes from the day: change, change, and more change;The huge momentum behind women's sport as new research indicates that 21% of UK adults follow more women's sport than they did 18 months ago.HBSE's Josh Harris, Sky Sports' Jo Osbourne, and Unity's Peter Moore;NFTs, and the new wave of technological innovations sweeping sport and the conference halls;How evolving consumer habits, new technologies, and creative approaches to monetisation are changing the way we produce and consumer sport.Join us on Thursday for another full day at Leaders, and another live wrap-up show.

Going inside ‘the full Sky Sports treatment’| Innovation in sports broadcasting | The commercialisation of the Women’s Super LeagueAppointment to View is a series from the Leaders Sport Business Podcast that features conversations with rights owners, broadcasters, creators and innovators at the epicentre of the shifting sports media landscape.The series examines how sport is packaged, produced, consumed, distributed, and monetised.The third episode in the series features Gary Hughes, Sky Sports’ Head of Football who oversees football production across all Sky Sports platforms. He joined the broadcasting giant in 1995 as a producer on Sky News, before moving across to Sky Sports News, where he led a production team for ten years. He ran Sky’s Champions League coverage for 5 years before taking the Head of Football role in 2014.This conversation was held a few days after the opening weekend of the new WSL season, the first match week of a new rights cycle that has seen Sky and the BBC sign a landmark deal to broadcast the league that has been reported as the richest in domestic women’s football. Gary covers the tone and texture of the coverage, and the importance of the marketing push behind it.To join over over 1,000 other sports industry leaders at Leaders Week from 5th to 7th October, visit www.leadersinsport.com. 

The pressures of leading one of the most historic sports bodies in the world | Rights re-packaging for new consumption habits| Adapting to the challenges that came with the pandemic.Appointment to View is a series from the Leaders Sport Business Podcast that features conversations with rights owners, broadcasters, creators and innovators at the epicentre of the shifting sports media landscape.The series will examine how sport is packaged, produced, consumed, distributed, and monetised.In the first episode, we heard from Bo Han, the US-based media entrepreneur and former Twitter executive who is reimagining search and discovery for sport with his new notification-based streaming app Buzzer.This week, our guest is the chief executive of one of the most historic and preeminent rights owner organisations in sport, the FA. Mark Bullingham succeeded Martin Glenn in the role of CEO at English football’s governing body in July 2019, having served as Glenn’s Chief Commercial Officer since joining the FA in 2016. He was recruited to the FA following five successful years as CEO of the Fuse Sport + Entertainment agency.Bullingham spoke to Leaders founder and chair Jimmy Worrall a few weeks before the start of this summer’s European Championship. The conversation covers Bullingham’s career journey and his rise to one of the top jobs in world sport, touching on his evolving leadership philosophy, the challenge of growing into the role during the pandemic.The FA has been developing its own D2C media offering for some time, and this year made headlines with eye-catching rights deals in women’s football: signing the richest rights deal in domestic women’s football for the WSL with Sky and the BBC, and signing up ITV to broadcast England women’s national games from this year. Bullingham is a shrewd commercial operator and his views on market consolidation, rights re-packaging for new consumption habits, and monetising media in non-traditional ways are required listening.To join CEOs like Bullingham and over 1,000 other sports industry leaders at Leaders Week from 5th to 7th October, visit www.leadersinsport.com. 

The man behind the hottest new app in sports media | Notifications, micropayments, and additional audiences | Building a sports media business from scratch. Appointment to View is a new series from the Leaders Sport Business Podcast that features conversations with rights owners, broadcasters, creators and innovators at the epicentre of the shifting sports media landscape. The series will examine how sport is packaged, produced, consumed, distributed, and monetised. The first episode is with Bo Han, the former Director of Live Content at Twitter, who spent three years building out the live sports proposition at that platform, before leaving in 2019 to found his new business, Buzzer, which launched in January 2020. Buzzer is a notification-based platform that alerts fans to when key moments are happening across a number of sporting properties before directing them to live coverage. It already has a number of major rights owners - including the NBA, the NHL and the PGA Tour - onboard and is monetising via a number of methods including micropayments. Bo Han will be speaking at Leaders in London, from 5-7 October at Twickenham. To join him and 1,000 sports industry leaders, visit www.leadersinsport.com.

In conversation with the man who brought Brighton back from the brink. One Careful Owner is a series from the Leaders Sport Business Podcast that features exclusive conversations with the people who invest billions into teams. Who have a unique handle on where the industry is going. On media rights. On globalisation. On asset creation. On trading players. On the risks, rewards and the pitfalls. On the pressures and demands. The unique challenges and often downright weird situations that only sports owners have experienced. And all while they’re doing their day job. Our guest today is Tony Bloom, the man from the south coast of England who made his money as a professional gambler – betting on sport and at poker tables around the world – before investing in his home town football club, Brighton & Hove Albion, and leading them to the top tier division after 34 years away from it and numerous failures along the way. Tony is a rare breed of modern sports owner. His family have always been fans of the club – and so has he. He’s put hundreds of millions of his own money into Brighton since he became chairman in 2009, and taken not a penny out. He’s been patient and he understands the fabric of the club. For him, a return is not about ROI, but creation of a legacy, and leaving the club in much better place than he found it. It was rare and candid interview which we recorded soon after Brighton had secured another season of Premier League football earlier in the summer. We talk about how ownership has changed and how it will in the future; investing in a football club; what he’s most proud of; his ambitions for the club – which have evolved and grown as the club has; how much time he spends on the club and who he trusts within it; and of course, what he thinks of the attempted breakaway to form a European Super League.

England Men's Football Head Coach Gareth Southgate joins Leaders Founder and Chair Jimmy Worrall for a special episode of Rules of the Game to go in depth on an intangible but imperative leadership characteristic: resilience. Released on the eve of European Championship Final at Wembley - England's first appearance in a major final for over 50 years - and recorded as Southgate was putting the final touches to his preparations for the tournament, this episode of the Leaders Sport Business Podcast unpacks what it means to have resilience - as a leader, and as a team. On the agenda: - The skill of resilience: what it is and what it does for you; - How to develop resilience in yourself and in diverse teams; - Channeling failure into growth experiences: the penalty miss and relegation with Middlesbrough; - Growth mindset: analysis, reflection and review; - Handling pressure, handling criticism, handling scrutiny. For more on Leaders podcasts and its regular series of global sports industry events, visit leadersinsport.com. And if you're looking to keep pace with an ever-changing high performance landscape, enquire now to become a member of the Leaders Performance Institute – the world's elite high performance community that challenges thinking and shares insights, spanning all sports and all aspects of performance.  

Billy Beane, Barry Hearn, Michele Roberts, and Jonathan Barnett join Leaders Founder and Chair Jimmy Worrall to discuss the art of negotiation. In the second episode of Rules of the Game, Leaders Founder and Chair Jimmy Worrall explores the art of negotiation and what it takes to do it effectively. He sets out his five golden rules to follow, and offers a practical set of tips to reinforce your own negotiating style. To unpack this fundamental skill, he's joined by four of the finest exponents of deal-making from across the world of sport: - Oakland A's EVP of Baseball Operations Billy Beane - Mr 'Moneyball' himself - who pioneered data analysis in baseball to gain an edge in player trade negotiations; - Serial sports promoter Barry Hearn, Chairman of Matchroom Sport and one of the most successful all-round commercial operators in any number of sports and across any number of revenue streams; - NBPA Executive Director Michele Roberts, who has spearheaded several rounds of successful negotiations between the NBA and its players, and was a key factor in the league's ability to come back from the pandemic to complete its season in the Disney 'bubble'. - 'Super agent' Jonathan Barnett, Founder and Chairman of Stellar Group and the architect of some of world football's most eye-catching deals, including Gareth Bale's 100 million euro transfer from Tottenham to Real Madrid in 2013.