Unofficial Partner Podcast

This week we’ve assembled another group of very expensive expert advisers to brainstorm a new sports property that will make billions for its creators (minus Unofficial Partner commission, cash only).  The idea comes from our friend and former podcast guest Gundeep Anand, who in 2016 created The Last Stand, a street football tournament  aimed at uniting communities and breaking down social, cultural and religious barriers through sport. Now Gundeep is launching a women’s street football version in the centre of Birmingham next month and we got a group together to see how we can help. Joining Richard and Gundeep are Ricardo Fort and Michaela Gooden. Ricardo was head of Coca Cola and Visa global sport sponsorship programmes and now runs his own consultancy, Sport by Fort, advising rights holders, brands and other investors in how to make sport work for them. Michaela is a former professional footballer for Fulham who became an agent with Magna Sports Management, where she oversees a roster of male and female players including several WSL stars and England internationals. If you work on the sponsor or media side of sport, or for an agency looking to learn more, you can get in touch with us, or go direct to Gundeep. Every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. And if you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Today’s guest is John Amaechi OBE, the former NBA basketball player who has built a global reputation as an organisational psychologist via his own APS Intelligence consultancy. His book The Promises of Giants was a New York Times bestseller, and is a manifesto for a new type of conversation about leadership. A Chartered Scientist, John was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and a Research Fellow at the University of East London. If you’ve ever heard John talk about sport and the business that surrounds it, you’ll know this is a topic about which he has very strong and persuasive views. Every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. And if you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

This is episode 8 of ReThinking Sport, our series made in collaboration with Portas, the global strategy consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity. Our guests today are Kieran Maguire and Nic Coward. Kieran is a British academic, author and broadcaster best known for The Price of Football, the hugely popular podcast he hosts alongside comedian Kevin Day, which is based on Kieran’s book of the same name. Nic Coward’s career has seen him working at the very top level of British sport, in roles including General Secretary of the Premier League, chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, joint chief executive of The FA and the first chair of the global Sports Rights Owners Coalition. He is currently chair of UK Athletics and Golf England and is an expert partner at Portas. The conversation takes several of the threads that emerged from previous episodes in this series, from conversations with Rick Parry, chair of the EFL, Mark Bullingham, CEO of The FA, Paul Conway, head of Pacific Media Group and Kelly Simmons, head of the FA’s Women Super League. Each of these episodes can be found on UnofficialPartner.com or via PortasConsulting.com, or any of the major podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. You’ll also need to get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, which goes to the email inbox of thousands of sports business executives out every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

For people under 30, FIFA is a computer game not a governing body. That’s become almost a cliche of sports marketing, and like all cliches, there might be some truth in it. Which is why the noises recently coming from EA Sports, the company which makes the game, are so interesting. There’s talk of a split between the governing body which licenses its name for around $150million a year and the company that is said to have turned that license in to $20billion over the past two decades. Our guest today is David Jackson, the Everton supporting former Barclays marketer who is in charge of the FIFA brand for EA Sports. We obviously talk about the current licensing story and much more besides, including the marketing potential of women players as cover stars of the FIFA game.  Listen to to the rest of the Unofficial Partner achieve by subscribing via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. You’ll also need to get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, which goes to the email inbox of thousands of sports business executives out every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

This is the episode 2 of our series Esports Economics in collaboration with Nielsen Sport, the world’s leading source of sports measurement and analytics.The conversation is focused on sponsorship and the key question of return on investment and builds on some of the threads we covered in episode 1.Our guests are Carlos Alimurung and Nicholas Bruce. Carlos is CEO of ONE Esports, the esports joint venture between ONE Championship and Dentsu. Nick Bruce, Vice President of Consulting and Research for Asia at Nielsen, based in Tokyo. So we challenge many of the preconceptions about esports among the brand marketing community, the arguments for sponsorship versus programmatic advertising and the big differences between rights packages developed in esports compared to those in traditional stick and ball sports marketing.  To keep in touch with the rest of the Esport Economics series, make sure you subscribe to Unofficial Partner via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. You’ll also need to get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, which is distributed to the email inbox of thousands of sports business executives out every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

We were at Leaders London this week and did a live session in front of a carefully selected audience of sports biz execs. The premise was simple enough, how can two amoral chancers like me and Sean build a new billion dollar sports property by cobbling together all the best bits from elsewhere and selling it to private equity, venture capital, media, sponsors or anyone else with deep pockets and a ‘Passion for Sport’?  To make it work we sought advice from no fewer than 11 very expensive experts from the Unofficial Partner WhatsApp Group, who came along to Twickenham with us. So you’ll hear the following people over the course of the next hour: Matt Rogan, Richard Ayers, Michael Broughton, Sophie Hind, Jane Purdon, Nic Coward, Patrick Massey, Gary Linke, Giles Morgan, Murray Barnett and Alex Inglot. If you want to see how the Billion Dollar Brainstorm came about, you’ll need to catch up with the Unofficial Partner newsletter, which comes out every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

The Hundred was one of the sports business stories of the summer in the UK. A new short form cricket event concept that was created and owned by the ECB, the governing body for the game in England and Wales. Our guests today were central to the planning and execution of the tournament. Beth Barrett Wild is Head of The Hundred Women's Competition & Female Engagement for the ECB and Rob Calder is Commercial Director of The Hundred, having formally carried out that role for the ECB as a whole.We talk about what went right and what they’ll change, the expectations around the pay, the marketing of the women’s game, building team brands and the commercial arguments for new formats. If you like the podcast, you’ll really like the Unofficial Partner newsletter, which comes out every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Today’s guest is American golf blogger, journalist, podcaster and broadcaster Geoff Shackelford, who’s just back from Whistling Straits after covering the Ryder Cup. Geoff’s one of the best and most astute observers of the game, his website and newsletter are essential reading not just for the golf industry but for the wider sports business too. We talk about golf’s perennial pursuit of youthful audiences, the implications of the betting era and the threat of disruption to the tours from the Premier Golf League and other iterations, backed by private equity and Saudi money. If you like the podcast, you’ll really like the Unofficial Partner newsletter, which comes out every Thursday, subscribe via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Today’s guest is American soccer journalist, podcaster and broadcaster Grant Wahl, who’s first book The Beckham Experiment was a bestselling insight in to sport, celebrity and the market for the game in America. He followed that up with an attempt to get elected as FIFA President against Sepp Blatter. This failed, but in very entertaining and revealing ways. We talk MLS valuations, Ted Lasso and whether there’s a difference between Sepp Blatter and Gianni Infantino.This podcast is sponsored by Leaders Week London, which is back in real life at Twickenham Stadium between the 5th to the 7th of October. To get 15% off, use the code UnofficialPartner15 via the Leaders website.The full agenda is now live on the site with details of speakers and sessions, including the Unofficial Partner Billion Dollar Business Brainstorm on the Podcast Stage at 12 noon on the first day. There’s a limit of fifty people allowed in the room, so you’ll need to get there early. There are more details on the plan in this week’s Unofficial Partner newsletter, which as everyone knows, comes out every Thursday via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Andy Holt is the hugely successful entrepreneur who in 2015 stepped into save his local football club Accrington Stanley FC from financial ruin. The club was one of the English Football League’s original founding members in 1888 and remains one of its smallest. But the club has been transformed under Holt’s ownership, winning promotion to EFL League One in 2018. “Let's be clear," he said when he bought the Accrington Stanley. "Whatever individual, company or other entity owns the club is largely irrelevant, because this isn't a business venture. Has anyone ever made a profit out of Accrington Stanley? In 50 years I will be dust blowing in the wind - hopefully our input will mean the club is not!”That’s a sentence that’s sure to resonate with any fans of Derby County, Bury or Macclesfield Town, EFL clubs which have recently gone bankrupt and which are sure to be joined by others as they struggle against an array of problems, from bad owners, the Covid shutdown and the economics of lower league football. Andy Holt listened to our recent conversation with EFL chairman Rick Parry and responded in depth via Twitter. As you’ll hear, Holt’s view of the role and economics of football is starkly at odds with those in the boardrooms of clubs higher up football’s pyramid and is a vital part of the bigger conversation about the future of the game from top to bottom. This podcast is sponsored by Leaders Week London, which is back in real life at Twickenham Stadium between the 5th to the 7th of October. With less than two weeks there’s a few remaining passes but they’re selling fast. In the last week alone some big names have signed up, such as Toyota, Red Bull, San Antonio Spurs, UEFA, adidas, Sky, NFL, AEG, DAZN, Liverpool FC, Emirates, Real Madrid and many more. Each of them have heard about the live Unofficial Partner podcast being recorded at 12 noon on the Wednesday, which is obviously worth the ticket alone. But to get 15% off, use the code UnofficialPartner15 via the Leaders website.As ever, if you like the podcasts you’ll love the Unofficial Partner newsletter, get it every Thursday via 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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.