Unofficial Partner Podcast

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 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.

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 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 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 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're talking to Jane Purdon CEO of Women in Football, the organisation that champions and supports women working across the professional game.Jane is a lawyer who has a track record at the highest level of football and sport, most recently as Head of Governance and Leadership at UK Sport and previously as Director of Governance with the Premier League and Club Secretary with Sunderland.This is the link to the Farrer report she talks about in the podcast.if you enjoy our podcasts, you can sign up for our weekly briefing via the website 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 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.

In today’s podcast, we’re going to review the last seven days in the American sports business market and we’re doing that in the company of Corey Leff, who is the man behind the John Wall St newsletter. We talk about Harris Blitzer's regional network ambitions, Endeavour IMG and the agency market, Nike’s approach to the Liverpool shirt and the legacy of the Chevy, Man Utd deal to name just a few.If you want to join the Unofficial Partner network, sign up to our weekly newsletter 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 another in our series All Models Are Wrong, which goes deep in to the subject of digital strategy in sport. Previous episodes have featured Mark Oliver, Alex Balfour and Daniel Kirschner, each of which is available via unofficialpartner.com or wherever you get your podcasts.This week we talk Aarti Dabas, who has just started a new role as head of media for Formula E having previously been head of media, broadcast and digital for the ICC,cricket’s global governing body.We spoke to Aarti a few weeks ago before she took up her new job and her views don’t represent those of her new or her former employer.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 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 podcast is a conversation with Ed Smith, the chair of England cricket selectors on the subject of decision making, the first of an occasional series on various aspects of leadership.Ed was a professional cricketer for Kent, Middlesex and England whose career was curtailed by injury at the age of 31 when he started his second career as  an author, journalist and commentator on the iconic Test Match Special before being made England cricket’s chief national cricket selector in 2018.Ed co-founded The Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) which runs higher education programmes for professionals working in the sports industry. The MA Leadership in Sport is a 12-month non-residential course – designed so that students can stay in their jobs while studying – features evening seminars in London, online and with visits to other partner venues.  You can contact them here.This podcast was recorded on the 8th of May.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 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.

From sport and music, to films, radio or literature, every part of the culture industry is defined and shaped by the metrics we use to measure the audience for them.But who decides what metrics to use? This is a question posed by today’s guest Matt Locke, the co-founder of Storythings, and someone who I’ve been trying to get on the podcast since we started a year or so ago.Matt is one of the most interesting thinkers on our relationship with media, and he has written a series of essays called How To Measure Ghosts. Before starting Storythings in 2011, Matt worked in Digital Media for over two decades. He was Head of Innovation at BBC New Media from 2001, then moved to Channel 4 where he was Commissioning Editor, Education, and later Head of Multiplatform.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 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 we ask what’s going to happen next? What should we all look out for as, when or if things return to whatever normal looks like post-covid. To help answer the question, we asked James Toller and Rob Pope of Mallory Group to give us some clues. Rob, James and Ross Collett of Roco Communications have pooled their knowledge working both in Europe, the USA and Asia and have written a white paper under the heading of There's a New Normal Coming for Sports Rights Holders - Are You Ready? which is available free via Mallory Group’s website. So we use this as a starting point for a conversation which is I think relevant to everyone who touches sport, from top to bottom.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 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 podcast is the first in a series called Money Talks, conversations about sport’s relationship with private equity, venture capital and the financial markets. We’re asking a series of simple questions relating to money: Who needs it, how do they get it, who do they get it from, and what are the implications of that, how does the source of finance change the behaviour of the people in charge of sport at all levels.  Our first guest is Jason Traub, co-founder of 23Capital. 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 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.