Unofficial Partner Podcast

Thierry Borra spent 25 years working in sport for The Coca Cola Company, and for a large period of that time was responsible for the relationship with the Olympic Games.So what does the postponement of Tokyo 2021 mean for Coke, the IOC’s longest serving partner? How does the Olympics fit in to Coke’s marketing strategy and how do they know whether it works or not?This was an opportunity to go really deep in to the marketing landscape around the Games and to peer in to the often closed world of Coca Cola, a company that spends more money on sports rights than virtually any other, making it hugely influential across the sponsorship sector, where brands of all categories often ask, what would coke do?Thierry left Coca Cola after the Rio Games and has set up his own business Sport Matters, and I ask him what it’s like leaving Coca Cola after so long, and what advice he would have given himself on his first day.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 one of a regular series of deep dives in to the commercial landscape in a particular sport. Each sport faces challenges that are common to all, but also there are specific differences that make them unique, this might be the commercial structure, the ownership, the political balance between club and country for example, or the role of private equity, which is certainly a feature of any current rugby business conversation.So to get in to the details, I sought the opinions of two people who have held senior commercial roles in the sport. Sophie Goldschmidt and Murray Barnett.Sophie Goldschmidt was formerly chief commercial and marketing officer at the Rugby Football union in England. She now lives in Santa Monica, having become CEO of the World Surf League. Before that Sophie was joint managing director of CSM Sport and Entertainment, and has held roles at the (NBA), the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and Adidas.From 2013 to 2016 Murray Barnett was chief commercial officer at World Rugby, the game’s global governing body, a period sandwiched between a long career at media giant ESPN and more latterly F1.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.

Martin Offiah MBE is a rare thing, a rugby league player who is also a household name. As a player in the 1980s and 90s, he had an extraordinary impact on the game, scoring over 500 tries during his rugby league career, making him the highest try-scoring English player of all time, and now features in a statue of great rugby league players outside Wembley Stadium. Born in Hackney, London, Offiah was talent spotted at the Middlesex Sevens and started a career in rugby league, the only professional route available at that time. He was transferred from Widnes to Wigan in 1992 for £440,000, which was the biggest fee for a league player for fifteen years. We talk about his early days as a player, dealing with racism and how he has navigated that sometimes strange post-sports career world of reality television, Offiah starred in the first ever Strictly Come Dancing and now mixes sports punditry with his passion for the environment, working with Connected Kerb, the electric vehicle infrastructure company.The Unofficial Partner podcast is now published daily, and we're proud and grateful that our conversations are being listened to by thousands of people across the sports business every week of the year. If you'd like to enquiry about advertising, sponsorship or branded podcasts, please get in touch with Sean via email sean@unofficialpartner.co.uk or you can reach us 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.

Gareth Balch co-founded Two Circles in 2011 when he 28 years old, and the business has since become one of the most influential sports marketing agencies to emerge over the last decade. They came to be seen as the defacto data agency that works with many sports rights holders, from the NFL, the Premier League, Uefa, Formula One and Wimbledon, among others. We talk about what this really means, and the many interpretations and misconceptions people have both about digital transformation in sport and the company itself.In 2015 Two Circles was acquired by GroupM, WPP’s media investment management company, which was incorporated into what was a new global sport and entertainment agency brand called ESP. Just recently WPP sold its majority stake to Bruin Sports Capital, the New York based investment vehicle controlled by George Pyne, the former boss of iMG.The Unofficial Partner podcast is now published daily, and we're proud and grateful that our conversations are being listened to by thousands of people across the sports business every week of the year. If you'd like to enquiry about advertising, sponsorship or branded podcasts, please get in touch with Sean via email sean@unofficialpartner.co.uk or you can reach us 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.

Today we talk to Brett Gosper the chief executive of World Rugby about how his career in advertising frames what  sees as the role of a governing body.As a player in the 1980s, Gosper was a talented centre who had the misfortune to play in the era of the Ella brothers, who dominated the back line of the Australia teams at that time. We talk about Gosper’s decision to move to Paris to play for the Racing 92 club, a period in which his career in advertising was launched at Ogilvy and Mather. We talk about the influence of David Ogilvy not just on Gosper but on the advertising industry generally. Gosper left Ogilvy in 1989 and began what was a very successful career leading some of the agency sector’s biggest names, including EuroRSCG, which is now Havas, McCann Erickson in New York and TBWA.Gosper became head of the IRB in 2012 and changed the name to World Rugby and has since overseen the sport’s return to the Olympic Games in Rio and two commercially successful World Cups in 2015 and 2019 in Japan.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 talk to Yannick Ramcke, who has established a reputation for being one of the most insightful observers of the sports media market and specifically the convergence of tech platforms, and the growth of streaming and Over The Top services. I first came across Yannick on Twitter, and then via his work at OneFootball and on his own blog OffTheFieldBusiness.de. What’s striking is both the depth of his knowledge and the clarity with which he explains what is a murky, difficult to understand part of the business. Since then I asked him to write for Unofficial Partner, and we’ll put a link to his stuff in the show notes.We talk about how the current coronavirus crisis is impacting on the OTT conversation. How each of the major players up and down the value chain will respond. Link to more on Yannick here  https://www.offthefieldbusiness.de/yannick-manuel-ramckeLink to Completely OTT blog post here  https://www.unofficialpartner.com/post/nobody-writes-better-about-ott-than-yannick-ramke-so-here-he-isUnofficial 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 podcast is a conversation about the commercial questions hanging over women’s sport. It was organised by Lisa Parfitt, the managing director of Engine Sport, who helped us pull together two great guests, England cricketer Georgia Elwiss and former Chelsea and England footballer Claire Rafferty.Georgia Elwiss is a right arm medium fast bowler and right handed batsman who first played for the England team in South Africa in 2011 and was member of the one day side that won the ICC Women’s World Cup on that great day at Lords in 2017.Claire Rafferty played for Millwall, Chelsea and West Ham in the Women’s Super League, and made her full International debut against Austria in 2010, was a member of the Team GB at London 2012 and played for England in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup.For more detail on Engine Sport’s work on women’s sport go to their website where you can also watch the webinar that preceded this podcast.The Unofficial Partner podcast is now published daily, and we're proud and grateful that our conversations are being listened to by thousands of people across the sports business every week of the year. If you'd like to enquiry about advertising, sponsorship or branded podcasts, please get in touch with Sean via email sean@unofficialpartner.co.uk or you can reach us 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.

Garry Dods is founder of the sports marketing agency We Are Fearless. the week before we recorded this interview me and Sean were at the European Sponsorship Awards and saw Garry and his team win the coveted Agency of the Year award, and so we reference that in the conversation, along with talking about his previous roles at Octagon, what he thinks is the point of difference between his new agency and the rest of the market and the universal challenge of creating a distinctive corporate culture.  This podcast was recorded a few days before the  current lockdown  at the company’s HQ in London.The Unofficial Partner podcast is now published daily, and we're proud and grateful that our conversations are being listened to by thousands of people across the sports business every week of the year. If you'd like to enquiry about advertising, sponsorship or branded podcasts, please get in touch with Sean via email sean@unofficialpartner.co.uk or you can reach us 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.

Daniel Geey is a sports lawyer and a partner at Sheridans, an author of Done Deals a book about football transfers, he has a blog and a podcast of his own and appears regularly on news and sports channels where he discusses the impact of the law on football.So I didn’t really want to talk about the law with Daniel as he does that a lot elsewhere. I’m actually more interested in unpicking the way he goes about personal branding and building a reputation, what a law career is really like, the common misconceptions and the mistakes we non lawyers make when talking about legal stuff in relation to sport.This podcast was recorded at Sheridan’s offices before the current lockdown.The Unofficial Partner podcast is now published daily, and we're proud and grateful that our conversations are being listened to by thousands of people across the sports business every week of the year. If you'd like to enquiry about advertising, sponsorship or branded podcasts, please get in touch with Sean via email sean@unofficialpartner.co.uk or you can reach us 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.

Today’s podcast guest is Steve Martin, Global CEO of M&C Saatchi Sport and Entertainment.We interviewed Steve last year, when he announced he was relocating from the agency's Soho office to Sydney, Australia and it’s fair to say quite a bit has happened in the intervening eight months or so, from the terrible fires that swept through Australia last summer to the current Coronavirus shutdown, with all the implications that has for sports events, not least the Tokyo Olympics. So we thought it time to check in for a view from Steve, to see how the market looks from his new home.The Unofficial Partner podcast is now published daily, and we're proud and grateful that our conversations are being listened to by thousands of people across the sports business every week of the year. If you'd like to enquiry about advertising, sponsorship or branded podcasts, please get in touch with Sean via email sean@unofficialpartner.co.uk or you can reach us 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.