Unofficial Partner Podcast

This week we talk to two of the most influential sports news journalists working today. Martyn Ziegler is Chief Sports Reporter of The Times and Sunday Times newspapers and Martha Kelner has recently moved from a similar role at The Guardian to become Sports Correspondent of Sky News.The conversation took place at the Royal Thames Yacht Club in Knightsbridge just before the annual sports news lobby Christmas drinks where journalists invite prominent people from across the sports business and political worlds and ply them with free drink. To add authenticity, you can hear the barman getting things ready in the background at times during the recording.If you enjoy the podcasts, don’t forget to rate us on iTunes and subscribe to the unofficial partner newsletter via the site.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.

This week’s guests are Mark Catlin and Kevin Rye.Former Bury director and Spanish telecommunications business leader Mark Catlin is chief executive of Portsmouth football club, and a recent winner of the Football Business Awards CEO of the Year and a judge at this year’s event.We talk to Mark about who assisted fans in the saving the club from administration in 2012, the acquisition of the club by supporters and the consequent takeover by former Disney chief Michael Eisner in 2017.Our other guest is Kevin Rye, founder and director of Fan Insights, who has created the first Fan Engagement Index, in which all 92 league clubs are rated for their relationship with their own supporters. Finally a big thank you to our brilliant friends at SDA, one of London's best boutique brand consultancies for opening their doors for us and generously allowing us to record the pod at their lovely Charlotte Street office, it’s much appreciated.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.

This week Richard and Sean head to Putney to talk to Oli Slipper about the expensive mistakes that await sport’s OTT boom; the secret of the Maradona documentary and commercial appeal of long form sports films; why DAZN sold Perform and what Len Blavatnik’s really like; Barry Hearn’s sweary advice and the challenges of selling football club websites in the days of dial up internet connections.The former pro cricketer is now Chair of Pitch International, the sports rights agency, so we talked to him at the company’s riverside HQ, where the wall of his office is covered with a photo of Kenny Dalglish, despite Oli being a Spurs season ticket holder.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.

This week we talk to Henry Chappell in Pitch Marketing Group's Soho office overlooking the NCP Car Park on Brewer Street, which is now above a posh boutique but used to be a really good vintage magazine shop.The conversation is wide ranging, running from his time at IMG and then Freuds, before he launched Pitch in 2002 with help from then shareholder Matthew Freud. What I wanted to know is what twenty years in the agency world has taught him about how sport works, now and in the future. And that night in a Turkish prison.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.

This week Richard and Sean go to IBM’s headquarters on the South Bank to talk to Sam Seddon who guides the company’s relationship with the sport sector, most notably their long time partnerships with Wimbledon and England Rugby via the RFU. As ever, we want to know who have been the big winners and losers in the last thirty years when it comes to sport and tech, and we ask Sam for the inside line on IBM’s view of how the next ten years is going to pan out.If you enjoy our podcasts, there’s been 31 of them so far, please head to iTunes and rate us, it helps others find the podcast and makes us look popular.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.

Ellie Norman was Head of Advertising and Sponsorship at Virgin Media when Sean Bratches asked her to become the first ever Head of Marketing for Formula One. That was 2017 and much has happened on her watch, so we went to F1’s Mayfair office to talk boring drivers, grid girls, perception versus reality and what she learnt about the power of dreams while working at Honda. 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.

Richard Ayers has been selling the future for his whole career, since teaching John Humphreys to read out the BBC Today Programmes’ website address, to his current guise as a thought leader in sport’s great journey of digital transformation.We visit Richard at Seven League’s HQ deep in Islington, the epicentre of the north London metropolitan elite.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.

This week Richard and Sean visit the Hampstead home of Dave Bedford, legendary runner and 10,000 metre world record holder who played a pivotal role in the London Marathon for over three decades. We talk about the breaking the 2 hour barrier, Nike’s new shoes are different than drugs when It comes to running faster, the role of tech in sport and visiting all 92 pubs on the London Marathon route.Dave is working with his son Tom Bedford on the AIR:RUN, a brand new music/running concept consisting of a 10K and a Half Marathon on fully closed roads inside Richmond Park on the 31st May 2020. For more information www.airrun.londonUnofficial 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 week Richard and Sean meet Claire Parnell, Emma Newell and Laura Weston the organisers of a vital new business network called the Mums in Sport Community (Misc) - a positive, supportive community for women who work in sport, and who are also mums. This is a conversation that touches on some big themes that impact on every element of the industry. We talk about confidence, guilt, money and the ways in which companies can help mums return to work a more effective process.“You have a 7.30 awards dinner, or a breakfast event, and you’re there super early, smiling away and the reality is that it’s really hard to get out of the house early, to organise or negotiate pick ups, and there’s a trail of destruction left behind”.To connect with this great new group, here are their social channels.  Please follow and support!Twitter: https://twitter.com/MISCommunityInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mis_community_/?hl=enLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13766439/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.

What’s it like moving from brand marketer to rights holder? We talk to Nathan Homer and Tim Ellerton, two high profile sports business execs who have made the jump and have tales to tell.Nathan was Global Sports Marketing and Olympics Director at Procter & Gamble and head of global partnerships at Barclays before moving over to the other side, as Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer of European Tour golf. (Breaking news: Nathan just got a new job as Director of Trading, Broadband and Sport at Sky/Now TV).Tim Ellerton worked in senior sports sponsorship roles at Coca-Cola and more recently Heineken. He became Commercial Director of the British Olympic Association in January 2017. 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.