Joao Martins

Beyond The Pitch with Joao Martins

Business EN ↓ 5 episodes

Most sports organisations and schools are sitting on commercial value they cannot see. The wrong audience framing. The partnership that was never pitched correctly. The pricing model that should be charging three times more. Beyond the Pitch breaks that down. Each episode deconstructs the commercial decisions behind the biggest properties in sports and education. Not the results on the pitch. The strategy behind how they actually make money - the partnerships, the pricing, the positioning that most operators never think to question. I'm João Martins. I run Fever Pitch, a sports and education a...

Author

Joao Martins

Episodes

Three Years of Optionality for Students: What the Best Schools Understand About Elite Sport 01.07.2026 22:45

50% of professional football academy players in Europe are released before the age of 16. Not at 18. Not at the end of school. At fifteen, before any meaningful academic qualification, before any alternative pathway exists. Within three weeks of being released, 55% experience clinical levels of psychological distress. 72% say they received no support. European football produces the best players in...

The Importance of Being Eton: Why Brand Hierarchy Now Beats a $162M Campus for International Schools 18.06.2026 20:45

In August 2026, one of Thailand's largest infrastructure groups will close a school they spent $162 million building and reopen it under the name Wycombe Abbey. Same campus. Same location. Higher fees. That decision tells you everything about where the international schools market is right now. In this episode, I break down why the first phase of international education, the infrastructure be...

The IMG Academy: building a $1.25 Billion Sports Education Empire 29.01.2026 17:26

Most sports academies sell coaching. IMG Academy sells college scholarships. A tennis coach borrowed $1 million to buy a tomato field in Florida. 46 years later, it sold for $1.25 billion. How? By understanding what parents actually hire an academy to do: get their kids into college, not teach them better footwork. In this episode, I break down how Nick Bollettieri built IMG Academy into a sports...

Location Arbitrage: Why Your Club's Zip Code is More Valuable Than It´s Striker 05.12.2025 18:35

This week, we rip up the traditional football business model. For decades, clubs have chased volume, copying giants like Real Madrid while ignoring their most valuable, non-replicable asset: their location. João breaks down the concept of Geographic Arbitrage and explains how clubs like AS Monaco and Atlanta United are generating massive commercial revenue by rejecting volume in favour of value ....

The Scarcity Weapon: How Wimbledon’s Strategy of Refusal Generates $124M in Sponsor Revenue 26.11.2025 13:14

Most sports properties think more sponsors equals more money. Wimbledon proves the opposite. With just 17 partners, they generate $124 million in sponsorship revenue while comparable tournaments with 50 plus partners make less per deal. Their secret? Treating scarcity like a weapon. In this episode, I break down the Wimbledon commercial playbook: how they turned the all white dress code into a rev...