Sports Loft Podcast

Kicking off a new series on the podcast, we brought in two of our members' CEOs, plus a bonafide industry expert, to discuss some of the key topics to have hit their in-tray this week. Regular host Yanni Andreopoulos was joined by Don White and Nathan Peterson, CEOs of Satisfi Labs and Tagboard, respectively, as well as sports sponsorship and comms guru Andy Sutherden. Andy has counselled major br...

Kiki Mills Johnston is full of admiration for founders. "They just see through blockades," she says. "They see how to cross mountains and figure out how to get things done. That's why we do this job – it's just so inspiring to speak with founders every day."  Kiki is our podcast guest this week, and in a wide-ranging conversation, we learn what drew her to the industry, the sectors that are exciti...

Our 'Investor's View' series continues this week with Nikhil Bahel, managing partner at Elysian Park Ventures . Nikhil heads up Elysian’s London base, with the goal of broadening the footprint and horizons of the Los Angeles-based firm. We were keen to catch up with him to discuss the rapid growth around women’s sports versus traditional franchises, and dive into what Europe can learn from the Ame...

Imagine being able to exactly capture how Ronaldo steps over the ball in the World Cup final, how Serena Williams serves during a crucial Wimbledon set, or how McIlroy tees off at the US Open. Now imagine off the shelf action cameras and some AI-powered software being the only tools needed for the job. No ping pong ball sensors. No silly suits. No specialist studios. That’s the promise of motionle...

The fourth in our 'Investor's View' series welcomes Sports Loft advisory board member and partner at Causeway, Jasmine Robinson, enabling us to dive into how growth-stage venture capital differs to early investment models. Along the way, the conversation touches upon using angel investment as a 'foot-in-the-door' strategy, the challenges of investing in B2C businesses in a downturn, and what makes...

“What we realised early on is that the consumer sentiment is shifting," says Deepen Parikh, Partner at Courtside Ventures and guest on this week's Sports Loft Podcast. "When you look at a younger consumer and the way they interact with sports – whether it’s through live streaming or audio, whether they’re fans of a team or players, even what they view as sports – these were all areas that were dra...

"You're working with imperfect information, trying to piece things together. It feels like a puzzle: should we or should we not make an investment in this opportunity?" That's how Lance Dietz, partner of KB Partners, describes his job of identifying successes and investing across the sports, tech and media startup landscape. It's a turbulent time for the investment space, as well as the wider econ...

As far as strategic investors goes, having a direct line into tech giants Microsoft and four-time Superbowl winners the Green Bay Packers is a pretty good starting point! In our latest issue of the Sports Loft podcast, Cordero Barkley, Partner at TitleTown Tech, shares his story from college athlete to early stage VC, and how as a firm TitleTown Tech are supporting the growth of their portfolio co...

The sports media landscape is evolving rapidly, and navigating and understanding that evolution can at times be tricky. With the likes of TikTok driving a push to short form content, but Netflix demonstrating clear demand for binge-worthy episodic series, how should rightsholders be deploying their time and resource to deliver value to fans and partners? In this episode of the Sports Loft podcast,...

The Atlanta Hawks’ State Farm arena has been ranked as the best NBA Game experience in both 2019 and 2020. With the focus on the game experience in the NBA and heightened consumer expectations, that’s no mean feat – especially when, in the first year they won they award, the team wasn’t doing well: “When the team’s winning, the beer is colder and the hotdogs are warmer.” So for teams, how can you...

It used to be that all the most exciting marketing happened in the B2C space - those were the campaigns that won awards and got featured in industry press. The B2B marketeers were solid, reliable but not that interesting. Not any longer. A world of always-on consumers has forced B2B brands to totally re-think how they talk with their consumer. The B2B tech buyer is the same person who is buying th...

Sports fans have got so many channels that they might subscribe to – and in many cases they are driven by which channel has the rights to whatever they want to watch. However, the experience of watching a game is varying more and more between broadcasters as the channels seek to differentiate themselves – whether it’s through cameras, commentators, interactivity, graphics or studio presentation.  ...

When we meet with the founder of a prospective Sports Loft company, we are very focused on product – what exactly is it that you’re building? Who has the problem that you are solving? Why is your product better than the alternatives out there? What have you done to make your product as simple to use as possible? How are people using your product? Are users returning? Will anybody buy it? This prod...

One of the things that we look for in the companies at Sports Loft is a management team that operates with a global mindset. We want to see companies who have products that can be successful in multiple geographies and sales teams that want to embrace the fact that whilst national differences exist, sport and media is a genuinely global business.  However, growing a global operation is not easy. S...

The financial results of many sports organisations in the last 18 months have clearly shown why ticketing revenue is so important. Whilst pre-pandemic, many teams and events almost took their ticketing revenue for granted (we’ve got a waiting list for season tickets, we don’t need to worry), that complacency doesn’t exist anymore. Fans in attendance make the TV product better and amongst many of t...

Athletes are at the heart of everything that happens in professional sport. The best players deliver the biggest moments which in turn drive the audiences, the media rights and the highlight views on YouTube. The fans want to know everything about their lives, what they do and what they think. Many players now have bigger followings than the teams they play for.  Technology, and social media in pa...

Achieving “product-market-fit” is one of those terms that you frequently hear in the startup-world. Sought-after by founders and eulogised by investors, it has become an almost idealistic concept of that moment when all that hard work comes to fruition and it just clicks – the product sells itself. But what does it actually mean? And when do you know if you’ve “found it”?   In this episode, host Y...

Hiring and finding great people is without doubt one of the biggest priorities for any high-growth tech CEO, and the companies at Sports Loft are no exception. Whether it’s working out whether to hire for talent & aptitude or for a defined role, how to profile potential employees who are ready for a start-up environment, how to build a great on-boarding process and where to look for the best p...

Tagboard's President Nathan Peterson joins Yanni Andreopoulos from Sports Loft to talk about Tagboard’s growth as social media has become critical to the production landscape. Tagboard now powers broadcasts across US news and sports and was used for NFL Media’s production of the NFL Draft, is used by teams in every major league in the US and they recently signed a 4 year deal with Major League Bas...

How is the value sports teams get from social media changing?  What role does social media play for teams and how has this changed? We talk to Eric Stark, founder of Sports Loft member company Slate and Minnesota Timberwolves’ Director of Digital Content Shahbaz Khan about the increased importance of social media in sport and the demand for innovation and adaptability for digital content within sp...

Alexandra Wilis of Wimbledon and Nick Pinks of Covatic chatted about what personalisation means for sport.  Alex talked about how Wimbledon wants to remain relevant for as many people as possible, whatever their engagement with the tournament and tennis. She discussed the importance of both the technical side to personalisation, efficiency and how it needs to match up to the emotional, delivered t...

Technology is changing sports broadcasting. We discuss how with two leaders who are shaping innovation in that area. World Rugby's Ronan Donagher, who has overseen the implementation of video refereeing and the growth of rugby broadcast to new nations. He is joined by Ben Reynolds, CEO of Spalk, a technology that powers remote commentary and production of sports events globally. They discuss how r...

How are athletes becoming such great content creators? How are leagues and rights holders helping them to do this? We talk to social content tool Greenfly's CEO Daniel Kirschner and SailGP's CMO Tim Godfrey about how they're doing this. Our founder Charlie Greenwood outlines why he’s excited to work with Greenfly, part of the Sports Loft family.  Daniel recalls how he founded the company with his...

Data plays an increasing role in elite sports performance management. We chatted to Jesus Perez, assistant manager to Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur for five years, and Zone7’s Tal Brown about data informed decision making. Both set out that context is king. Someone needs to analyse the data. Coaches, like Perez and Pochettino, are the point at which data sets merge and decisions are nee...

Our host Yanni Andreopoulos talks to the CEO of PumpJack Dataworks, Nick Goggans. They discuss the founding of the company, why data is valuable for sports teams and how they are helping the industry to glean more value from it. They chat through how measurement and marketing are merging and how sports teams could become subscription businesses, meaning that the value of the data they own could be...