Unofficial Partner Podcast

Crypto.com has been one of the biggest spenders in the sports sponsorship market over the last three years, putting its brand to properties including FIFA World Cup, F1 and the Aston Martin team, UFC, Australia Football League and the naming rights to the Staples Centre in Los Angeles among many others. Every major sports property in the world rushed to do deals in a category of companies seeking...

What's the difference between the US and European sports marketplace?  Few people are better positioned to answer this question than Jon Stainer, the US based Englishman who is Global General Manager of Nielsen Sports, the leading source of sports measurement and analytics around the world. Stainer has led multiyear relationships with the NFL, NBA and Premier League during his time at Nielsen...

What's your next job? Where will it come from? What are the factors that make you more or less likely to get it? What's your office culture like? Can you maintain culture when most people are working from home? Do you trust colleagues to work hard from home? What about networking, is it the secret to career success, or just a euphemism for drinking? Is the sports business a booze culture...

The big retailers are years ahead of sport when it comes to understanding their own customers.   So we asked today's guests what can sport learn from Sainsbury's, Tesco, Target and Amazon.  We're joined by Finn Bradshaw and Claire Kelly. Finn is head of digital at the International Cricket Council, the game's global governing body.   Claire is General Manager of Gemba Europe. ...

Kumar Sangakkara is one of the most important and influential voices in international cricket today and in an ideal position to offer insight in to many of the current sports business themes. The IPL has changed cricket forever, and is challenging the status quo of the traditional game, run by the national governing bodies and the ICC. As a player, he's regarded as the greatest wicket keeper...

DAZN continues to be one of the most talked about companies in the sports media world since its launch in 2016. But the story is shifting from its initial ambition to be 'The Netflix of Sport'. The last set of accounts showed DAZN's operating losses of $1.3billion, taking the total Group loss to $5billion in five years. Yet the company remains a significant bidder for sports rights....

Marina Erakovic's family fled war torn former Yugoslavia when she was a small child, and she grew up in New Zealand where her precocious tennis talent was nurtured. After winning nine titles in a thirteen year career on the WTA Tour, she is now a business consultant working for PwC in Auckland.  She takes us inside the reality of the professional tennis circuit, comparing her experience with...

Moya Dodd has been one of the most influential women in international football for the past two decades. In 2013 she was one of the first women in 108 years to be appointed to the FIFA executive committee, the governing body's key decision making group. The former international player and lawyer led reform for gender equality including greater inclusion in the decision-making process and for...

The Bundle is our regular series on the sports media and streaming market, with guests Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke. Three main stories and a quick fire round.  ESPN Takes a shot at creating a sports streaming hub; Apple's MLS opt-out and what would happen if that became the model for the relationship between rights holders and media; and the danger of misreading the bankruptcy of Bally...

Coca Cola and the Olympics is sport's most enduring commercial relationship. But how does it work on the inside? How relevant is the Games to today's Coke drinker? Is the Olympic TOP programme still fit for purpose? And how can the IOC balance its promises around sustainability with the reality of hosting massive, multi-sport events, and sponsored by companies such as Coca Cola, which is...

This is episode 2 of our series on creativity in sports marketing, with regular co-host Simon Moore, award winning Creative Director. We pick apart the latest Nike Rules The World ad, featuring the brand's recent collaboration with London based streetwear imprint Corteiz, and directed by Walid Labri for Division. Spoiler: We quite liked it but not enough to put it in to the Unofficial Partner...

In the week of the European Sponsorship Awards, we resurrect The Buy Side, our series where we talk with brand marketers about sport sponsorship. Previous conversations have included guests from Visa, TSB, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Sipsmith and Vitality. These can be found in the Unofficial Partner archive on our website. To relaunch the series, we've recruited the help of two highly regarded spo...

Sir Martin Broughton sold Liverpool and nearly bought Chelsea. As chair of the former he was tasked with moving the club out of the hands of previous owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett and in to its current ownership group, Fenway Sports Group. More recently, Broughton put together a consortium to bid for Chelsea, when the club came to market following the forced sale by Roman Abramovich. So the...

It's sometimes said that this is a golden era of sports documentary. F1's Drive to Survive has changed the landscape. Every sports rights holder wants its own version, to use as a tool to reach new audiences, whether that's the infamous Gen Z demographic or in different parts of the world, delivered by the global streamers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. But what are trade offs re...

This is a new series on creativity in sports marketing. With award winning Creative Director Simon Moore as our regular sidekick, we go in search of brilliance.  Each episode dissects campaigns we love and campaigns we hate.  Some rules:  Does the idea deserve to be celebrated in the UP Big Idea Hall of Fame? Does the campaign come with a level of craft and sophistication that merits an award, doe...

Piracy and illegal streaming is a $28.3 billion a year global business, impacting sports rights holders and broadcasters across the world.  Pirate streams of sporting events are not difficult to find on the internet and shutting these down has proved to be a difficult task for sports leagues. While legal action has been successfully brought against several illegal streamers, many are still fully o...

Warren Gatland is one of the most successful coaches of the professional rugby era. His career has spanned the club and international game, with stints in charge of Ireland, Wales and three times the head coach of the British and Irish Lions touring teams to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.  In December 2022, Gatland returned to Wales ahead of the current Guinness Six Nations Championship,...

Martin Glenn was CEO of The FA for four years until 2018, following a career as a senior executive at United Biscuits and PepsiCo, where he famously made Gary Lineker the face of Walkers Crisps. Glenn was offered The FA job by then chairman, and former UP guest, Greg Dyke and his tenure is regarded favourably across football and the journalists who cover it. Revenue increased 40% and the organisat...

How many people play Table Tennis in England? Who are they and why do they play? Is that number growing or contracting? How easy is it to watch the sport in today's omnichannel media environment and how is it going to evolve?  And, is the National Governing Body model, the basis of the economy for sport in the UK, still fit for purpose? These are questions we put to today's guests, Adria...

Mo Salah was a teenager playing for Cairo-based club Arab Contractors in the Egyptian Premier League, when he was spotted by Sascha Empacher, the founder of the SPOCS football agency.  Today, Salah is one of the world's greatest players, after a series of transfers took from Basel, Chelsea, Roma and to his current home, Liverpool. Empacher's business has also grown considerably, making h...

How did you watch Qatar 2022? Did you sit in front of a big TV showing live games in real time? Or did you consume thousands of clips across social media and via AI curated digital platforms such as Google OneBox, which saw the biggest ever surge in search queries for football related content during the tournament. The FIFA World Cup was made up of 30,000 highlights clips. That epic final between...

Will Page was Chief Economist of Spotify and PRS for Music and is the author of the critically acclaimed book Tarzan Economics . Some Will Page references to read alongside the pod.  This chart from The Economist on the age of festival headliners New Year New Ideas , key chart showing the growth of stadiums and festivals below - think Big Eventer)  Billboard: Examining Covid's Impact on UK&ap...

The market for in-game advertising and sponsorship is valued at around $8billion, and is predicted to more than double by the end of the decade. The audience is young, affluent and increasingly diverse, so it's unsurprising that big brand names are seeking ways in to this world, via the publishers of mobile and big box console game titles such as League of Legends, Call of Duty or FIFA. Great...

What's going to happen to the sports media and streaming market in 2023?  We asked Bundle regulars Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett for their hopes, fears and predictions for the year ahead. Price hikes, subscription wars, economic woes and OTT white elephants; it's all here.  Plus what the year holds for Disney, Sky, DAZN, the FAANGs and the a host of Drive to Survive wannabes.  Unoffi...

Why are so many leading athletes putting their money in to early stage sports tech ventures? What are the pros and cons of having Serena Williams, LeBron James, Naomi Osaka, Tiger Woods or Lewis Hamilton on the cap table of investors?  What is being traded for equity in the business, is it cash or fame, or access to the opportunity?  And below the 1% of superstar athletes, how is this trend impact...