Unofficial Partner Podcast

What T20 Cricket Teaches Every Sport About The Race For The Global Fan. Mike Jakeman joins Richard for Inside Edge, the business of cricket series.  Guests:  Finn Bradshaw, Head of Digital, ICC Edward Fitzgibbon, Managing Director, NYZ Consulting. Twenty20 cricket is one of the great product innovations in modern sport. Compact, volatile, accessible to anyone with three hours and a phone signal, i...

Barney Francis offers an insider's view of the sports media economy, drawing on his huge experience as MD of Sky Sports in the UK and EVP, Studios at IMG, the company's production business. The conversation spans new sports formats, piracy, streaming disruption, rights economics, the creation of The Hundred, the Premier League's move to in-house production, and the structural challe...

Richard is joined by regular Bundle co-hosts Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett.  Yannick is General Manager of OTT at the streaming service OneFootball and Murray is founder of 26West Sport and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN. Subscribe to The Bundle Bulletin, via Unofficial Partner's Substack Newsletter.   Today's topics: Advertising Renaissance: ITV’s Six Nations in-game advertisi...

Pete Fitzboydon, former CEO of Sussex County Cricket Club, reveals the stark financial realities facing non-Test hosting counties. With only 7 out of 50-60 annual playing days generating profit, counties survive primarily on ECB funding - approximately £3m of a £5-10m turnover. The conversation explores The Hundred's transformative impact, selling the longer game, and the future shape of Engl...

Sally Munday is CEO of UK Sport, one of the most influential positions in the sports industry. On Friday the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games begins in Milan-Cortina.  How many medal will Team GB win? How much will each medal cost? And why does that matter? UK Sport distributors around £100 million annually in public funds from the National Lottery and the Exchequer, supporting high-perfor...

Ryan Norys is the Chief Revenue Officer at Tottenham Hotspur. This is a candid conversation about the commercial fortunes of the club as it brings the front of shirt sponsorship to market at a time of genuine uncertainty. Spurs finished 17th last season. Commercial revenue grew 40% in three years. That tension runs through the entire discussion. Norys' journey to Spurs was via City Football G...

THE BILLION DOLLAR RACE: WHO WINS SPORTS AI? There's a race on. Bloomberg Terminal for sport. Sports Business GPT. The industry's operating system. Who builds it first? THE LAST FRONTIER "Once you give away that level of knowledge, it's gone. This is the last frontier before all your intelligence is gone." — Craig Hepburn Live from Fuse UK, featuring Craig Hepburn (ex-UEFA...

What if we could fix the conference panel? You know the format—interesting people, good intentions, and about ninety percent of it forgotten by the time you reach the bar. Chat_UP Live was held at FUSE headquarters in London. Rather than just another AI panel, we ran an experiment. Working with the team at TFG Labs , we built a custom AI co-pilot that captured the onstage conversation in real time...

Welcome to The Bundle, our regular series on the sports media and streaming marketplace with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke, General Manager of OTT at the streaming service OneFootball and Murray Barnett, founder of 26West Sport and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN. This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is the fame-making creative and sponsor...

Nikki Doucet has the most interesting job in British sport and one of the most difficult. Certainly, everyone in the sports business has an opinion on what the CEO of WSL Football should do to capitalise on the potential of women's professional football in England.  The role wrestles with many of the conflicts and trade offs currently at play across the sports business - open vs closed league...

David Cushnan and James Emmett of Leaders in Sport join Richard on the final podcast of the year to review the people, stories and events that mattered in 2025. 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 Newsl...

Richard Gillis is joined by Damian Browarnik from WSC Sports, the content and data platform working with over 650 clients including the NBA, NFL and La Liga, and Rich Johnson, sports marketing strategist and cofounder of  End Product, formerly of Man Utd, New Balance and Social Chain.  The conversation explores how algorithms now dictate sports content discovery, why millennials remain the commerc...

The Bundle is our long running series on the sports media and streaming marketplace with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke, General Manager of OTT at the streaming service OneFootball and Murray Barnett, founder of 26West Sport and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN. This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is the fame-making creative and sponsorship...

Today's guest is Dan Jamieson, who is chief executive and co-owner of ICONS, the world's biggest signed football memorabilia company.  ICONS was founded in 1999, originally starting as an editorial website for footballers to connect directly with fans. The business successfully pivoted to focus on signed memorabilia, a niche subset of the broader merchandise market, valued at hundreds of...

Inside Edge is our cricket business series with co-host Mike Jakeman. Today's guest is Venkat Ananth on the money circling the IPL franchises. Check out Venkat's newsletter and blog, State of Play.  This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is the fame-making creative and sponsorship agency for brands in sport. Through exceptional cr...

Olympic marketing pioneer Michael Payne discusses his book Fast Tracks and Dark Deals , exploring how sport became business through the lens of legendary figures like Horst Dassler, Bernie Ecclestone and Mark McCormack. He challenges federations on governance, examines whether the Olympics inhibits innovation, and addresses future issues including AI, implanted technology, and the Enhanced Games d...

This episode was recorded at the recent Sportradar Connect: Soccer Edition event at the London Stadium in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.   The podcast divides is in two parts.  First is an onstage conversation on the evolution of football data analytics and AI featuring Jamie Carragher, Erik Durm and Nicolo D’Ercole.  Jamie Carragher played 737 times for Liverpool and 38 times for England, in caree...

Inside Edge is our series on the business of cricket, presented with co-host Mike Jakeman.  Our guest is Phil Weston, head of cricket at TGI Sport, the agency owned jointly by George Pyne's Bruin Sports Capital and Quadrant Private Equity.  England star Harry Brook is one of an impressive roster of talent across both the male and female games, including Kieron Pollard, Rashid Khan, Jofra Arch...

Mark Oliver was the BBC's first head of strategy before creating Oliver and Ohlbaum in 1995, which remains one of the most influential media advisory boutiques in the market, with clients ranging from sports leagues and federations to media companies, tech platforms, venture capital firms and private equity groups. In this episode, Mark identifies the rationale that sits behind some of sport&...

The story of Brentford is one of the most interesting and quoted case studies in European football over the last decade. The west London club been transformed on and off the pitch, from being saved from extinction by its own fans to a new era under the ownership of entrepreneur Matthew Benham.  The club was promoted to the Premier League in 2021, marking a return to the top flight after 74 years....

This is a special episode of Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment which was recorded recently in front of an invited audience at the London headquarters of EY, the Big Four accounting and professional services group.  Joining Richard and regular OPM co-host Matt Rogan were John Fallon and Vikram Banerjee. John Fallon was CEO of publishing giant Pearson during the wh...

Nike, Drake and Beats have just released cricket themed campaigns. WTF? Is cricket cool? Richard asked Mike Jakeman and Simon Moore to list their best and worst cricket themed campaigns and the result is a conversation about cliches, tropes and cultural relevance. The following ads are referenced in the podcast.  Beats by Dre 2025 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/homeground-london_checkshubman-gills...

We took The Bundle to Monaco and recorded a live podcast on stage at Sportel, the famous sports media and technology marketplace. Joining Richard and regular co-host Murray Barnett were Glen Killane (EBU Sport), Peter Bellamy (Deltatre) and Louisa Clark (Queensberry Promotions). EPISODE SUMMARY Broadcasting live from Sportel Monaco's opening session, this special episode captures the sports m...

Joining Richard and Matt Rogan is António Caçorino, founder & CEO of APEX, the sports fund manager known for its roster of over 70 athletes across 15 sports and 30+ leagues. Famous names attached to the fund include Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris (McLaren), Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Valtteri Bottas, footballers Raphaël Varane (Manchester United/France), Christian Eriksen and Mason Mount (Manc...

What Just Happened - Episode Summary Rugby League's Private Equity Play: Super League Seeks Investment The Rugby Football League is in talks with private equity firms, including Lion Cap Global and Oakwell Sports Advisory, about selling a stake in Super League. This comes 30 years after Super League's formation with Sky backing, yet the sport remains in a similar position—geographically...