Unofficial Partner Podcast

We went to the London offices of Sid Lee Sport to host Cause and Effect: Why sponsorship needs an effectiveness revolution.  A live recording featuring industry professionals from across the sport sponsorship marketplace, who came together in front of an invited VIP audience to ask some big questions as sport's role as a marketing platform for brands. Taking part were: Hosting the event was C...

Today's conversation was recorded at the Two Circles European Summit which took place a few weeks ago at the Institute of Engineering and Technology overlooking the Thames, next to the Savoy.  Gareth Balch, founder and CEO of Two Circles is our guest, and as ever with Gareth, nothing was off limits, and its useful to periodically check in on what he's seeing right across the European and...

This is the fourth and final episode of our series What's Sport Selling?  Created in collaboration with the Redtorch research and creative agency.  Today's guest is Tim Hollingsworth, who led Sport England for eight years, managing the £300m annual budget derived from government and national lottery funding. His tenure spanned COVID, energy crisis, and fundamental strategy reset via &quo...

Guests Jen Topping and Jo Redfern critique the arguments around sport’s relationship with the creator economy, the control v chaos philosophy divide inherent in digital IP monetisation and audience building, and the PR battles being waged for premium advertising among the big platforms. Plus, the Beano.  Jen Topping’s Business of TV Substack newsletter is great, as is Jo’s Kids Media Club podcast....

Our guest is Sam Sadi, CEO of LiveScore Group, and a regular visitor on Unofficial Partner.  Last week he announced a groundbreaking new partnership between the LiveScore sports content and betting platform and xAI, the Elon Musk owned social media platform's artificial intelligence company. This gives LiveScore access to X's data/content APIs and xAI's technology for real-time spor...

 This is Inside Edge, which is our cricket business podcast.  Regular co-host Mike Jakeman is away this week, but our guests are Beth Barrett-Wild and Jen Vile from the ECB.   Beth is the Tournament Director at ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 & Director of Women's Professional Game at ECB, and Jen Vile is Marketing Director at (ECB) So we are talking women's cricket, the T20 Worl...

Three stories from a week in the sports business. James Emmett comes fresh from the IMG-Redbird Summit. David Cushnan on what and who lurks behind The Enhanced Games. Richard on Jamie Redknapp and Richard Thompson's new football agency.  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 g...

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 Consulting and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN International. Leaders Summit: 2 Weeks To Go Leaders in Sport connects the most influential people and the most powerful ideas in gl...

The perfect weekend warm up.  Richard is joined by Dave Cushnan and James Emmett from Leaders in Sport. Each picks a story of the week and asks, what just happened? Sponsored by: Women’s sport at Leaders Week Leaders in Sport connects the most influential people and the most powerful ideas in global sport to catalyse discussion, and drive the industry forward. For over a decade, Leaders has create...

SPORTEL Monaco takes place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco October 20th to 22nd. It's been the world's leading sports content media rights and technology convention for more than 30 years.  This episode asks, what will people be talking about as they network and do deals that will shape the sports business in 2026?  Joining Richard are: Imran Yusuf - Editor of Sport Business Media (atten...

Richard is joined by David Cushnan and James Emmett of Leaders.  Three stories from this week in the sports business. What happened, why do we care and where's it going? What does McLaren F1's valuation say about F1? Who is David 'Dave' Hopkinson and what's the job of Premier League CEO today? What's the role of the Ryder Cup in the LIV era? Unofficial Partner is the...

Today's guest Paul Caine is the President of On Location, the premium experiential hospitality division of TKO Group Holdings (NYSE: TKO). Under his leadership, OnLocation has become the global leader in sports and entertainment hospitality, managing premium experiences for over 150 rightsholders including the NFL, NCAA, UFC, IOC, FIFA, and PGA of America. Following TKO's recent $3.25 bi...

 Today we are talking Other People's Money, this is our regular series on sports finance with regular co-host Matt Rogan, who was of course one of the Co-Founders of Two Circles.  Today's guest is a special one is Ed McBride, who is Managing Director of UK Investment Banking at Deutsche Bank, one of the City's most prolific and successful deal makers.  So we talk about what sport lo...

As co-founder of Perform and DAZN, Simon Denyer has spent the last twenty years at the intersection of sport, media, and technology. Last week he brokered an innovative new relationship between La Liga and Disney+ via his new company PEAK Sports Media.  This is a conversation about the big picture of sport's relationship with the major digital platforms, from YouTube and Netflix to Amazon and...

 This is an episode of Inside Edge, our series on the cricket business with regular co-host Mike Jakeman. Today's guest is Peter Hutton, and nobody knows more about the relationship between television and cricket than Peter Hutton. Strap yourselves in, this is a masterclass. This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.  Sid Lee Sport believes that sponsor...

Every shirt tells a story.  Joey D'Urso , an award-winning journalist from The Times and formerly of The Athletic , joins UP to discuss his new book: More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power . • How the Gazprom sponsorship on FC Schalke 04's shirts reflects Russia's geopolitical strategies leading up to the invasion of Ukraine. • The criminal t...

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 Consulting and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN International. This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport . Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of a...

This is episode three of a four-part series created in collaboration with Redtorch called What's Sport Selling?  It's a conversation with John Ridgeon, the chief executive of World Athletics.  Previous episodes in the series: UP443 Big Sugar, Big Pharma...Where's the Big Sport Lobby? UP458 Fitness, Toxicity and the Importance of the ASICS Message Jon Ridgeon bio Athletic Career (198...

This is a live episode of Wedge Issues, our golf business series recorded at Callaway Clubhouse at The Open Championship this week at the Royal Portrush Golf Club.  Niall Horan: One Direction star and co-founder of Modest Management Company is globally famous and deeply involved in the business of golf.  Inci Mehmet: Former Ladies European Tour pro golfer, now a presenter of Sky Sports award winni...

Arvind Iyengar is chair of Sportz Interactive and CEO of the Sportz Solutions, the global parent company. As such he now oversees a company with 700+ employees working across 40 sports worldwide, with marquee clients including UEFA, The Olympics, NBA, F1, Google, BCCI, Dream11 and multiple IPL franchises. The company is in an aggressive expansion phase, particularly in Europe. So Arvind is the per...

Inside Edge is Unofficial Partner's regular series on the business of cricket, co-hosted by Richard Gillis and Mike Jakeman. Freddie Wilde represents the new generation of cricket analytics professionals who have emerged to play a central role in team strategy. His journey from journalist to CricViz to England's white-ball analyst, combined with his recent role in RCB's maiden IPL t...

A special live episode of our sister publication, Expected Goals, hosted by Maggie Murphy and Matt Cutler. Sponsored by Evelyn Partners.  Expected Goals Live - Investment in Women's Football Event Summary & Analysis This live podcast episode from Expected Goals captured a pivotal moment in women's football investment, featuring industry experts discussing the money flowing into the s...

Guest: Paul Morgan, Rugby World Editor and Premiership Rugby Comms Director Running List: The Business of Rugby Episode 1. British Lions Commercial Strategy Ticket pricing controversy: Struggling to sell out Dublin match at £163 per ticket Major commercial partnerships: Qatar Airways (title sponsor), Patron Saint whisky, Rhino, Oxford Landing, Charles Tyrwhitt, Howden, Canterbury, Fanatics Digital...

Today's guests are Laura Randall, Creative Director, and Jack Kenney-Herbert, Director of Sponsorship at Sid Lee Sport, the agency declaring war on what they call "sponsorship tumbleweed." That's their term for the boring, forgettable activations plaguing sports marketing - endless skills challenges, carpool karaokes, and grey sofa interviews that cost millions but deliver litt...

B2B is big business for sports rights holders.  But why are business-to-business brands paying billions in sport sponsorship rights? From the IOC to Formula One, categories such as consulting, accountancy, logistics, financial services and tech are growing rapidly.   In the IOC's programme, Deloitte and Allianz replaced Dow and GE as TOP Olympic sponsors.   IBM's technology partnerships...