Unofficial Partner Podcast

 Other People's Money is our series on sport and finance, with regular co-host Matt Rogan.  Today's guest is Danny Menken, who many people in the industry will remember as the managing director of Eurosport Television. He was also chief exec of Infosrada Sports Group and held senior executive positions within Eleven Sports. More recently though, Danny co-founded Ve2.Ventures, a sports fo...

The story of Cricinfo is the history of sport's relationship with the internet and digital culture. It remains central to the experience of millions of cricket fans.  But what does it tell us about how the internet changed what we define as sporting fandom?    Alex Balfour co-founded the site and sold it to ESPN in the noughties and he is a global expert on sports relationship with the intern...

Is there a market for a women-only golf talent agency?  Suzann Pettersen is about to find out.  Pettersen is one of the most recognized players in the women's game, a two-time Major winner, 15 time LPGA Tour winner and Solheim Cup winning captain. Now she's launched VOXA, a talent management group in conjunction with 54. It's asking questions about what the market wants from women p...

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. What are the stories the sports media industry is talking about and what do they mean? Unofficial Partner is the lead...

Norway's greatest export Jan Age Fjortoft and his son and former player Marcus Fjortoft, together host The Fussball Channel on YouTube, covering German football in English.  This gives them the ideal platform to compare the myths and realities surrounding Bundesliga and the Premier League, globalism and competitive balance, fan culture and the realities of the famous 50+1 Rule in German footb...

 We are jumping into the maze that is artificial intelligence for the first in a series of conversations with decision makers from across the sports business. Our guest today is Sam Sadi, chief executive of Live Score, the scores and betting app. There are more questions than answers, but it's exciting and it's scary and it's what everyone is talking about. So it's perfect Unof...

 This is an episode of Wedge Issues where we focus on the business of golf, with regular co-host, Jasmine Sanders, The Jazzy Golfer. Today we've got Luke Davies and Jojo Regan, founders of Manors Golf, the challenger brand that's rewriting the sport's marketing rule book.    This episode of Unofficial Partner is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport . Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agenc...

A live recording of the Unofficial Podcast, on stage at the Olympic Museum for The SPOT conference. Guests Jo Redfern, Futrhood Damjan Rudež, Former NBA player & Sunset Sports Media Festival Program Director Michael D'hulst, founder and CEO of SuperTri Matt Wilkinson, Creative Director of Entertainment at Whisper Featuring Ana Jelusic Black, who in addition to being the organiser of the e...

The inside gossip from the sports media and streaming business, with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke, the general manager of OTT streaming service OneFootball. And Murray Barnett, founder of 26 West Consulting, formerly of Formula One, World Rugby and ESPN Disney.  This episode is sponsored by Sid Lee Sport.  Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship...

Intellectual Property is the basis of the sports business.  Two Circles have mapped the global market to create a Sports IP Revenue List.  Founder and CEO Gareth Balch has analysed what it says about the business of sport.  Some headlines: The big get bigger : in the last decade, the % value share of the Top 20 Sports IP Owners of total revenue has grown from 35% to 44% Market concentration : The...

Inside Edge is where we overthink the business of cricket, with co-host Mike Jakeman. Today's guest is Lawrence Booth, Editor of the Wisden Almanack, the conscience of the game.  Released last week, Booth pulled no punches in his editor's notes: "2024 was the year cricket gave up any claim to being properly administered, with checks, balances, and governance for the many, not the fe...

We met Jasmine Sanders aka The Jazzy Golfer when we held our roundtable event at European Tour HQ at Wentworth during the BMW PGA Championship in 2024.  Now she's come on board as a co-host for Wedge Issues where we overthink the business of golf.  Jasmine is one of the leading golf creators, host of CNN's Living Golf and founder of the Women's Golf Community, where she campaigns fo...

There's a new award category at this year's FEVO Sport Industry Awards - Business Moment of the Year.  And for the first time, the judging process is revealed, as we chair the conversation ahead of the big reveal on the night of May 15th at Battersea Evolution in London.  Our illustrious judging panel is Richard Scudamore, Lucy Wray, Allan Noble and Nick Keller himself, the founder of th...

Today we're talking about swimming and so we went to the London Aquatics Center in Stratford, located in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Obviously the venue for the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic games, but also the Aquatics GB Swimming Championships, which were on while we were there. It was an opportunity to talk about the sport in detail from lots of different angles with Aquatics G...

Guests: Mark Oliver, Oliver and Ohlbaum Amy Lee, TV2 Denmark, EBU Member Tomos Grace - YouTube Context: A live podcast recorded at the European Broadcast Union's Annual Assembly in Bratislava.  DAZN has paid $1billion for the rights to the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup. FIFA has sold the rights to DAZN for $1billion. DAZN is sub-licensing the rights, with a brief to build as big an audience as pos...

Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment, with Matt Rogan, co-founder of Two Circles. The Women’s Rugby World Cup kicks off in August, hosted in here in England. The tournament is a critical moment in the game's development.  But what is the financial state of women’s professional club rugby in this country.  We talk to Genevieve Shore, herself a former England Wor...

This is the first episode in a new series in which we take the Unofficial Partner sports business conversation and point it at cricket.  Richard is joined by co-host Mike Jakeman, who writes about sport for The Economist and worked within The Economist Intelligence Unit, and has written for titles such as The New York Times, Wired magazine and the Times Literary Supplement, and wrote a very good b...

 Today's guest is Miguel Delaney, Chief Football Writer for The Independent who talks about his book States of Play: How Sports Washing Took Over Football .   It's described as a scorching account of how football's very popularity threatens to destroy it, a brave forensic and utterly gripping book' by Tom Holland (The Rest Is History host, not Spider Man).  This episode of the...

Sonny Vaccaro was the pivotal figure behind Michael Jordan's groundbreaking deal with Nike, which remains one of the most storied contracts in sports business history. So good they made a movie about it, "Air", in which Vaccaro was played by Matt Damon, with Ben Affleck in the Phil Knight role.  Vaccaro's book Legends & Soles: Business, Creativity and Basketball – A Memoir...

The commercial growth of women’s sport is dependent on the audience question: Who is watching?  To help frame the answer, we been given an exclusive preview of major new research in to women's sport fandom by Sky Sports which is due to be published in the coming weeks. Sky’s rights portfolio of women’s only sport is unmatched in the media industry, running across football, rugby, cricket, gol...

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. Quiz What is UC3, and what significance does Relevent Sports taking over global commercial rights from Team Marketing...

Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment, with co-host Matt Rogan, co-founder of Two Circles. Our guest today is Gabbie Swycher, Principal at Redrice Ventures, a venture capital firm that provides capital, advice and connections to early stage businesses including several in the sports sector, most notably they were an early backer of Castore.  They describe themselves...

Nobody's ever happy with the process of buying event tickets.  Why's it so hard?  Join us in an enlightening discussion with David Hornby of SecuTix and Stuart Cain, CEO of Warwickshire County Cricket Club, as we explore the complexities of the ticketing process. Discover the roles of different stakeholders, the evolution of ticketing technology, challenges like bots and secondary market...

 The Big Idea is our series where we dissect and talk about campaigns and ideas and creative in sports marketing, with regular co-host Simon Moore, the award-winning creative director. Today the person choosing the campaigns is Joe Burdon, who is a partner at The Romans, part of the Mother Group. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought...

New research from The Gemba Group suggests a credibility problem for the sports sponsorship industry arising when agencies both advise brands on sponsorship opportunities and sell rights for those same properties, leading to potentially biased recommendations.  The discussion highlights the increasing involvement of procurement departments, the need for greater transparency and better analytical t...