Unofficial Partner Podcast

UP568 Real Time Economics: When the Clip is the Product

Few people sit closer to the epicentre of the sports digital economy than Daniel Kirschner. As co-founder and CEO of Greenfly, he oversees the connective tissue running between rights holders, athletes and fans; the infrastructure that turns a moment on the pitch into content on your phone within seconds. Creator strategy and the platform deals. How rights holders selectively route content to favoured creators (Goldbridge as proxy) and to TikTok/YouTube. Richard presses the FIFA-TikTok/YouTube deals as a "tax" to stop leakage; Kirschner reframes winning as getting the highest-quality version out first. Clips as crown jewel vs top of funnel. The central tension. Richard argues clips are now the product, not the trailer; Kirschner holds that short-form is top-of-funnel for fandom and complements rather than cannibalises live—but concedes it should be a meaningful revenue pillar, not something dumped on social. Who pays. If not the broadcaster, then who? Discussion of separate short-form rights deals (NFL–Bleacher Report), YouTube revenue-sharing, and sponsors/brands paying to attach to viral moments (the Messi Smartwater example) with earned-media-value tracking. US vs Europe market structure. Centralised US leagues vs fragmented European clubs with promotion/relegation instability; more friction means more need for the technology. College sports as the closest US analogue to the European model. Athlete economics and authenticity. Athletes get content free, aren't paid, yet treat access as a favour. Editorial-versus-commercial distinction, and the authenticity question when agencies get involved. Measurement, impressions and AI slop. Richard's scepticism about impression numbers and the YouTube view-counting change; Kirschner on transparency of measurement, the coming flood of AI slop, and live sport's authenticity as the hedge against it (Kushner/Lakers). How the platforms see sport. Whether an eyeball is just an eyeball—Kirschner argues sports content is undervalued because of its emotional resonance and, distinctively, its joy: fans relive wins, not losses, which makes the content more valuable to advertisers. The SportsPro short-form showcase. Closing plug for the awards recognising ~40 short-form producers, and the broader argument that the craft has shifted from throwaway to a properly valued discipline attracting serious marketing budgets (Unilever's 80% shift toward short-form creators). This episode is sponsored by Leaders in Sport The 2026 Leaders Week London agenda is live, and there’s already plenty we’ve got our eye on. Across three stages at Stamford Bridge, Leaders in Sport will bring together senior figures from across the industry to get into the questions, challenges and opportunities shaping where the business of sport goes next. From leadership and commercial growth to creativity and technology, there’s a lot packed into the two days and no shortage of sessions worth making time for. We are looking forward to hearing Gary Lineker talk about The Art of the Story: Pitches, Publishing and Podcasts. We’ll be there on 7 and 8 October, hopefully we’ll see you there too. Visit leadersinsport.com/UP for more information and use UP15 for 15% off your Summit pass. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP567 Spin Class: Infantino's fightback; Saudi post-LIV; AJ v Tyson, Hearn v White

Spin Class is Unofficial Partner's series on sports comms, PR, reputation and crisis management. Three stories: A FIFA president everyone's written off who isn't going anywhere. A billion-dollar golf breakaway running out of road. And a heavyweight fight that keeps getting made and unmade in public. What connects them? In every case the sport is almost beside the point — the real contest is the spin. This week's guests: Jon Tibbs OBE, JTA and Henry Chappell, Pitch Marketing. This episode is sponsored by Leaders Week London Leaders Week London returns this October with a new home for The Summit: Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea FC. On 7 and 8 October, Leaders in Sport will bring together senior figures from across the global sports industry to exchange ideas, build relationships and tackle the biggest opportunities shaping the business of sport. With the 2026 agenda now live, you can get a first look at the speakers, sessions and themes shaping this year’s Summit. We’ll be there, and you should join us. Visit leadersinsport.com/UP for more information and use UP15 for 15% off your Summit pass. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP566 Chat UP: I never want to hear the phrase 'Palantir for Sport' again

Chat UP is Unofficial Partner's series on AI in the sports business. Today's guest is Mike Bracken CBE. He built the UK's Government Digital Service, became the country's first Government Chief Data Officer, and now runs the consultancy Public Digital, advising governments and institutions worldwide. Richard sits him down to test a simple, uncomfortable idea: that most of sport's "AI problem" isn't about AI, isn't even about data, and can't be bought from a vendor. What follows is a masterclass in why change management fails, who really holds the power, and where the genuine prize for sport is hiding. The two questions that come before any tech decision "Why are you asking the question about AI?" The standards argument: airports, not algorithms The Palantir for Sport question It's about power, not technology Open v closed, and the wall of money Why the single customer view is "a marketeer's wet dream" CRM v VRM: the extractive trap The bogus-metrics problem The trick sport is missing Chat UP is made in collaboration with TFG Labs. ⁠⁠TFG Labs is the centre of innovation within the Twenty First Group and is truly the testing ground for groundbreaking sports intelligence. Their team of dedicated AI engineers are using the power of emerging technologies to deliver powerful changes to organisations across the whole sports ecosystem. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP565 The Buy Side: Unilever on FIFA, creator budgets and the new World Cup playbook

Ben Curtis is Global Brand Vice President of Sure/Rexona at Unilever, and is just back the US where he ran the brand's first-ever Men's World Cup as a FIFA official partner. He came on Unofficial Partner before the tournament to talk about what he was walking into; this is the debrief — what worked, what didn't, and what a global personal-care brand actually gets for the money, from the armpit branding on the fourth official's board (a Rexona first at a World Cup) to the New York activation built around creators rather than TV spots. Joining him is Mayowa Quadri, head of brand at the football-and-culture publisher Versus, a creator and consultant who worked on Rexona's campaign from the other side of the table. What does a global brand actually get for a World Cup sponsorship? Ben breaks down how Rexona measured return in near-real time — from brand mentions, to creator content earning 10x that, to cultural moments running into the millions of engagements — and where the brand ranked against Adidas and Coca-Cola. Was the fourth-official armpit branding a gimmick or a strategy? The Rexona sign held up at every substitution was a World Cup first. Ben argues it's a durable strategic position rather than a one-off joke; Richard presses on whether the idea has legs beyond its novelty. How much of the marketing budget now goes to creators rather than TV? Ben's answer is the headline number: a decisive swing away from traditional advertising in the space of a single World Cup cycle. Has the way we consume a World Cup fundamentally changed? Mayowa on clip culture, the Americanisation of the tournament, and a younger audience watching through creators and streamers rather than buying broadcast packages — and why broadcasters are now behaving like creators themselves. What makes a brand-creator relationship work, and when does it fail? Both sides on the shift from prescriptive deliverables to briefing intent, the trust a brand has to extend, and the fast route to losing an audience by looking like you've sold out. Is football still a sport, or is it now a culture? Mayowa's case that the footballer is a human being with interests beyond the 90 minutes — and how brands are buying into fashion, music and identity rather than match results. What is the media agency actually for now? How Unilever identifies communities and maps creators against them, the rise of nano-creators as word-of-mouth amplifiers, and why the direct brand-to-creator connection still matters. Can the controversies around FIFA stay 'priced in'? With Infantino in the headlines, whether the noise around the governing body touches the sponsors who fund it — and Mayowa's argument that player power, not sponsor pressure, is the variable that could actually move things. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP564 Other People's Money: Andrea Radrizzani and Alistair Brownlee OBE

A conversation recorded at the recent SportsPro Investment Summit, bringing together two very different investors: Andrea Radrizzani, media entrepreneur and former Leeds United owner, and Alistair Brownlee OBE, double Olympic triathlon champion turned investor. The through-line is what actually makes a sports asset worth owning — and where the value really resides. Leeds United and the weight of history. Radrizzani reflects on the Bielsa era, the club's identity as the sole footballing focus of a proud Northern city, and the burden of expectation rooted in the 2004 Champions League semi-final side (then the sixth-biggest club in world football on £90m revenue). Brownlee, a lifelong Leeds fan, adds the fan's perspective — pride and connection to the city matter as much as trophies. Turnaround clubs vs. trophy assets. Radrizzani's core investment lens: the difference between a turnaround play like Leeds (high appreciation, but one relegation can wipe out value) and buying a top club, now the preserve of sovereign wealth funds and private equity. Football as a luxury/brand asset that appreciates like real estate (the PSG example), but where capital cushions mistakes that a smaller club cannot afford. Relegation as a genuine financial cliff-edge. The new generation of sport and the media-rights problem. Why Super Tri, PTO/T100 and others built on media-rights revenue have pivoted toward mass participation. Only premium rights are growing; the rest is flat or declining. The value of affluent, avid participant communities over passive viewers. Mass participation economics and the HYROX model. Buying a hardcore, high-spending community; defining who your true fans are and how much more they'll pay. The customer-acquisition-cost vs. lifetime-value case, and the adjacent-business boom (apparel, nutrition, training, sports tourism). The open question: consumers now hop between HYROX, Ironman and marathons rather than staying loyal to one ecosystem — and Ironman's acquisition strategy as a response. Owning the ecosystem. Radrizzani's thesis that value lies not in any single point but in connecting the dots across a vertical. Athletes on the cap table. What a famous name is actually worth to a company. Consumer cynicism toward over-endorsing stars (the Neymar/Ronaldo "promiscuity" problem), the premium on authenticity and genuine expertise, and the shift from passive sponsorship fees to equity stakes that drive real ROI. David Beckham cited as the model done well. Brownlee's path from athlete to investor. The solitary, self-reliant nature of individual-sport careers, and how he built an investment practice alongside competing. How much athletes should earn. The 55% wage-to-revenue sustainability benchmark (and Leeds' notorious 120%). Salary caps as what makes US leagues attractive asset classes. The IOC's position on not paying athletes directly. Why economic incentives alone fail to lure athletes to new leagues — Olympic qualification and heritage tournaments still outweigh money. Private equity moving down the value chain. PE consolidating athlete and football agencies to capture player earnings; players themselves becoming more sophisticated investors (the Courtois family-office example). Concentration, unionisation and league design. "Big get bigger" dynamics, UFC-style overpayment at the top, gig-economy pressures on the athlete pyramid, and the collective-bargaining logic of leagues vs. the pure capitalism of boxing. LIV Golf's lessons and what's next. LIV as an early iteration of these themes, the surprising strength of the incumbent (PGA Tour) and heritage/"playing for the shirt," and a look ahead to NBA Europe and how it collides with basketball's existing strongholds. Radrizzani closes on nearly buying a London basketball franchise a decade ago — and why football and media remain his real passion. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP563 Jude Inc: 'I don't suppose you've got any Bellingham?'

Dan Jamieson secured exclusive rights for Jude Bellingham the week before the FIFA World Cup. The ICONS CEO takes us inside the complex world sporting memorabilia, where fame, fans and intellectual property collide. The Bellingham bet — talent-spotting as a business model Icons approached Bellingham three years, eight months ago while he was still at Dortmund — long before the World Cup made him a global name. The signing model is a venture bet: identify the X-factor early, earn the entourage's trust, lock in exclusivity before the price moves. Jamieson's read on Bellingham is the whole thesis in miniature: "treat him like he's a foreign footballer." His fame was built overseas, his value is that he transcends Englishness — the opposite of "yeoman-like" Harry Kane, who doesn't sell to kids in Macau, Australia or the Philippines. The signing itself is prosaic: roughly an hour of his time at Real Madrid's training complex, filmed for content. The value is manufactured afterwards through framing, licensing and authentication. The rights stack — why one player requires three deals A single Bellingham product sits on top of a layered set of rights: the player (exclusive deal via a tight, family-run team), the club (Real Madrid takes a cut on image rights — their argument: the halo of the shirt inflates his global value), and the tournament (FIFA / Champions League licences). Notable: Icons pays Real Madrid as well as Bellingham, but does not pay the FA for the England shirt. The signing was split ~50/50 Madrid/England on the bet that Madrid would globalise better — but post-tournament it's England fans doing the buying. A live demonstration of how a World Cup rewrites demand in real time. "Official, authentic, exclusive" — the three buzzwords The entire proposition rests on these three words. The FIFA licence buys the right to use the marks, access official channels, and — revealingly — instruct Google to stop directing buyers to unofficial sellers. Sharp detail on enforcement: the party responding most effectively to takedown requests is the Chinese, who ask for official IP letters so they can clear out counterfeit listings. Western platforms, by implication, are slower. Triple Lock — authentication as the core moat Icons' answer to a "Wild West" market: film the entire signing, edit it, attach an NFC chip to the shirt so a phone scan surfaces the exact geolocated, timestamped, verifiable moment of signing. The honest tension underneath: Richard presses whether authenticity actually matters to a buyer who just wants Bellingham on the wall. Jamieson concedes there's "a world of slop out there" far cheaper than Icons — the business model only works if enough buyers pay a premium for provenance. Authenticity isn't a feature, it's the entire value exchange. Retailtainment — the media/retail convergence Richard's coinage-to-steal of the episode: "retailtainment." Icons has turned itself into live commerce for the eBay "Summer of Soccer" — footballers interviewed for an hour in-studio while an Icons "World XI" is auctioned live. Effectively "QVC for the modern age." With three months' notice, Icons stood up a studio, trained staff into on-camera talent, and now broadcasts every three days. But Jamieson is disciplined about scale: live is ~10% of World Cup activity — a high-profile experiment, not the engine. The Gary Lineker / Rest Is Football anecdote is the episode's best illustration of guerrilla marketing: a Messi shirt hand-delivered to reception, an invite upstairs, then a Bellingham frame — which ends up on-screen in the show's England opener. Product placement earned, not bought. Fanatics — the elephant, as platform and as frenemy Icons' relationship with Fanatics is deliberately pragmatic: it's a distribution partner (15 years with the memorabilia team) and a subcontracting client (Icons signs players for Topps and Panini, but doesn't produce cards itself). Jamieson's framing of Fanatics' ambition is the sharpest strategic line in the conversation: they want to "build a multi-story car park of tents" — own "all the goodies in the sweet shop." Fanatics Live is "Comic-Con for sport,"and the model is league rights plus individually-contracted superstars who also do PR, events and the "white party in the Hamptons." The Topps/FIFA card rights deal gets a diplomatic "let's say it was a surprise" — Jamieson can't see how you award a licence five years out (it reverts to Fanatics/Topps at the 2031 Saudi World Cup). Read: a big cheque, future-proofing, and Infantino goodwill from the on-site deal. The trading-card vs. memorabilia distinction — two different markets Crucial clarification of where Icons sits. Trading cards are a "free-flowing frictionless" tradable commodity — American-centric, increasingly international (Ohtani, Pokémon, Japan), an asset class with whales and secondary markets. Icons' product is deliberately not tradable. Jamieson refuses to call it an investment: "you are a fan, you love this guy... put it on your wall and enjoy it." He's wary of the unrefereed secondary market. He acknowledges Icons is "thinking about" making its product tradable — a live strategic question they haven't resolved. NFTs — the dog that didn't bark Jamieson stood on the sidelines through the NFT boom by instinct — a "real world tangible product person."Tellingly, no one ever came with a big cheque, so Icons was never tested. His one genuinely interesting idea: the Maradona shirt with a cigar burn — a true one-of-one that could pair a physical artefact with a blockchain-owned digital twin. But the digital-native builders "were obsessed by the digital nature of it" and never bothered with the physical/digital combination that would have interested him. On digital signatures: blunt dismissal — "I hate that stuff. It's just rubbish." Worth maybe £2 on a merchandising cup, meaningless to a collector. The supply-chain reality — where the money actually gets made and stuck The least glamorous, most revealing theme. Icons believes it's the biggest buyer of football shirts in the world — thousands at a time, "round the back of the bike sheds" at Classic Football Shirts. The Messi 2022 lesson: three years' revenue in three days, but entirely on pre-orders, because there were no Argentina shirts left on Earth. Adidas took six months to remanufacture; customers waited until summer. Right now Jamieson is "buying Argentina shirts" pre-emptively to avoid a repeat. England shirts are easier — the market is so vast Adidas "produce billions" The through-line question — what is a media outlet now? The thread Richard keeps pulling: retail, media, rights and IP are collapsing into one space. eBay Live, Fanatics Live, Netflix moving from Rest Is Football into live FIFA rights (the Women's World Cup in Brazil on Netflix), and Icons building its own broadcast studio — all point the same way. The strategic uncertainty left open: is the American World Cup an outlier or the new template? Jamieson is inside it and still can't fully call it — which is the honest and interesting place to leave it. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP562 The Bundle: Hydration Economics; Sky's ITV portfolio; Survive to Survive; DAZN, NRL and Bundesliga

The Bundle with Yannick Ramcke of OneFootball and Murray Barnett of West26 Sport. Agenda: 1. The Commercialisation of the Hydration Break 2. Did the Ratings Success Change US Football Broadcasting? 3. Sky's £1.6bn ITV Takeover: The Return of the Full-Funnel Broadcaster 4. Is the Sports Doc Gold Rush Over? 5. DAZN's A$5.3bn NRL Bet Cross-cutting threads Reach vs revenue Commercial innovation is a ratchet Everyone's paying not to lose The access era is ending The Unofficial Partner Scholarship - Applications Now Open for the Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) 🎓 Five 50% scholarship places are available for Unofficial Partner applicants in the upcoming Strategic Sport Leadership MA cohort, in September. The Unofficial Partner Scholarship is designed to support ambitious sport industry professionals. Five (5) scholarships available to successful applicants Amount: 50% off tuition fees for those starting September 2026 Eligibility: applicants must come through the Unofficial Partner network, and work in the sports industry Application procedure: Candidates will automatically be considered for the scholarship on the basis of your application. No separate scholarship application is required. You must reference Unofficial Partner in your application Please contact Emma Rota at emma.rota@sportshumanities.org to learn more and secure your place in the September cohort. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP561 Is your name on the list? The winners and losers in Two Circles' $174bn sports IP revenue league table

The Two Circles Sports IP Revenue League 2026 is full of numbers. The headline is that sports IP is worth $174billion. But the story is more interesting and nuanced than that. Richard went to the agency's offices in Holborn to hold the report up to the light. Joining him is Gareth Balch, CEO of Two Circles, and Charlie Dewhurst, Chief Commercial Officer of SailGP — the race sailing property founded by Larry Ellison of Oracle fame. Who's in, who's out and why should you care? 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP560 What is IMG now?

Today's guest Adam Kelly has been at IMG since 2001, connecting the business back almost to the McCormack era. Now President of IMG within TKO Group — which also owns UFC and WWE — he oversees IMG's media rights, production, digital, brand partnerships, and events businesses. This is his second appearance on Unofficial Partner; the first was in 2022, when he laid out a vision for reimagining IMG as a full-service growth partner rather than a transactional rights broker. Episode Summary Recorded during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, this conversation uses the tournament as a launchpad for a broader argument about where sport sits commercially in 2026. Kelly's central thesis is that the entry of global streaming and technology platforms — Netflix, Apple, Google, Amazon — is the single most important shift in the sports media landscape, and that it is unambiguously good for sport. Richard pushes back throughout: on the financial extraction argument, on the volume fallacy, on whether global streaming actually serves the kinds of sports that real fans love. It's a genuinely spiky conversation. This episode of Unofficial Partner is sponsored by The Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) ISH educates sport’s current and future leaders around the world, as the leading independent provider of sports leadership education and insight. Their Strategic Sport Leadership Masters (MA) is for sports industry executives to study alongside their careers – designed for professionals who want to build on their experience, strengthen strategic thinking, and connect with a global network of peers working across sport. Applications for the next intake on the 2026 Strategic Sport Leadership MA, starting September, are open. Visit sportshumanities.org for more information 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP559 Revenue-maxxing: How FIFA Changed The Game

FIFA will make $13bn from the four-year cycle culminating in this summer's tournament — nearly $9bn of it landing this year alone. For comparison, the Paris 2024 Olympics, the other Greatest Show on Earth, generated $5.24bn. Total. For the whole Games. It wasn't always this lopsided. The World Cup actually trailed the Olympics financially until 2010, when South Africa's edition pulled in $4.19bn against London 2012's $3.23bn. Since then the gap has only widened: 18% revenue growth from Russia 2018 to Qatar 2022, and FIFA is projecting another 73% jump by the end of this summer. They've already raised the budget for the next cycle to $14bn — before this tournament has even finished. So this episode isn't really about football. It's about how a governing body turned a month of matches into the most lucrative event in the history of sport — and how that changes our relationship with the World Cup. My guests are Joey D'Urso, Times journalist and author of More Than A Shirt, and Carla Bilche of Off-Ball Logic, who's spent months tracing the commercial history of the World Cup to understand exactly how we got here. Carla has a name for it: "revenuemaxxing." Once you hear the numbers, the word makes total sense. This episode is sponsored by the Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) ISH educates sport’s current and future leaders around the world, as the leading independent provider of sports leadership education and insight. Their Strategic Sport Leadership Masters (MA) is for sports industry executives to study alongside their careers – designed for professionals who want to build on their experience, strengthen strategic thinking, and connect with a global network of peers working across sport. Applications for the next intake on the 2026 Strategic Sport Leadership MA, starting September, are open. Visit sportshumanities.org for more information 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP558 Chat_UP: What The Mythos Shutdown Means For AI in the Sports Business

Host: Richard Gillis (Unofficial Partner) Co-host/analyst: Andy Shora (TFG Labs) Three stories this episode: The Mythos/Fable shutdown — Anthropic ordered by the US government to disable its two most powerful models for all foreign nationals globally, with ninety minutes' notice. First-ever export control action against an AI model. Discussion covers the jailbreak vulnerability cited as justification, the EU's response (calling for "technological sovereignty"), and what abrupt model withdrawal means for any organisation building critical workflows on a single frontier-model provider. AI slop hits sports marketing — The Manchester Super Giants' AI-generated kit-reveal video (formerly Manchester Originals, 70% RPSG Group / 30% Lancashire) becomes a viral case study in what happens when cost-cutting meets low-effort generative content. Errors included six-fingered batsmen, three batsmen on the pitch at once, bowlers sprinting the wrong direction, and floodlights on in daylight. Conversation moves from "is this actually bad PR or accidental virality" to the deeper implications for trust, craft, and physical/skeletal modelling in sports performance AI. Yann LeCun and the case against LLMs — LeCun's exit from Meta, his $1.3bn raise for AMI Labs, and his Viva Tech argument that the industry has gone "LLM-pilled." Explains "world models" and contextual intelligence, the stochastic parrot critique, and why LeCun believes open-source, physically-grounded models are a more credible path than scaling language models alone. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP557 Ed Smith: What Sport Got Wrong About Moneyball

AI commoditises knowledge production and throws judgment into scarcity. In this episode, Ed Smith asks what that means for sport, education and the people building careers in the business — and why the humanities might be the most undervalued edge in an age of machines. About the guest Ed Smith is an unusual hybrid in today's sports world. An academic, he left Cambridge with a Double First in History, and is the author of several excellent books including Luck, Making Decisions and What Sport Tells Us About Life. He served as Chief Selector for England men's cricket from 2018 to 2021, and is the current President of the MCC. In 2019 he co-founded the Institute of Sports Humanities, which offers the Strategic Sport Leadership Master's — a programme designed for ambitious sports industry executives looking to accelerate their careers while continuing to work. Applications for the next cohort, starting at the end of September, are now open: sportshumanities.org What we cover The Moneyball hangover. Why the lazy reading of Billy Beane — "scouts are idiots, if it's not data it's not real" — was always wrong, and how elite sport has swung back to data as one source among many, not the whole story. The limits of scientism. Ed on "creeping scientism," the idea that nothing's true unless it can be proved — and why some decisions (COVID policy, selection calls) carry intrinsic radical uncertainty that probability can't resolve. Can judgment be taught? The case that the entire humanities tradition — criticism, history, weighing competing evidence — is really an apparatus for honing judgment, the skill AI makes scarce rather than obsolete. Orchestration and the curated platform. What happens when a creative questioner goes straight to a powerful AI platform with curated data — near-instant insight — and why the bottleneck becomes asking the right question. The apprenticeship gap. If AI absorbs the entry-level rungs of knowledge work (in law, in sport), how does anyone climb to the judgment seat at the top? Ed's two answers: institutionalised challenge, and getting your hands dirty early. Sport as the last human product. Why Ed is "long sport" in the age of AI — live, embodied, uncertain competition as the most anti-fragile asset there is — and why the Tech Titans buying into London Spirit were buying the green grass, not the gadget. The purpose problem. As production gets frictionless, meaning becomes the scarce good. Where the humanities, the arts and sport come into their own. Careers without bosses. Charles Handy's "look for customers, not bosses," the death of the 50-year career path, and what an ideal student looks like: someone who doesn't know what's coming but trusts they can cope with it. People, books & ideas referenced John Kay & Mervyn King, Radical Uncertainty · Peter Bernstein, Against the Gods Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things (and his left-brain/right-brain work) Michael Lewis, Moneyball · Howard Marks, Oaktree memos · Charles Handy Institute of Sports Humanities — MA delivered with Loughborough University London 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP556 'Serviette Maths': Sky Sports Boss On The Premflix Threat

Jonathan Licht, Chief Sports Officer at Sky Sports, discusses Sky's dominant position in UK sports broadcasting, strategic partnerships, and the future of sports media. Key topics: Sky's portfolio dominance: 225 Premier League matches, 1,000+ EFL games, 118 WSL matches, Formula 1, cricket, golf, NFL, tennis, darts, netball The growth paradox: How building sports audiences creates competitive tension at rights renewal time Sky Labs & The Hundred: Co-creation process that helped develop franchise cricket format and broaden appeal Money & certainty: Why "our money is good" matters to rights holders vs. global streamers National champion positioning: Local expertise, bespoke market strategies, and talent relationships as competitive advantages On-air talent strategy: Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, and the blurring lines between Sky platforms and independent creator channels like The Overlap YouTube & highlights distribution: Free-to-view content as funnel vs. risk of training audiences not to pay; cricket highlights on YouTube Women's sport investment: Business rationale + "higher purpose"; WSL growth (20% audience increase), ICC T20 World Cup, position as UK's biggest investor in women's sports Streaming vs. linear: Resilience of traditional broadcasters; Sky Sports+ adoption; why global scale doesn't equal market-specific value Competitive landscape: Paramount (Champions League), Netflix, Amazon, DAZN; lessons from Ligue 1 direct-to-consumer failure Premier League production transition: In-housing away from IMG; operational implications for Sky's hosting role This podcast is sponsored by The Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) ISH educates sport’s current and future leaders around the world, as the leading independent provider of sports leadership education and insight. Their Strategic Sport Leadership Masters (MA) is for sports industry executives to study alongside their careers – designed for professionals who want to build on their experience, strengthen strategic thinking, and connect with a global network of peers working across sport. Applications for the next intake on the 2026 Strategic Sport Leadership MA, starting September, are open. Visit sportshumanities.org for more information 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP555 The Lord's Question: What Does The MCC Brand Stand For?

The £295million sale of London Spirit franchise was one of the big sports business stories of the last year. Some of Silicon Valley's most successful and famous leaders buying 49% of The Hundred's Lord's based franchise, in partnership with The MCC, one of the most storied names in cricket. So what is the MCC today, and how is that changing in one of the most important years in the great ground's history? In this episode, Richard Gillis is joined by Katie Maier, Chief Marketing Officer at MCC, and Ellie Roach, Senior Consultant at InCrowd, to ask that question directly. The conversation moves through the central tension of the brand — a 200-year-old members' club, still 97% male, now sitting alongside a 51% stake in The Hundred, a property built on the language of inclusion. Who is an MCC digital follower? What does the MCC look like from India? What's the thesis behind the Silicon Valley investment We go in to, the data-led case for not chasing vanity metrics in overseas markets, and a content strategy built on six pillars that runs well beyond the cricket itself. The episode lands just weeks before the most significant summer in the ground's history for women's cricket: the first ever women's Test at Lord's, alongside the Women's T20 World Cup final, fifty years after the first women's international was played there. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP554 The Bundle World Cup Special

Richard, Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke convene for a World Cup special, using the 2026 tournament as a lens on how sports broadcasting is shifting beneath the surface. The conversation moves from Qatar-to-2026 comparisons (more accelerated change, more fragmentation, but a still-basic mainstream default) through the "AI slop mountain" that the expanded tournament and unfriendly European kickoff times will generate, into the rise of creator- and personality-led shoulder programming — anchored by Goalhanger's Netflix deal for The Rest Is Football. The panel pushes back on the easy consensus. Yannick's central argument: free-to-air, creator-led distribution cannot sustain the economics FIFA needs, and the real risk isn't broadcasters losing matches — it's the complement becoming a substitute. The trio then dissect FIFA's failed India and China deals, separating intrinsic value from negotiating theatre (the "aspirational vs delusional" exchange), and the structural mismatch between billions of eyeballs and uncertain monetization in "numbers markets" rather than "willingness-to-pay markets." They close on FIFA's designation of YouTube as a "Preferred Platform" — which Yannick reads not as value creation for broadcasters but as a short-term revenue-maximizing tax on platforms that hadn't paid before, a net new nine-figure sum with little practical change to the ecosystem. Throughout, the recurring tension is reach versus revenue, and whether risk-averse broadcasters will actually use the first-10-minutes rights they've been handed. This episode is sponsored by The Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) ISH educates sport’s current and future leaders around the world, as the leading independent provider of sports leadership education and insight. Their Strategic Sport Leadership Masters (MA) is for sports industry executives to study alongside their careers – designed for professionals who want to build on their experience, strengthen strategic thinking, and connect with a global network of peers working across sport. Applications for the next intake on the 2026 Strategic Sport Leadership MA, starting September, are open. Visit sportshumanities.org for more information 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP553 Live: The Business of Horse Racing

A first for Unofficial Partner: six years and 550+ episodes covering every sport going, we'd somehow never devoted an episode to the sport of horse racing. So we fixed that — live, in front of an audience at The Big Belly Comedy Club, London. We had as a starting point Spotlight Sports Group's new report, The Horse Racing Audience Opportunity. Compiled by the Racing Post's parent company, a deep dive in to the commercial future of the sport. Panel 1: Charlie Boss (Bristol City CEO, formerly CEO of The Jockey Club), Josh Apiafi (ex-Betfair, founder of Rewards4Racing), Tom Kerr (Editor of The Racing Post / SSG). Panel 2: Brant Dunshea (CEO of the British Horseracing Authority), Sharon O'Regan (CEO, Weatherbys), Sam Houlding (SSG). Where's the money coming from beyond betting? Does the product fit the audience? How do investors look at racing today? All that and more. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

UP552 Chat_UP: Google's AI pivot and the end of the subsidised era

Chat_UP is Unofficial Partner's AI series created in collaboration with TFG Labs. The brief: cut through the AI firehose, work out what matters, and bring it back to the business of sport. Three stories this week. Story One — Google I/O 2026 Google used its developer conference to reposition from "a search company that does AI" to an AI infrastructure company. Headlines: Gemini 3.5, Gemini Omni (real-time processing) and Gemini Spark, a proactive always-on agent that brings agents to search. Plus "Ask YouTube" — pulling answers out of videos rather than watching them. Why it matters for sport: if fans send agents to fetch scores and highlights rather than searching themselves, the SEO-built internet shifts under everyone's feet. It raises hard questions for the sponsorship measurement economy (it's an agent engaging, not a fan) and for anyone building on someone else's land — Google can devote a team to your idea and eat your company. Andy's takeaway: get your house in order, own and structure your own data so you can switch foundation models at will. Story Two — The End of the AI Subsidy Era? A cluster of cost stories: Microsoft cancelled internal Claude Code licenses over token-based billing, Uber reportedly burned through its 2026 AI budget in four months, and US AI software prices jumped 20–37% in six months. Is the bill finally landing? Why it matters: SaaS-era seat pricing is breaking down as agentic systems do the work of many. The in-housing dream — replacing agencies with "two smart people and a model" — looks shakier once you absorb the price volatility the vendor used to carry. For low-margin, high-volume businesses (betting being the obvious one), a few percentage points on cost-per-inference is existential, not a line-item. Andy's counter: much of this can run locally on open-source models, and Chinese models are catching up fast at a tenth of the price. Story Three — Bryson DeChambeau & the Athlete Creator The golfer-turned-YouTuber, in contract talks with LIV, is a proxy for the athlete-creator question. He's been on the AI train for years — using and then leading an eight-figure acquisition of AI coaching start-up Sportsbox AI. Why it matters: the collapse of production cost liberates the wannabe Brysons, but the real change is top-line — launching clothing lines, apps and realistic content without occupying an athlete's training time. The deeper thread is disintermediation: leagues being routed around by their own star athletes, and the old rights-holder puzzle of making space for personalities while selling exclusive TV deals. About the co-host Andy Shora leads TFG Labs. His background is QuantumBlack, McKinsey and BCG Gamma — a wealth of experience from outside sport, brought to bear on the sector. About TFG Labs TFG Labs is the innovation engine of TFG, a business evolving from data-and-insights into an "augmented intelligence" company serving sports organisations. Labs was set up to get ahead of AI and build practical agentic systems that solve real problems in sport — deliberately not chasing the hype cycle. Got questions or voice notes? Send them to Richard via the Unofficial Partner Substack newsletter. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP551 Coke's Cole Palmer Problem: When the ambassador misses the party

On 22 April 2026, Coca-Cola unveiled Cole Palmer as its newest football brand ambassador, fronting Premier League and World Cup activations. A month later, Tuchel left him out of the England squad. We use the Palmer story as a way into a wider conversation with Ricardo Fort — former global head of sport at Coca-Cola, now advisor to brands betting billions on the World Cup — about how personal endorsement deals really work in 2026. The anatomy of an endorsement deal. Ricardo breaks down the numbers: $3-8m per year for a top player, rarely a one-year deal, so you're looking at $10m minimum before activation. Add a global campaign on top and you're at $50-60m of media spend that depends on one player turning up. Where the leverage sits. Spoiler: not with the brand. By the time the contract gets signed, the creative idea has been built around the player, the agency is in love with the film, and the agent knows it. Ricardo on why the awkward "what if you don't make the squad?" conversation rarely happens — and why contracts that should include triggers for injury, non-selection, and tournament performance often don't. The slow-moving machine. A good World Cup campaign kicks off weeks after the previous one ends. By the time the squad is announced, 90% of the posts, the point-of-sale, the films and the photography are already in the can. Agility in this market is a myth. The Formula 1 jumpsuit problem. When Vinicius Jr. is fronting campaigns for Visa, Marriott Bonvoy, Rexona, LEGO, Nike, Pepsi and Havaianas, who actually owns him? Ricardo on why most brands have no idea how many other sponsors have signed the same face, and why differentiation has become the real game. Cultural relevance, examined. The phrase everyone in sports marketing reaches for. Ricardo on why it works for Adidas and Nike, why it's largely delusional for everyone else, and why most brands are still asking players to post twice on Instagram and calling it strategy. Also covered. FIFA as a bulletproof brand. Why the ticketing land-grab doesn't damage it. Hospitality as a business. The 3am problems that keep sponsorship directors awake during a tournament — lost VIP guests, missing teenagers, last-minute Croatian billionaires arriving by private jet. And the medal-ceremony speech Ricardo describes as the lowest point of his career. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP550 Inside Edge: IPL Auctions and the Financialization of Everything

Richard Gillis, Mike Jakeman and invited guests dissect the business of cricket. The IPL auction has become one of the most watched events in world cricket — part financial instrument, part entertainment spectacle. This episode gets under the bonnet: how it actually works, what it means for players, why it's reshaping cricket's global talent economy, and whether any of it translates to the UK market. The conversation moves fast from mechanics to philosophy: competitive balance vs. team identity, player as commodity vs. player as inspiration, and the central tension of the hundred — is it building something sustainable, or is it a VC play dressed up as a sport? Guests Charlie Hartley — Former county cricketer (Kent), entrepreneur. Author of a cricket coaching resource and a children's book on the life lessons of sport. Founder of a sports tech platform focused on athlete-fan data and engagement. Brings a player's perspective on the franchise model and its implications for the English game. Gaurav Sundararaman — Cricket analyst and commentator with deep knowledge of the IPL. Has worked across the IPL ecosystem and brings an Indian market perspective on how the auction works from the inside — how franchises think, how scouting operates, and how the competition has evolved over nearly two decades. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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UP549 Priced Out: FIFA’s Big Ticket Gamble

The news agenda around this summer's FIFA World Cup in North America has been dominated by the price of tickets. Why are they so expensive? What's it got to do with changes made by FIFA specifically for this tournament? Guests: Professor Rob Wilson, Dean of University Campus of Football Business (UCFB) and Shaun Stewart, vice president of StubHub, known as Viagogo in Europe. 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 Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

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