Unofficial Partner Podcast

47:58

UP574 Vibes vs Effectiveness: 'Cultural relevance is...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/10/06

A conversation about sponsorship effectiveness, creativity and the price of chasing vibes. Richard is joined by Mike Grumbridge and Peter Wilson of Sid Lee Sport to talk about Mike's recent Marketing Week piece: "Stop confusing vibes with sponsorship effectiveness" which took the Levi's Stadium ambush at this summer's FIFA World Cup as a starting point in to an argument about the value of official and unofficial sponsorship. From there the conversation widens: why sponsorship still can't prov...

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63:10

UP573 The Summer That Changed The Sports Business - Live

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/09/29

Recorded live in front of an invited audience of senior sports-industry figures at Teneo's London offices overlooking St Paul's Cathedral, this Unofficial Partner event asked a deliberately awkward question about the summer of 2026: not what happened, but what actually changed. Three set-pieces framed the conversation — the men's FIFA World Cup in the United States, the European Athletics Championships, the ICC Women's T20 World Cup and the Commonwealth Games — and the panel picked apar...

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56:44

UP572 Creators: What Are They Good For?

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/09/25

Wimbledon didn't ban influencers. It said it wouldn't create a creator accreditation category and would confiscate ring lights and selfie poles under existing rules. The headline ran anyway, and it tells us more about sport's gatekeepers than about creators. Richard Gillis is joined by two people who sit on opposite sides of the creator deal. Jo Tongue is CEO of Tongue Tied Management, representing athletes, broadcasters and content creators. A former BBC sports reporter, she edited 5 Live's ...

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64:01

UP571 The Bundle: Warning signs from the top of the...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/09/22

Unofficial Partner's regular series on the sports media and streaming marketplace. Host: Richard Gillis. Co-hosts:Murray Barnett, founder of 26 West Consulting (formerly F1, World Rugby, ESPN); Yannick Ramcke, general manager of OTT at OneFootball. The rights ceiling: NFL and IPL as warning signs on rights inflation Exclusivity in question: co-exclusivity, mixed packages and "intelligent auctions" India: JioStar's monopoly, monetisability, and football's stalled growth DAZN's EverPass deal an...

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48:53

UP570 Spin Class: Here We Go! Premier League Transfer...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/09/15

Spin Class is our regular series with experts in sports communications, PR and reputation management. Football's transfer window is one of the definitive sports business stories. Its cast of characters include players, agents, managers, club owners and a small number of journalists cum influencers with massive social media followings and the power to impact the market via insider intel and gossip. At the centre of all this is the clubs' PR teams seeking to control the narrative.&n...

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56:01

UP568 Real Time Economics: When the Clip is the Product

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/09/01

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/...

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53:19

UP366 Chat UP: I never want to hear the phrase...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/08/18

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 mastercla...

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40:43

UP564 Other People's Money: Andrea Radrizzani and...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/07/28

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 ...

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53:43

UP555 The Lord's Question: What Does The MCC Brand...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/06/16

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 ...

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53:02

UP554 The Bundle World Cup Special

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/06/12

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 — ancho...

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57:02

UP553 Live: The Business of Horse Racing

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/06/09

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, form...

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67:18

UP550 Inside Edge: IPL Auctions and the...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/05/19

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 ident...

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40:39

UP549 Priced Out: FIFA’s Big Ticket Gamble

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/05/12

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 though...

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57:18

UP548 The Bundle: Gary Neville's Noise Strategy; What...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/05/05

The Bundle is the original and much copied 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. 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 weekl...

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51:44

UP547 Picks and Shovels: The Ecosystem Investment Thesis

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/05/01

Picks and Shovels: The Sports Investment Thesis That Doesn't Need Media Rights to Work Altman Solon's seventh annual Global Sports Survey lands with a central argument: sport is maturing into a full-stack asset class. But the more interesting story isn't at the top, it's in the layer underneath. Richard Gillis talks to David Dellea, Christophe Sommer and Matt Del Percio about where capital is actually moving, what the $400 billion ecosystem really means when you strip out the double counting,...

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49:12

UP546 The Billion Dollar Question: Wanna buy an NBA...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/04/28

The NBA Europe franchise sale process has moved from speculation to live transaction. Franchise fees of $500m to $1bn. No broadcast deal. Governance terms that European investors have already pushed back on. And a city map — London, Paris, Madrid, Rome — that looks more like a premium real estate index than a list of places where people actually watch basketball. Lenz Balan is right in the middle of it. He's the CEO of the London Lions, the club he helped save from administration after the co...

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65:01

UP545 'Normal Idiots': Reddit, Discord and the Value...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/04/21

Louis Theroux's documentary about the manosphere didn't at first seem to have much to do with sports digital strategy? Until you get to the platforms: Kick. Rumble. A whole ecosystem of streaming channels that the sports business conversation barely mentions, yet where significant numbers of young men are spending serious time. So we brought in Dan Ayers, VP of Transformation Digital at IMG, to ask: is the industry optimising for the wrong platforms? What follows is a conversation that starts...

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42:18

UP544 ChatUP: Craig Hepburn on how Agentic AI changes...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/04/14

Craig Hepburn sits at the intersection of enterprise technology and cultural institutions. He spent years as UEFA’s Chief Digital Transformation Officer, overseeing its digital ecosystem, OTT platform build, and Innovation Hub. He moved to Art Basel as CDO in 2023. He is now an independent AI strategist, Perplexity Fellow, and prolific writer on the structural implications of AI for organisations and industries. His Substack has become essential reading on the gap between AI hype and implemen...

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59:09

UP543 Business Moment of the Year: Inside the 25th...

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/04/07

This week we go behind the curtain of the 25th Sport Industry Awards, ahead of the big night at Battersea Evolution on Thursday 30th April. With an illustrious group of people from across the industry, Richard and Sean went to EY’s London Bridge offices in London to discuss the shortlist for the Business Moment of the Year Award. The winner will be announced on the night. Seven groundbreaking moments over the past 12 months were judged by a panel of industry experts: Brett G...

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46:18

UP452 Wedge Issues Live: The Golf Business in 2026

Unofficial Partner Podcast ·

2026/03/31

A live podcast recorded at MSQ Sport and Entertainment HQ in London for the launch of Callaway Golf's new brand film 'At Last'. You can see the film by clicking this link. As the golfing world looks to Augusta for The Masters, the first major event of the golf calendar next week, it was a good time to take the temperature of the business of golf with four experts from across the game. Ben Sharpe, MD of Europe, Middle East, Africa, Pacific and India, Callaway Golf Jason Wessely, Di...

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