This is the third in our series looking at the formative years of the sports business with industry legend Patrick Nally. The first two episodes are on Fifa and the Olympics respectively, and in this episode we branch out in to athletics, starting in the late 1970s and early 80s, a period of called the golden era of track and field but which saw as much competition behind the scenes as on the track, as the athletes demanded an end to shamateurism, there were plans for a breakaway professional circuit, the inaugural London Marathon and the launch of the first ever World Athletics Championship in 1983. The deals that were done still resonate today, and help explain why professional athletics looks and behaves as it does. It’s a story of brown envelopes, car park bust ups, Bernie Ecclestone, Seb Coe, Horst Dassler and a whole new cast of characters.

If you like the podcasts you’ll love the Unofficial Partner newsletter, that goes direct to the inbox of thousands of senior executives across the global sports business every Thursday. 

To join them, sign up via unofficialpartner.com 

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 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.