Sports Content Strategy with MrRichardClarke: Exploring sports content, journalism, digital and social media

Why did he take such a brutally honest approach to telling his story

The early signs of his alcohol problems

Why the strength of the athletes' personality can be a problem

The imposter syndrome of being 'just good enough to survive'... so he won all the fitness tests

Replacing a legend in the Lancashire side and the pressure that created

The intervention that led to his spell in the Priory

Meeting characters like 'Lenny'

The pressurised world of the athletes and how it is not that different from the general public

The reaction inside sports and outside sports to his problem

Why sport has to do better in its reaction to mental health

Has his experience made him a better agent?

How would Luke have coped with social media in his playing days?

How did Luke's family cope with his story going public?

Writing out his problems v Talking out his problems

The worrying statistics on cricketing suicides

The particular problems of a cricketer's retirement

Could Luke leave cricket behind?

Why society has to change its story of success

Have athletes come to him about their mental health after the book

Spotting problems earlier thanks to his experience

Being prepared to 'leave money on the table' in order to look after a client's mental health

How he started his agency

The reaction of young people to his book compared to the older generations

Lessons outside of sports from Luke's story

How does sport have to change in the long term

TOPICS Do they consider themselves a success story?

The acceptance that was an emotional decision to buy the club

How a conversation on holiday after listening to Tranmere’s relegation on the radio prompted the purchase of the club

Asking the hard questions to the previous owner and why the deal nearly faltered

They had financial and legal backgrounds but what did they lack?

Did Nicola encounter sexism when they took over in 2014

What about more passive comments like ‘Is your husband there?”

The three phases of the five-year plan - create space, change business plan, look for investment

Changing the dialogue with the fans

How they communicated a ticket price increase after they had suffered relegation to non-League - and why take-up increased 10%

Why they put a Supporters Trust representative in the management meetings and not on the board

The issue of confidentiality and overcoming issues of trust and fear

The social media strategy that has brought them 34% Twitter followers from overseas

Using educational courses for released players as a revenue driver for the club

How a football club brings in an audience that would normally ignore social services

Using the community scheme to extend the reach of Tranmere in the city with two major Premier League sides

Creating community spirit in Liverpool and whether you could replicate it in other cities

The structural issues in English football and the unintended consequences that harm the lower areas of the pyramid - EPPP and parachute payments

Balancing the success budget v community budget

The ‘danger zone’ of trying to move into the Championship

The club’s early work in Asia - Mongolia

The Indonesian investment, which has seen them take a place on the board and 15% of the club. Why do it and what is the plan?

What the Indonesian side are looking to get from the deal?

Using social media to a commercial relationship in Indonesian

The possibility of developing Indonesian talent at Tranmere

TOPICS

Leprechauns - McGuigan v Pedrosa and Eubank v Close II

The T-junction narratives of Joshua v Ruiz II

The Daily Mirror's front page after Clay v Liston, calling out the reporters who got it wrong, including their own

Leon Spinks - the eight-fight novice who beat Ali and then threw it away in the rematch seven months later. He was arrested seven times between the fight

The adversarial nature of the boxing build-up - press conferences and weigh-in

Why those nasty press conferences may have reached their peak

How the police so nearly saved Errol Christie's life

The fake hate and real hate in press conferences

How wrestler Gorgeous George forced Ali to change his promotional game

Why Anthony Joshua won't do theatrical press conferences because of his violent past

The Larry Holmes v Trevor Berbick grudge

The natural 'rise and fall' story arc of boxing

The litany of British legends who were left with no money

The character of the promoter - Don King, Eddie Hearn, Frank Warren

The growth of YouTube channels in boxing

The critics of the new channels and the deconstruction of old media virtues

Buncey asks some advice about podcasting

Why boxing writing has a special tradition

Filing copy from fight night by knocking on houses and asking to borrow a phone

The danger of living in the past as a boxing writer

The concept of the Chief Sports Writer

Has boxing writing gone downhill?

Why boxing movies are the best sports movies

The legend of Nosher Powell

Buncey's novel - The Fixer

Why boxing is the only sport that seems to work on pay-per-view

Buncey's prediction for boxing's future - the threat from MMA

TOPICS

Why 70% of football results are decided by economics, 10% luck, but what about the 20%?

The academic approach

The boardroom issues and how to overcome them

KPIs every club should have

The internal battle that can exist between the TD and Head Coach

Why Manchester United and Arsenal “lost their identity” after major figures left

Cutting through the insular business of football

Analysing over a long period and not game to game

Mads’ experience in China and how he forged a successful team

Enacting his strategy as Technical Director to Andre Villas-Boas

Going six transfer windows without signing a player… and then winning the league

“Coaches come in thinking they have more power than they have”

Underestimating fans and misunderstanding their motives

Every club wants a great academy supplying players to the first team but why don’t the follow through

The Declan Rice story and loaning players out

Mad’s seven-point sustainability model

Club Vision & Strategy - Dividing into four categories in terms and understanding your ambition

Philosophy (style of play)

Methodology

Recruitment Strategy

Academy Master Plan / Youth Development - “The first place we recruit is our academy”

Head Coach - It is a disruption for the clubs and the coaches

Transfers

How long does it take to deliver this strategy?

Which teams are making this strategy work for them Fitting the football club to the culture of the area

”The biggest clubs can get away with bad planning”

Is the insular world of football opening up a little

The problem with the US How long does it take?

Who is doing this well - Liverpool, Man City, Brentford, Auxerre

Why Real Madrid are not a good example

Why doors are opening in football for Mads

Is winning the be-all-and-end-all for a club

Why he does not get called when clubs are winning

What has and has not changed in 2019

Has the label ‘digital’ disappeared the movement of digital talent

Clubs can monetise by carving out rights in overseas territories not covered by existing deals

Why 2020 is the year of streaming

The importance of politics running over borders to solve sporting problems

Streaming direct-to-consumer - will it work in football

The divergent revenue in football

Why this all leads to a global super league

Why ‘The Avengers Assemble’ approach could kill passion

Lessons from 2019 in football social media - Instagram, TikTok

What metrics can you trust

Why football must change its view of television

Why the growth of MLS in the last decade must be admired

Has Mario’s 2019 prediction about Instagram’s engagement levels come true?

Why analytics is the key to TikTok’s success

Twitter’s role in sports these days

Regional differences in sports social media - why Japan is an exception, why the UAE misses GooglePlus

The emergence of paid-for options on club’s social media

How data will be used in 2020

A plea against short-termism in football

Mario’s three predictions for 2020 - google Maps, selling on Instagram and the rights cycle

TOPICS

The Bristol Sports model that sits “behind the teams”

The efficiencies that this model brings Why rebrand Bristol City?

The ‘more extreme’ rebrand of Bristol Bears and what was learnt

The response from the fans after the club asked for their opinion

The importance of local knowledge

The sense checks and challengers needed in ‘the circle of trust’

Changing the formation date on the previous crest

Taking off key features - like the famous bridge in the city

Giving out information on the crest but still expecting fans to be shocked

The importance of presenting the crest in the city and ‘underground’ sites

What information was taken from the fan survey

Why they chose the design agency they did? “Where you can, keep it local”

Why they released all their pages in the design process

The reason for launching in March and the nature of the launch event

“You can’t learn this stuff, you have to live it”

Learning from mistakes by others

Avoid the 'cartoon feel'

Admiring the rebrand of Juventus

The importance of versatility in the badge

Determining the signal from the noise

Putting a hashtag on the badge

The social media strategy for launching the kit

The problem of keeping it under wraps

Taking something from US Sports and why the Colorado Rockies are his second baseball team because of their social media

Changing the way you talk to your fans

Measuring the success of the rebrand

What they would have done differently

TOPICS

The importance of running a high-quality event

Keeping the standard high despite the crowded calendar

Growing the PDC Darts event behind a subscription wall on Sky

The peculiar nature of darts - you can’t see the sport even when you are there

The way players have individualised and marketed themselves

The WWE influence over the entrances

The debate over darts’ sporting credibility

Football’s over-reliance on tribalism and lack of interest in marketing the product

Darts players and social media.

The relationship between social media and sponsorship in darts

How they use PDCTV, their OTT channel.

The importance of unofficial content channels

The human side of darts

Prince Harry becoming “a darts influencer”

Why darts is the UK’s most trusted sport

The challenger tour and academy set up

The opportunity to create a gender-neutral sport

The Premier League concept - Thursday night events in provincial towns

Why the PDC will always ‘leave ticket money on the table’

The development of different tournaments and why they are at maximum capacity

The determining factors behind darts’ global growth

Why they did not move into Holland earlier?

Which country has over-indexed and surprised him

The difficulty of expanding into Asia

Will the sport need a stand-out Asian player to make the breakthrough?

Why the future is consolidation

TOPICS

The problems surrounding football clubs entering the esports market

The “extreme contortion” that football clubs are trying to pull off

The true threat to football from esports

What lessons have we learned from what has not worked

Will football clubs be prepared to accept a subservient role to games publishers?

Why esports is a media business not a sports business and the players are entertainers, not athletes

Should football clubs enter the esports market while it is cheap even though they might not have a clear strategy?

Why Leagues can take a more strategic approach

Fantasy games rather than sports are the best avenue for esports

The unfair comparison of TV and gaming audiences. They are both “made-up metrics”

What would early scandals in esports do to the brand value of the sport?

Why the biggest problem in esports is the word “sports”

Managing player contracts in esports?

What if football ignores esports?

Is esports better prepared for modern patterns of consumption

The little signals of a potential downturn in TV sports rights

Oscar’s advice to the football industry on embracing esports

Taking the lead from MLB Advanced Media and creating “platforms”

TOPICS

Why makes a footballer go bankrupt

Navigating a player through the difficult period just after they have retired

Gaining the trust of a newly-rich player

“The danger of contract improvements”

Why Stijn likes to work with players before they sign their first big contract

Why players should invest in property over stocks and shares

Using social media to develop commercial models

How Vincent Kompany is an example of using social media to push his post-playing career

How to train as an agent

The transparency problem in the agency world

How Stijn would regulate agents

The pastoral care of players and where the responsibility rests

The primary aims when negotiating a new contract

Stopping yourself getting cynical

Why Stijn will not take on new players during the transfer window

The legal and cultural differences in dealing with different countries

Topics

His early work at USA Swimming

The issues of modernisation

Communicating with swim parents

Launching into CRM and the content strategy that feeds it

The Olympic Trails and their commercialisation and sponsorship activation

Lessons from being an American at Derby County

The television and live streaming strategy

The importance of top stars in keeping USA Swimming relevant, especially outside the Olympics

How a new swim league is allowing swimmers to create interest and sponsorship

The Olympics restrictions on commercialisation by athletes and how they might change

Safe Sport – how has USA Swimming reacted to Larry Nassar case in gymnastics

The breadth of his role. Being judged on medals but having to care for the recreational

Why swimming may fit perfectly in the modern world

The cost of giving back. Why membership dues have not changed in over 30 years

Why transparency is key for a non-profit

The fast-track learning in a period of significant growth in MLS

USA Swimming’s relationship with para-swimming – “We are supporters on the sidelines”

The Olympics targets and priorities

Leveraging Olympic success to create new fans