Sports Pundit Podcast

On this episode of The Pitch, Andy is joined by Edward Fitzgibbon, a cricket business consultant and Wisden writer, to explore what cricket could look like as a tourism product. Sparked by a trip to India with his dad for the 2023 World Cup - staying in Dharamshala, with the Himalayas behind the pavilion - he pitches the idea that cricket's biggest events already function as multi-destination travel experiences, from Ashes tours linking Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney to fans building whole itineraries around a day or two at the cricket.

They dig into the economics hiding behind that behaviour: the hotel nights, restaurants and activities that never show up in a sport's accounting beyond the ticket price, and what smarter people in travel could build if cricket packaged it properly. The conversation then turns to cricket's global expansion - World Cups heading to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, new venues in Japan and China, talk of a German World Cup in the 2030s, and the European T20 finishing in Edinburgh - and whether giving new audiences the chance to see, touch and feel the sport is the real growth lever.

Finally, they take on cricket media itself: why coverage obsesses over selection dilemmas while the business of cricket goes unreported, how simply translating crore into pounds or dollars would make Indian cricket's money stories resonate, the case for alt streams that welcome the cricket-curious, and what the sport could borrow from UFC's Ultimate Fighter playbook - reality-style formats and creator-led content, perhaps starting with the associate nations.

Timestamps

02:30 - Why Cricket Needs Change

05:00 - Taking Inspiration from the FIFA World Cup in the U.S.

09:00 - Developing a Personalised Itinerary App

18:00 - Global Expansion New Markets

20:00 - Como 1907 and Destination Calcio Inspiration

24:00 - Creators Content Discovery

26:00 - Alt Cricket Media Opportunities

35:00 - Reality Storytelling Angle

About The Show

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston, Drew Rauso and Dom Collingwood.

It's a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what's really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

The Pitch typically brings together three hosts - Andy Marston, Drew Rauso and Dom Collingwood. This week it's just Andy, joined by special guest Edward Fitzgibbon, pitching and debating business ideas within cricket.

Edward Fitzgibbon (Guest) is the Managing Director at NYZ Consulting, Strategic Advisor at Profluence Capital, and a Board Member at Wisden, the most recognised brand in world cricket. His advisory work spans deal sourcing, due diligence, and growth strategy for sports technology and cricket-adjacent assets across North America, Australia, the Middle East, India, and APAC.He is also the writer of "The Future of Cricket," a long-form series co-published with Wisden that maps where the sport is headed and, critically, where the capital opportunities sit. The series covers everything from calendar reform and venue economics to growth markets like Nepal and the emerging cricket tech stack.

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907, Tottenham Hotspur and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

On today's episode of the Sports Pundit Podcast, we're joined by Carolina Chiappero, Innovation Manager at Juventus.

Carolina traces her path from opening Juventus soccer schools around the world and managing the academy project's international development to leading the club's innovation function - a role she raised her hand for after working on projects beyond football, from food formats to a travel business. She shares her definition of innovation: anything that makes the club work better or creates new value. That makes innovation a cross-functional activity at a club that operates as a proper corporate, and makes her an enabler and translator between departments - identifying internal needs through assessment and discussion, scouting outside for solutions, and testing them with internal champions.

She then unpacks Juventus Forward, the club's external-facing innovation programme, and its "squad" of startups running 12-month pilots built for adoption, not pilots for their own sake. Batch after batch, more departments are getting involved - from performance and digital marketing to facility management and communication - and the value is stacking up in layers: the brand attracting technology at net-zero cost, each pilot generating time savings, cost optimisation or new revenue, and a next step of partnership-driven innovation, where startups can serve club partners too and innovation becomes activation.

The conversation also covers where Carolina looks for inspiration - the UEFA innovation hub, Italian sport-tech accelerator BitnMatch, and Politecnico di Milano's Open Innovation Observatory - and why being first in the Italian market meant looking beyond football and beyond sport altogether. It closes with Juventus Forward's new squad announcement, which has since been made on stage at Wave by Vento, formerly known as Italian Tech Week. 

Timestamps

01:00 - Carol’s Juventus Journey

05:00 - Finding Innovation Mentors

08:00 - Defining the Role of Innovation within a Football Club 

12:30 - What is Juventus Forward and Why Does it Exist?

15:00 - How Pilots Get Adopted Across the Organisation

19:00 - Innovation as Commercial Engine (The Revenue Opportunity)

24:30 - Roadmap and Next Steps

About The Host

⁠⁠Andy Marston⁠⁠⁠ is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

About Sports Pundit

Sports Pundit is a community-driven platform for executives working in sport, built around content, events, and conversation. Through its ⁠⁠⁠weekly newsletter⁠⁠⁠, social channels, WhatsApp groups, and podcast network, it connects industry leaders across the globe.

At the heart of the platform is the ⁠⁠⁠Sports Pundit Podcast⁠⁠⁠, The Sports Pundit Podcast Network is a multi-show platform designed for sports executives, by sports executives. The network includes interview shows with decision makers across the industry, special domain-specific series on areas like investment and innovation, and The Pitch, a conversational companion show discussing big ideas.

Together, they deliver insider perspectives that live up to Sports Pundit’s mission to be “The Voice of the Sports Industry.”

On this episode of The Pitch, Andy, Drew, and Dom discuss using touring sports weekends to add fan-facing “shoulder programming” and new commercial inventory, sparked by MotoGP’s San Marino GP partnering with FIBA 3x3 for a free Thursday street-court event featuring riders as team captains.

They explore how F1 and Liberty Media could replicate this by inviting challenger sports (padel, flag football, virtual golf) or creating owned IP (e.g., an “Apex” run club tied to the F1 movie) to drive sponsorship, hospitality, and city-center fan zones, with operational models ranging from full ownership to collaboration.

The conversation then shifts to athletes and creators building sport properties off digital channels, citing LeBron and Kevin Hart launching golf YouTube content and the idea of filming and branding charity tournaments as creator-run events, alongside examples like the Sidemen match, athlete-streamed rights, and the tradeoffs of platform distribution.Timestamps

• 02:00 - MotoGP x 3v3 as Evidence of Cross-Collaboration Events
• 10:00 - Launching the "Apex Run Club," to Build on F1 Movie IP
• 20:30 - The Evolution of YouTube Golf
• 27:30 - Expanding Trend of Creators Gaining Streaming Rights

About The Show

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston, Drew Rauso and Dom Collingwood.

It’s a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what’s really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

⁠Drew Rauso⁠ is a versatile media operator with a proven track record of building and scaling sports media ventures at the intersection of content, commerce, and creator strategy. He currently leads Brand, Strategy, and Operations at Playmaker HQ, a leading sports podcast network owned by Better Collective, home to shows featuring Shaquille O’Neal, Angel Reese, and Marshawn Lynch. Previously at The Players’ Tribune, Drew has been instrumental in shaping athlete-driven media, overseeing partnerships, production, and growth initiatives that connect fans and talent in meaningful ways.

⁠Andy Marston⁠ is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

⁠Dom Collingwood⁠ is the founder of Fanzo, the world's most used sports bar finder, helping fans find the best bars and venues showing live sport near you. Alongside his business partner Leo MacLehose, he launched the company to revolutionise match viewing experiences and currently oversees operations across multiple global markets, including Australia, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria and the USA.

On today's episode of the Sports Pundit Podcast, we're joined by Kari Fleischauer, Chief Operating Officer at Gotham FC.

Kari traces her career path from Goldman Sachs, SpaceX and Crooked Media to entering women's sport, first with Angel City FC, before landing at Gotham FC.

While this may seem like a random list, the common thread running through all of it in her view is spotting assets that are conventionally mispriced and building durable enterprises around them from the ground up.

Kari reflects on how operating outside traditional sports pathways shaped her approach to commercialization, budgeting, and long-term value creation at Angel City, including some of the lessons (and league fines) that came from treating a fledgling NWSL club like a startup.

Kari then unpacks what's different at Gotham FC, where committed ownership and a strong soccer-ops leader combined to deliver both performance and commercial success from early on. She talks about the importance of building a distinct brand identity separate from any men's team, why NWSL's competitiveness stacks up favorably against European leagues on a game-to-game basis, and how brand partners like DoorDash and CarMax have found outsized value attaching to women's sports.

The conversation closes on Gotham's upcoming shift to Etihad Park, plus the huge investment commitment into a new training facility as well as what this means for their community-first strategy, which will underpin the club's next chapter in the Tri-State area.

Timestamps

• 02:00 - Career Origin Story and Learnings from Goldman and SpaceX
• 07:00 - Angel City Startup Lessons
• 11:00 - Gotham's Winning Formula (Performance + Commercial)
• 19:00 - Building a Unique Brand
• 22:00 - Sponsors and Media Value
• 27:00 - Stadiums and Creating a Premium Experience
• 32:00 - Investing in a Training Facility and the Community

About The Host

⁠Andy Marston⁠⁠ is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

About Sports Pundit

Sports Pundit is a community-driven platform for executives working in sport, built around content, events, and conversation. Through its ⁠⁠weekly newsletter⁠⁠, social channels, WhatsApp groups, and podcast network, it connects industry leaders across the globe.

At the heart of the platform is the ⁠⁠Sports Pundit Podcast⁠⁠, The Sports Pundit Podcast Network is a multi-show platform designed for sports executives, by sports executives. The network includes interview shows with decision makers across the industry, special domain-specific series on areas like investment and innovation, and The Pitch, a conversational companion show discussing big ideas.

Together, they deliver insider perspectives that live up to Sports Pundit’s mission to be “The Voice of the Sports Industry.”

On this episode of the Sports Pundit Podcast, I'm joined by Shergul Arshad, Head of North America for Aston Martin Formula One Team.

Shergul walks through how a career built in global football and fantasy sports led him into F1, joining the team on the back of the growth spike triggered by Drive to Survive and stepping into a role that, at the time, didn't really exist yet.

The conversation traces how that role as Head of 'North America' has evolved. What started as an evangelizing job, explaining F1 to a US market that didn't yet fully understand it, has turned into long-term sponsorship building, with Shergul personally closing nine deals in under four years, including with the likes of Cohere, CoreWeave, and Celsius.

Shergul explains the team's move away from strict category exclusivity and the launch of the AMR Network, a structure that allows sponsors to collaborate with each other rather than compete for space, and how the IAM membership program is being used to capture and understand fan data.

The episode closes with a look at Aston Martin's $350M Silverstone campus, home to more than 1,100 staff, and its role as both a talent magnet and a hospitality asset for the team.

Timestamps

01:00 - Shergul's Career Path from Football and Fantasy to F1

04:00 - Building Relatability in the North American Market

09:00 - Sponsorship Growth Metrics and AMR's Commercial Success

11:00 - Launching the AMR Network and Looking Beyond Category Exclusivity

20:00 - Expanding the Driver Squad and Show Car Activations

28:00 - A Silverstone Campus Tour

33:00 - Exploring Future Commercial Levers

About the Host

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

On today's episode of the Sports Pundit Podcast, we're joined by Isabelle Van Coevorden, Managing Director of Global Markets at the Seattle Seahawks.

Isabelle walks us through her career path, from playing semi-professional soccer and interning at UEFA in Switzerland, to brand-growth roles with Major League Soccer, FC Barcelona, and the Bundesliga, before joining the Seahawks to help translate American football to international markets from both a fan and a B2B perspective.

She discusses how the Seahawks leveraged their Super Bowl win for an immediate global momentum boost, while stressing the importance of building year-round market presence beyond the NFL's Super Bowl-centric spike in attention.

The conversation covers long-term ROI on international investment, community-building through events and flag football, the difference between global and regional commercial partnerships (including Accenture and Condor Airlines), cross-sport collaborations with clubs like Bayern Munich and AFL/NRL teams, the Seahawks' ambassador program with players, and the wider "halo effect" of promoting Seattle as a global city.

Timestamps

01:00 - Isabelle's Career Journey

04:00 - Joining the Seahawks

05:00 - Leveraging Super Bowl Momentum

09:30 - Seahawks' Global Markets

15:00 - Activating Without a Game

17:30 - Measuring International ROI

23:30 - Global and Regional Sponsors

33:00 - Seattle World Cup Halo

About The Host

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

On this episode of The Pitch, Andy and Drew welcome new co-host Dom, who arrives with a big opening pitch focused on an “honors system” for fans, built like a Hall of Fame for the people who actually create sports culture on the ground.

Dom points to examples like San Antonio Spurs fans in France staging 2-4 a.m. playoff watch parties complete with drums, and asks why the volunteers and organisers behind these communities rarely get any formal recognition at all.

That pitch opens into a wider conversation about visibility. Andy and Dom talk through what it would actually take to spotlight these grassroots communities and the tension that comes with it.

From there the discussion turns to loyalty and rewards, looking at how clubs and platforms already recognise their most devoted fans and the episode shifts to a practical question of “if not everyone can or wants to go to a stadium, what’s the next best thing?”

The trio debate the UK’s fan bar culture, then dig into “pub-plus” concepts like COSM and F1 Arcade as scalable alternatives to matchday attendance. They close by exploring whether cinemas could become a real venue for sport (both live broadcasts and archival footage) including formats built specifically for kids and for women’s sport.

Timestamps

• 1:00 - Fanzo’s Dom Collingwood Joins The Pitch

• 07:00 - Championing Volunteers And Giving Suitable Recognition

• 12:30 - Commercialising Fan Recognition and Finding Sponsorship Balance

• 14:30 – Creating Visible Communities for Fans

• 20:00 - Exploring Wider Opportunities around Loyalty And Data Rewards

• 26:19 - Why Don’t UK Fan Bars Exist for Top Teams?

• 32:00 - Appreciating the COSM And F1 Arcade Formats

• 38:00 - Should Sports Be more present in Cinemas?

About The Show

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston, Drew Rauso and Dom Collingwood.

It’s a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what’s really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

Drew Rauso is a versatile media operator with a proven track record of building and scaling sports media ventures at the intersection of content, commerce, and creator strategy. He currently leads Brand, Strategy, and Operations at Playmaker HQ, a leading sports podcast network owned by Better Collective, home to shows featuring Shaquille O’Neal, Angel Reese, and Marshawn Lynch. Previously at The Players’ Tribune, Drew has been instrumental in shaping athlete-driven media, overseeing partnerships, production, and growth initiatives that connect fans and talent in meaningful ways.

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

Dom Collingwood is the founder of Fanzo, the world's most used sports bar finder, helping fans find the best bars and venues showing live sport near you. Alongside his business partner Leo MacLehose, he launched the company to revolutionise match viewing experiences and currently oversees operations across multiple global markets, including Australia, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria and the USA.

On today’s episode of the Sports Pundit Podcast, I’m joined by Jada Balster, CMO at Perk.

Jada is a B2B marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience across companies including Epicor, S&P Global, and Adobe. Today she leads marketing at Perk, the all-in-one travel and spend management platform formerly known as TravelPerk.

In this conversation, we explore how B2B marketing has evolved from a demand generation discipline into a brand-building function, and why Perk recently embarked on its biggest ever marketing investment through a company-wide rebrand.

We discuss the role sport can play in accelerating brand growth, including why Perk selected the Audi Revolut Formula One team as its first major sports partnership, and how the company plans to stand out as Formula One continues to get noisier for incoming brands.

Timestamps

02:00 - Jada’s Career Journey

04:00 - TravelPerk Becomes Perk

06:00 - Rebrand Rollout and Metrics

10:00 - Why Sport and F1 Fit

15:00 - Choosing the Audi Partnership

24:00 - Integration Beyond the Logo27:00 - Activating Across Channels

34:00 - What’s Next for Perk

About The Host

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

On this episode of The Pitch, Andy and Drew dig into two ideas that both orbit the same macro challenge: how do sports venues generate more value on the days when the stands aren't full?

Andy kicks things off with Surrey County Cricket Club's move to turn the Oval into a midweek co-working destination, installing Wi-Fi and laptop-friendly desks to pull remote workers into four-day county fixtures. Drew draws the comparison to the San Diego Padres' Remote Work Wednesday experiment and the pair debate the real ROI of infrastructure investment versus a lighter-touch marketing play.

The conversation quickly expands beyond simple attendance tactics. Andy pitches the idea of segmenting co-working days by industry, turning the stadium into a genuine networking event, and ultimately folding the whole concept into corporate sponsorship packages that give brands a physical home inside the venue on non-match days.

Then Drew takes the mic with a pitch around legends football, asking what would happen if the one-off celebrity and former player games that clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United already run were structured into a proper secondary league, complete with tracked stats, betting markets, and miniature club contracts. Andy traces the idea back to Sky Sports' Masters Football series from the early 2000s and the pair explore how the Kings League and Baller League have already proved the appetite exists, and why a Premier League-backed version could be close to unstoppable.

Finally, the duo zoom out to look at why all of this matters now, connecting stadium monetisation directly to financial fair play regulations in European football, before grounding the conversation in practical examples from Southampton FC's in-stadium pub and arcade to the Bernabeu's surprisingly affordable Starbucks.

Timestamps

• 01:30 - The Surrey Oval Co-Working Idea
• 04:00 - Baseball Comparison and the ROI Question
• 07:00 - Networking, Industry Days, and Segmenting the Crowd
• 10:00 - Sponsor Suites as Co-Working Infrastructure
• 15:30 - The Legends League Pitch
• 18:30 - Kings League, Club Partnerships, and Defensive Moats
• 21:00 - Stadium Revenue and the Financial Fair Play Macro
• 24:00 - Spurs, Southampton, the Bernabeu, and What's Actually Replicable

About The ShowThe Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston and Drew Rauso. It's a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what's really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts
Drew Rauso is a versatile media operator with a proven track record of building and scaling sports media ventures at the intersection of content, commerce, and creator strategy. He currently leads Brand, Strategy, and Operations at Playmaker HQ, a leading sports podcast network owned by Better Collective, home to shows featuring Shaquille O'Neal, Angel Reese, and Marshawn Lynch. Previously at The Players' Tribune, Drew has been instrumental in shaping athlete-driven media, overseeing partnerships, production, and growth initiatives that connect fans and talent in meaningful ways.

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Charlie Kurian, Director of Innovation and Strategy at the San Antonio Spurs.

Charlie has had a non-traditional path into professional sport, with experience spanning Big Tech, startups and venture capital. Prior to joining the Spurs, he served as Investor and Chief of Staff at Soma Capital, a $412M venture fund that was an early investor in companies including Deel, Rippling and Ramp.

In this conversation, we explore how lessons from these areas, particularly venture, can be applied inside a sports organisation. We also discuss the Spurs’ AI adoption journey, their leadership guide with OpenAI, surprising internal use cases, and the launch of Spurs AI Studio, whose first activation delivered an AI-generated tunnel walk experience for Michelob Ultra.

Finally, we explore how AI is changing partner expectations and where the next wave of opportunity may emerge for sports organisations.

Timestamps

• 02:00 - Charlie’s Non-Linear Career Path

• 06:00 - Spurs Strategy & Innovation Role

• 10:00 - Translating Trends into Value

• 15:00 - OpenAI Partnership & Adoption Playbook

• 21:00 - Surprising Internal AI Use Cases

• 24:00 - Spurs AI Studio Revenue Creation

• 30:00 - Licensing and Partner Expectations Shift

• 33:30 - Build vs Buy and Startup Collaboration

About The Host

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.