Alex Amsel  is better known as SillyTuna, the award winning game developer, investor, and blockchain expert. He was one of the stars of the Unofficial Partner Web3 Brainstorm Live event at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium last September, which was the absolute peak of NFT mania.
Now the hype around web3, blockchain and NFTs has dissipated, so we've asked Alex to give us an update on where we are, what we learnt and where it's going next.

After 15+ years running a game studio Alex Amsel moved into the blockchain field in 2012, selling NFT startup Ownage in 2018 before most even knew the term. In 2021 his Covid Alien CryptoPunk NFT sold for $11.75million at Sotheby's. He's currently co-founder of Soulcast, a customisable NFT platform, and is an early stage investor and advisor in numerous AI, NFT, DAO, DEFI and infrastructure projects including Ethereum, Stable Diffusion and Axie Infinity. He is also a partner at Outlier Ventures.

This week’s episode is brought to you by our friends at the Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) and Loughborough University London.

ISH and Loughborough University recently launched the new Leadership in Sport Master’s course, running from Autumn 2023.

Uniquely, the course has been designed for executives working in the sports industry as well as athletes seeking specialised education to support their professional development. The masters course fits alongside busy jobs and busy lives. It’s ideal for people seeking to develop their impact and effectiveness in leading and managing. individuals, teams, and organisations. 

The mission of ISH – which is led by the former England Cricket Selector, professional cricketer and. author, Ed Smith – is to nurture and inspire sport’s current and future leaders around the world.  Students on the MA Leadership in Sport programme will join an amazing ecosystem of sports experts – Loughborough University has been ranked the #1 university for sports-related subjects for the past 7 years. So the world’s top sports university is working in tandem with a unique sports network at ISH.

 The new intake starts in October 2023 and applications are currently open.

 Find out more at. www.sportshumanities.org 

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.

How is sport impacted by the cost of living crisis?
The answer depends on where you are in the marketplace.
The small global elite of sports rights holders are doing just fine. Billions of dollars in media revenue chases must-see content, from the NFL in the US, Premier League in England, the IPL in India through to the major quadrennial extravaganzas such as Olympics and World Cups.
Likewise, there are clubs and institutions in the lower reaches of the sporting pyramid for whom not much has changed and who cut their cloth according to the local demand for traditional revenue generators such as sponsorship, match day tickets and merchandise.
It's the middle of the market where much of the pain is being felt.
The situation was described in a recent essay by Ben Wells:
'Economic crises tend to cause money to move in one of two ways: to quality or to price. Those in the middle, who are not able to compete on either front, are squeezed.

In the last 12 months, not one major Olympic NGB was able to sign a primary sponsor, with the biggest deal of the year – British Cycling’s tier-two sponsorship with Shell – bringing significant amounts of criticism. In parallel Müller ended its long-running main sponsorship of UK Athletics after seven years. UK Athletics is currently teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

This isn’t a situation unique to athletics. Headlines in rugby, cricket and the second and third tiers of football report of similar tales of woe – the result of unsustainable commercial models.

And all rights-holders in the Squeezed Middle need to be taking note. Economists predict the Cost-of-Living Crisis will last possibly until 2028, and those unsustainable models – trying to grow revenues in a business built around live events, which are limited by number and venue capacity and whose cost-bases are rising with rampant inflation – are the norm."

Today's podcast is the first in a series created in collaboration with PTI Digital, the strategy and technology consultancy. 

Our guests are Ben Wells and Charlie Simpson.
Ben is CEO of PTI Digital and previously held senior commercial roles at Chelsea FC, Reading FC and Bath Rugby.
Charlie Simpson is a former rugby player turned chartered accountant who moved from EY to Scottish Rugby and leads on commercial strategy for the governing body.

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.

Likes, Followers, Shares, Video Views: these are the currency of digital publishing.
But as Matt Locke argues in today's conversation, change is coming.
The importance of the Like as a metric of audience engagement is quickly diminishing. As the dominant social platforms are converging to become video-led TikTok clones, engagement metrics have shifted from clicks to viewing. From TikTok to Netflix, the most important numbers now are not the big ones, but the long ones - it's all about how long something keeps your attention, not if it inspires you to click a button.

What does this mean for many of the biggest sports teams, athletes, leagues and governing bodies, which have sought to redefine themselves as entertainment companies.
Social media follower numbers have become the basis of a football club's valuation, separating the so-called Super League clubs from the rest.
And what are the lessons from the recent demise of Vice and BuzzFeed, two of the most influential digital entertainment businesses of the last decade or more?

Matt Locke co-founded the strategy and content company Storythings in 2011 and is executive producer on projects for clients including BBC, PBS, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Wellcome Trust. Before that Matt was Head of Innovation at BBC and Head of Multiplatform at Channel 4.

Here are some details on his work on the history of attention metrics, How To Measure Ghosts and the Storythings newsletter, Attention Matters, referenced in the podcast.

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.

This is an episode of The Bundle, our regular deep dive in to the sports broadcast and streaming market with regular guests Yannick Ramcke, head of OTT for OneFootball, Murray Barnett, director of the D2C consultancy and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN. And we welcome Carlo De Marchis for his first appearance. Carlo spent 35 years building Deltatre until recently, where he's developed an independent consulting portfolio, which includes an excellent newsletter, A Guy With A Scarf.
 
Conversation covers the following stories:

1. Gianni Infantino's attack on the European broadcasters for rights to FIFA Women's World Cup
2. Are we over reading Netflix's ambitions due to it's plans to live stream a celebrity golf tournament? 
3. What does Messi's arrival in Miami mean for MLS media value and the long term Apple streaming deal 
4. Why did Bundesliga vote against p/e?

This week’s episode is brought to you by our friends at the Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) and Loughborough University London.

ISH and Loughborough University recently launched the new Leadership in Sport Master’s course, running from Autumn 2023.

Uniquely, the course has been designed for executives working in the sports industry as well as athletes seeking specialised education to support their professional development. The masters course fits alongside busy jobs and busy lives. It’s ideal for people seeking to develop their impact and effectiveness in leading and managing. individuals, teams, and organisations. 

The mission of ISH – which is led by the former England Cricket Selector, professional cricketer and. author, Ed Smith – is to nurture and inspire sport’s current and future leaders around the world.  Students on the MA Leadership in Sport programme will join an amazing ecosystem of sports experts – Loughborough University has been ranked the #1 university for sports-related subjects for the past 7 years. So the world’s top sports university is working in tandem with a unique sports network at ISH.

 The new intake starts in October 2023 and applications are currently open.

 Find out more at. www.sportshumanities.org

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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.

Ed Smith returns to the Unofficial Partner podcast.

Ed is the former National Selector for England cricket. He is an author (including What Sport Tells Us About Life and Making Decisions), academic and journalist (New Statesman, BBC and Sunday Times). As a professional cricketer, he played for Kent, England and was club captain of Middlesex when they won their first major title for 15 years.
Ed is Co-Founder of the Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) which has a mission to nurture and inspire sport’s current and future leaders around the world.
ISH and Loughborough University London recently launched the new Leadership in Sport Master’s course, running from Autumn 2023.

Ed Smith:
'Education carries with it an awful lot of legacy and therefore conservatism.
The world is changing and you're going to need to constantly attend to the requirement to have new skills that fit the world as it is changing.
And that world is changing very fast. I don't think education can just say, here we are and this is how we've always been, come to us. I think real world experience combined with and academic learning is a very powerful combination. It'd be very easy just to tell war stories, and it's very easy to get lost in theory at the other end of the spectrum, but can you bring to the two together in a really useful way?'

The NEW intake STARTS IN October 2023 and applications are currently open.

Find out more at www.sportshumanities.org 

The course has been designed for executives working in the sports industry as well as athletes seeking specialised education to support their professional development. The masters course fits alongside busy jobs and busy lives. It’s ideal for people seeking to develop their impact and effectiveness in leading and managing. individuals, teams, and organisations.

Students on the MA Leadership in Sport programme will join an amazing ecosystem of sports experts – Loughborough University has been ranked the #1 university for sports-related subjects for the past 7 years. 

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.

Today's guest is Michael Bond, author of a new book exploring the nature of fandom, a fascinating and entertaining investigation in to worlds of obsession, belonging and human connection.
We talk about what connects Spurs fans with Potterheads, Trekkies, Swifties and MAGAs. We ask whether fandom fills the gap left by the decline of organised religion, what happens to the club-fan relationship when it is too obviously commercialised, the rise of the celebrity activist and what happens when your idol falls from grace.
The book is Fans: A Journey into the Psychology of Belonging.

Today’s episode is sponsored by our friends at Turnstile.
Do you know what your sponsorship is really worth, or are you guessing? Turnstile uses real market rates to quantify the value every single sponsorship right within a deal, looking beyond the traditional media metrics to calculate the value of the Exposure, Intellectual Property and Direct Benefits. This enables Turnstile to deliver a recommended transaction price that’s comprehensive, accurate and defensible. So don’t pay too much. Don’t leave money on the table. Know the fair market price, and buy and sell with confidence. If you value your sponsorships, value them properly. Get in touch with Turnstile at turnstilegroup.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.

Today's guest sits at the epicentre of the football business. 
Charlie Marshall is the CEO of The European Club Association (ECA), the hugely influential organisation, which is the only group officially recognised by both UEFA and FIFA as the sole, independent body for football clubs at European level.
We talk about the big issues facing the game in the post-Super League era, as ECA seeks to balance the sometimes conflicting objectives of its constituency of members, from the biggest clubs in the world to some of Europe's minnows and everyone in between. 

Topics covered include:

• The changing format and access to Uefa club competitions
• The likely impact of new financial regulations
• The rules on multi club ownership
• The future of the women's game
• Player release for national team competitions
• The commercial management of competitions and revenue distribution among clubs.

Last year, Uefa and the ECA signed a further letter of intent ahead of the creation of a new joint venture to oversee the commercial management of Uefa club competitions.

Uefa Club Competitions SA (UCCSA) oversaw a global agency tender process that led to the Team Marketing agency retaining the mandate to sell broadcast, sponsorship and licensing rights to Uefa club competitions from 2024-25 to 2026-27. The mandate excluded US broadcast rights, which are being sold by the Relevent Sports Group agency over the same period in a deal worth a minimum guarantee of $250m (€260m) per year.

UCCSA is now considering whether to take the commercial rights sales in house from 2027-28 onwards, a process overseen by ECA chair Nasser Al-Khelaifi, who is also chairman of Qatar Sports Investments (QSi) sovereign wealth fund , chair of BeIN Sports, the Qatar based broadcaster, and President of French club PSG.

This is an episode of Re:Thinking Sport, our series created in collaboration with Portas, the global strategy consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity.  

Jon Culligan, a partner at Portas, is my co-host for this episode.  

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.

In April, 2019 Tottenham Hotspur football club opened a new £1 billion state-of-the-art stadium, built on top of the old White Hart Lane ground in North London. One of the sports business stories since then has been the club's aspiration to deliver a naming rights sponsorship deal that surpasses those traditionally seen in Europe.
Reports in media outlets claim the club is looking to strike a deal in the region of £25 million a year.
Since then the club is augmented the stadium's content offering by securing long-term partnerships with the NFL and Formula One, aswell as music and boxing promoters. In doing so the club has created a venue that offers premium year round content.
Four years on though, the club has not secured a naming rights partner. But they remain resolute in securing a deal that's aligned to their original target.

So what is the Tottenham stadium worth?

What do you buy when you buy a naming rights deal and how does it differ from other forms of sponsorship?

 Helping us fund an answer to these questions is Dan Gaunt, General Manager of
Turnstile, the global market leader in the provision of fair market price sponsorship valuations.
With Dan is Adam Mitchell, Chief Executive of the sponsorship decision-making organisation Sponsor Pulse 

This podcast coincides with the launch of a new report into stadium naming rights from Turnstile that's available via turnstilegroup.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.

Why do we care about some events and not others? Why do some tournaments capture our imagination and interest, while others seem contrived? 
Will an expanded 48 team FIFA World Cup work in 2026, or will it lead to a boring tournament?
Where do you stand on closed leagues?
Does the 'Super League' idea of Best v Best work in the real world? 
Why do we cheer for underdogs, but only in the early rounds? 
In the tennis Grand Slams, what are the commercial implications of three sets for women and five sets for men?
Why does Twenty20 cricket work but Rugby Sevens doesn't?
What do the various constituencies around sport - fans, teams, rights holders, media, investors - want from the sporting product? 
How can data analytics add relevance, jeopardy or commercial value to a league or competition? 
These just some of the questions we asked in this first episode of The Product, a new series launched in collaboration with Twenty First Group the tech-led sports intelligence company which works across multiple sports, using data to help organisations drive sporting success and unlock commercial value.

In the last week, TFG has launched the TFG World Sports Rankings, a first of it's kind collection of multi-sport rankings which rank sports products  - athletes, teams, competitions, leagues and tournaments - by the three core drivers of long-term value in sport: Quality, Jeopardy and Connection.
You can interrogate the data by going to TFG's website here.

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.

Joanna Coates started her career as a fashion buyer at 16 and became CEO of two of UK sport's major governing bodies.
From 2015 to 2019, Joanna Coates was EnglandNetball's CEO and worked with the governing body for almost ten years. She was part of the team during her time in charge which led the Vitality Roses to victory at the 2018 Commonwealth Games where they won their historic gold medal. The sport was also experiencing record growth during her tenure. 
Coates took on the CEO job of UK Athletics in February, 2020 a period dominated by COVID, financial and safeguarding challenges. 
In this revealing conversation Jo Coates reveals much about how sport works, the challenges faced by the National Governing Body model, her admiration for Sharron Davies and the issue of transgender athletes. 

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.