We can file this podcast under the banner heading of Web3 WTF, an occasional series in which we talk to a wide range of people about sport’s relationship with the next iteration of the internet. 

Future episodes will talk to people on every side of this subject, from new blockchain, web3 and metaverse startups to financiers, agencies, fans and sports rights holders. 

Unofficial Partner’s position on this topic is that nobody knows everything. Each conversation is a partial view in to this fast evolving and exciting space, with opportunities for experimentation and mistakes.  

Today’s guest is Joey D’Urso, the investigations writer of The Athletic. And the subject is fan engagement tokens, crypto currency and football clubs. 

D’Urso has written a series of deep dives in to Socios, the most prominent and controversial of a new generation of self styled ‘fan engagement’ apps, which promise to tokenise the relationship between clubs and fans by creating digital assets that can be exchanged for real life benefits. 

This ‘Ultimate App for Superfans’ has numerous valuable licensing deals in place with clubs and star players around the world.

So we use D’Urso’s reporting as the context for our conversation, specifically a story he wrote on the transfer of Lionel Messi from Barcelona to Paris St Germain in August 2021. 

If you want to join us in asking more questions about sport and web3, you should come to our first Unofficial Partner event, taking place in September in London. 

You can register your interest for the event in the show notes to this podcast or via the Unofficial Partner newsletter. Sign up via the 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.

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

This week we went to Wimbledon to talk to Jamie Baker and Alex Willis.

Jamie was a professional tennis player, British number two and Davis Cup player who is now Tournament Director and Head of Professional Tennis at The All England Lawn Tennis Club. 

Alex is Wimbledon’s Communications and Marketing Director, responsible for the brand vision for The Championships. 

So we talked about the tennis product, the decision of the ATP and WTA Tours to remove world ranking points from this year’s event, what LIV Golf would look like in tennis, the challenges of domestic stars such as Emma Raducanu and Andy Murray and we talk about whether the grass court season, so important to the Wimbledon brand, is under threat. 

Every episode of ReThinking Sport can be found by searching Unofficial Partner via the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. Alternatively, you can go direct to unofficialpartner.com and search ‘Portas’ and you’ll find series one and two in their entirety. 

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.

The Bundle is our regular deep dive in to the sports broadcast and streaming market with regular guests Yannick Ramcke, head of OTT for OneFootball, Charlie Boss, chief commercial officer at The Jockey Club and Murray Barnett, director of the D2C consultancy and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN. 

Today’s conversation covers MLS and Apple; IPL, Disney and Viacom18; Rugby League and IMG; why is innovation so hard in sport and why do people love the Netflix for Sport story.

Today’s episode is sponsored by our friends at Turnstile, who are asking a good question: 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

And if you like sports business newsletters, you’ll really like the Unofficial Partner version, that goes to thousands of people across global sport every Thursday, sign up via UnofficialPartner.com or via Twitter @UnffclPrtnr.  

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 the second of our For What It’s Worth series in collaboration with Turnstile and is an opportunity to pick apart the reality of the sponsorship sales process on both sides of the negotiation table. 

To do this we’re pleased to welcome Celine Del Genes and Rob Grenville Jones.

Celine is Global General Manager of Specialist Sports at Adidas and Rob is Commercial Partnerships Director at the English Rugby Football Union (RFU).  

Joining us is Dan Gaunt, General Manager at Turnstile. 

This is a conversation about trust - how is this cultivated? How quickly can it be established? Ego, both personal and corporate. Intangibility - the role of gut feeling v rationality, head v heart; the role of emotion, and the under rated job of selling the deal to the board, and finally, how is a deal communicated to the general public via the media. How reliable are the prices quoted and what are the games that are played on both the buy and sell side of the equation.

The first episode in the For What It’s Worth series (UP240) featured Juliet Slot, commercial director of Arsenal and is available to download for free, in the Unofficial Partner archive. 

And if you like sports business newsletters, you’ll really like the Unofficial Partner version, that goes to thousands of people across global sport every Thursday, sign up via the website. 

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.

Welcome to the 250th Unofficial Partner sports business podcast.

To mark the occasion, we've been going back into the archive and re-listening to many of the conversations we've had over the last three or more years.

What we found were a mass of interconnecting threads, each telling a part of the bigger story that is the sports industry's past, present and future. 

This episode pulls at some of these threads with the help of a host of guests including Claire Enders, Lesa Ukman, Barry Hearn, Patrick Nally, Matt Locke, Rory Sutherland and Paul Hawksbee.

Before we get going, we want to put a date in your diary. We're hosting a live Unofficial Partner podcast in London, in July.
 
More details when we have them, but if you're interested in the general idea, we'd be grateful if you were to register your interest via THIS LINK where you'll be looked after by our friends at Sponsorworks Event & Guest Management Software for Brands & Rights Holders. 

Here's to the next 250 podcasts...

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.

The Tour de France is one of the great sporting moments of the year, with a storied history and cultural heritage that is both international and uniquely French. 

Journalist Alex Duff has written a book called Le Fric, which uncovers the business story of this great French institution and its ever changing relationship with money and power; the secretive family who own it and the multiple attempts to wrestle control by rival groups keen to make the Tour the centre of a world cycling league. 

Today’s episode is sponsored by our friends at Turnstile, who are asking a good question: 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

If you like the podcast, you’ll love the Unofficial Partner newsletter that goes to thousands of subscribers every Thursday, 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.

Today's guest is Andy Gardiner, the man behind the Premier Golf League, the self-styled Formula One for professional golf whose promising to generate $1.8billion of annual revenue and $10billon of equity value by 2031. 
This comes a week after our podcast with Sean Bratches from the rival disruptor league, Saudi backed LIV Golf. Since we spoke, Bratches has resigned.
As you'll hear in our conversation, Gardiner is bullish on the PGL's chances of breaking the current stalemate with the PGA Tour, by offering a revenue share agreement to the players and demanding their representatives on the PGA Tour Policy Board publish an independent valuation on the PGL's projections .
The stakes are very high and the proposal would change professional golf forever, something Gardiner refers to as a 'multi generational opportunity' for the game. 
The deadline for a decision is looming and the PGA Tour is countering with threats to the players livelihoods and attempts to undermine Gardiner's projected figures.

Gardiner says: "When we started out, there was a genuine feeling amongst the best players in the world that they were  over subsidizing the rest of the membership. And we heard that from sponsors and we heard it from broadcasters because they said, yes, we really only care about 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 guys. Those are the ones who move the needle. That's why we're paying the money we're paying".

Today’s episode is sponsored by our friends at Turnstile.

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

If you like the podcast, you’ll love the Unofficial Partner newsletter that goes to thousands of subscribers every Thursday, sign up via UnofficialPartner.com or follow us on Twitter @UnffclPrtnr

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.

Welcome to The Bundle, our regular series on the sports broadcast and streaming market with regular guests Yannick Ramcke of OneFootball and Murray Barnett, former ESPN, World Rugby and F1.

The conversation takes us from Formula One in Miami to soccer in Mexico via FIFA+, Disney+ and the questions facing Discovery’s direct to consumer future. 

You’ll hear us reference various articles and stories, all of which are available to read in the Unofficial Partner newsletter, which goes out every Thursday. To subscribe, sign up at UnofficialPartner.com or follow us on Twitter @UnffclPrtnr

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.

There’s a lot riding on 2026 FIFA World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico. 

It’s often sold as the moment America finally gets it: When the game catches fire as a professional entertainment product, justifying the investment money flowing in to the MLS and the accompanying franchise valuations, which don’t seem to make sense unless something transformative is about to happen. 

So 2026 as catalyst: No pressure. 

But as ever when it comes to FIFA, there are subplots…

We still don’t know where the games will take place and patience is wearing thin among the 17 US cities that have submitted bids to host matches in 2026. 

Site visits have been completed, small print pored over. Expensive demands have been made, from the quality of turf to policing and security through to Human Rights promises. 

And still they wait. It was going to be last year. Now a date in Q2 is the next deadline for announcements. Yes, COVID, but not only COVID. 

When it comes to organising and running a World Cup, 2026 is the first time FIFA has taken everything in-house.

This scraps the role of the local organising committee - think London 2012 without LOCOG. 

So any delays - the city hosting decision is a pretty big one tbf - brings accusations as to bandwidth and focus at the centre, and whether Infantino underestimated what taking it all in-house means in practice.

To help us find some answers, Grant Wahl, the pre-eminent US soccer journalist, returns to the UP podcast to discuss his reporting on the 2026 story, which is available via his excellent newsletter, available at GrantWahl.com

If you enjoy the Unofficial Partner podcasts, sign up to our newsletter, that overthinks the sports business, every Thursday. Or follow us on Twitter @UnffclPrtnr

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.

Lorraine Ugen's story is a must listen for anyone interested in the personal and commercial reality of professional sport.
Ugen is an Olympian who competes in her own brand; one she designed, manufactured and models, and who's building a community of fellow athletes who face the dilemma of competing at the highest level without personal sponsorship from the big sports apparel and equipment manufacturers.
 Ugen competed in the long jump at the Rio 2016 Olympics and captained the Great Britain team at the inaugural Athletics World Cup in 2018, winning gold in the women's long jump. For England, she anchored the women's 4 x 100 metres relay team to gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. As a collegiate athlete in the United States, she won an NCAA indoor and outdoor long jump titles.
As Covid hit, Ugen found herself without a personal sponsor, the income from which is one of the bases of a professional athlete's income.
The plan is to allow athletes to wear the Unsigned brand and attract their own endorsement offers, while fans buy it and support Ugen's growing community of sports stars.
You can find out more via UnsignedSport.com
We're joined by regular co-host Laura Weston, former MD of Iris Sport and a board member of the Women's Sport Trust. 

If you like the podcasts, sign up to the Unofficial Partner newsletter, that goes to thousands of people across global sport every Thursday. Or you can follow us on Twitter @UnffclPrtnr

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.