Unofficial Partner Podcast

This is a special episode of Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment which was recorded recently in front of an invited audience at the London headquarters of EY, the Big Four accounting and professional services group. 

Joining Richard and regular OPM co-host Matt Rogan were John Fallon and Vikram Banerjee.

John Fallon was CEO of publishing giant Pearson during the white heat of digital transformation. His book Resurgent is an essential counter balance to the cliches that gather around the much discussed topic of disruption.

Vikram Banerjee is managing director of The Hundred, and previously led the strategy, insights and business operations functions at the England and Wales Cricket Board. A former professional cricketer, he has played a key role in setting the strategic direction for the sport, including the creation of the ECB’s strategy for cricket – Inspiring Generations – and the South Asian Action Plan, which was launched in 2018. 

The other voices you’ll hear include questions from our audience including Alan Noble and Sarah Hanks, our hosts at EY, plus Gessica Howarth of Sphera Partners.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

Nike, Drake and Beats have just released cricket themed campaigns.

WTF? Is cricket cool?

Richard asked Mike Jakeman and Simon Moore to list their best and worst cricket themed campaigns and the result is a conversation about cliches, tropes and cultural relevance.

The following ads are referenced in the podcast. 

Beats by Dre 2025

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/homeground-london_checkshubman-gillshining-bright-in-the-activity-7376572600484782080-MxP2?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAADNCmgB-26i_-T9u7OfQ8UB-pRP3VJ8mew

Nike Nocta and Drake

https://sportsverse.substack.com/p/cricket-nike-drake-sportswear-west-indies-nocta-antigua

KitKat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l83ANUS3I8E

Pepsi - Change The Game - 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4tpN_egJnM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRbKZ7rkk7A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEnzSbQnFBg

Nike India, Bleed Blue - 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDoDQo_T1c

Nike Yards - 2011  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD59CpKMQY0

Make Every Yard Count - 2014 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtxLmInvFcw

Hilton - No Boundaries 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wif0tbWelrE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv3OPxbTARU

Booking.com It starts with a booking 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ozoQaqKkJ4

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk - Good Luck Girls 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_OtC06ndUE&t=40s

Here’s the original from the nineties

https://youtu.be/e7JATezA1nY?si=vPubhZaP4vZ8-AyU

Emirates - Bollywood Cricket Welcome On-board Demo 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JfuwuDqjag

Adidas - Made for Cricket - 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1TXNXe15fA

Yorkshire Tea -  Everything Stops for Tea -2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l83ANUS3I8E

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

We took The Bundle to Monaco and recorded a live podcast on stage at Sportel, the famous sports media and technology marketplace.

Joining Richard and regular co-host Murray Barnett were Glen Killane (EBU Sport), Peter Bellamy (Deltatre) and Louisa Clark (Queensberry Promotions).

EPISODE SUMMARY

Broadcasting live from Sportel Monaco's opening session, this special episode captures the sports media industry at a pivotal moment. With Apple's Formula 1 deal breaking over the weekend, Relevent's UEFA strategy dominating conversations, and the French football crisis providing a cautionary tale, our panel explores what delegates will be discussing throughout the week. The central question: in a market that's worked the same way for 30 years, where are rights holders placing their chips now?

Key Theme: Out of chaos comes creativity. The industry faces forced evolution, and this is the "Monte Carlo casino moment" - how conservative or aggressive will rights holders be?

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

Joining Richard and Matt Rogan is António Caçorino, founder & CEO of APEX, the sports fund manager known for its roster of over 70 athletes across 15 sports and 30+ leagues. Famous names attached to the fund include Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris (McLaren), Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Valtteri Bottas, footballers Raphaël Varane (Manchester United/France), Christian Eriksen and Mason Mount (Manchester United), Jan Vertonghen, Daley Blind, Luuk de Jong and John Stones (Manchester City).

The Portuguese investment company has deployed capital in elite sports ventures such as TMRW SPORTS, the company behind TGL golf, technology companies Playsight and ScorePlay.

Other investments include Baller League, €23 million ($24.1 million) in series A funding into the creator meets football startup. 

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

Rugby League's Private Equity Play: Super League Seeks Investment

The Rugby Football League is in talks with private equity firms, including Lion Cap Global and Oakwell Sports Advisory, about selling a stake in Super League. This comes 30 years after Super League's formation with Sky backing, yet the sport remains in a similar position—geographically concentrated in Northern England with passionate but limited fan base. The move raises questions about IMG's role, as they're only three years into a 12-year "re-imagining" partnership. The episode questioned why the sport needs PE investment if IMG's transformation was succeeding, and how multiple stakeholders (PE, IMG, diverse club owners) would navigate competing visions for the sport's future. Breaking news during the recording revealed York Knights and Toulouse as the two new teams joining the expanded Super League, notably excluding London despite assumptions about PE interest in southern expansion.

The Bill Murray Effect: Stars Trump Sports in Modern Broadcasting

Bill Murray will front a new Paramount Plus/BBC documentary series touring Irish golf courses, described by the BBC as a "genre-bending road trip" where "golf is just the excuse." This exemplifies the shift toward personality-driven sports content, where the star matters more than the sport itself. The discussion extended to Ari Emmanuel launching interview series on X, and the broader trend of influencers acquiring rights (like French influencer Zach Nanny getting French U21 football rights). Traditional broadcasters are caught between old methods and chasing new audiences through celebrity-led formats, often appearing to lack confidence in the sports themselves as sufficient draw.

TNT's Ashes Coverage Controversy: Expertise vs. Entertainment

TNT's announcement of their Ashes broadcasting team sparked backlash among cricket fans, with rugby commentator Alistair Ekin and cycling commentator Rob Hatch as lead voices, plus football/boxing reporter Becky Ives presenting. The debate centered on whether generalist broadcasters can match specialist expertise, with examples like Andrew Cotter and Jim Rosenthal as counterpoints. The deeper question: are broadcasters too focused on capturing "promiscuous outer layer" fans while neglecting devoted audiences? With matches at 3am UK time and Sky declining to bid, the episode questioned TNT's strategy and whether cricket fans might cobble together YouTube/TikTok alternatives rather than subscribe—potentially undermining the traditional broadcast model entirely.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

We went to the London offices of Sid Lee Sport to host Cause and Effect: Why sponsorship needs an effectiveness revolution. 

A live recording featuring industry professionals from across the sport sponsorship marketplace, who came together in front of an invited VIP audience to ask some big questions as sport's role as a marketing platform for brands.

Taking part were:

Hosting the event was Charlotte Thomson, founder of The One10 Collective and formerly head of women's football at Copa90.

Joining Charlotte on stage were Charlie Dundas (GSIQ), Rebecca Martin (Barclays/ESA), and Rory Natkiel (Sid Lee Sport) as founding board members of the Sponsorship Effectiveness Forum, a not-for-profit, cross-industry platform dedicated to raising the standard of sponsorship effectiveness. 

"By building benchmarks, sharing case studies, and challenging old assumptions, our mission is to help sponsorship achieve its true potential and claim its rightful place at the heart of brand building. This is just the start. Over the months ahead we’ll be publishing research, hosting events, and creating the tools the industry needs to move beyond exposure metrics and prove the real impact of sponsorship."

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

Today's conversation was recorded at the Two Circles European Summit which took place a few weeks ago at the Institute of Engineering and Technology overlooking the Thames, next to the Savoy. 
Gareth Balch, founder and CEO of Two Circles is our guest, and as ever with Gareth, nothing was off limits, and its useful to periodically check in on what he's seeing right across the European and North American sports markets, where they encourage their clients to think about their relationship with the key trends, sharing nuggets of useful information that lurk just below the day to day headlines.
We explore the state of sports business, what fan engagement means in 2025 and the evolving relationship between sports IP, audiences, and revenue.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

This is the fourth and final episode of our series What's Sport Selling? 

Created in collaboration with the Redtorch research and creative agency. 

Today's guest is Tim Hollingsworth, who led Sport England for eight years, managing the £300m annual budget derived from government and national lottery funding. His tenure spanned COVID, energy crisis, and fundamental strategy reset via "Uniting the Movement."

 Over the past three episodes, we've explored how sport can drive meaningful social impact, tackle the global physical inactivity crisis, and unlock powerful business opportunities for the industry.

This conversation brings all of those themes together. 

If you'd like to learn more about Redtorch, the independent research and creative agency dedicated to making sport more relevant, visit Redtorch.Sport. We thank them for their support. Much appreciated and what has been a really interesting and broad series.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

Guests Jen Topping and Jo Redfern critique the arguments around sport’s relationship with the creator economy, the control v chaos philosophy divide inherent in digital IP monetisation and audience building, and the PR battles being waged for premium advertising among the big platforms. Plus, the Beano. 

Jen Topping’s Business of TV Substack newsletter is great, as is Jo’s Kids Media Club podcast. Both are broader than sport and all the better for it. 

Plus:

The "Taylor Swift Data Fallacy" - This explores how top-tier creator success (like MrBeast's) is mistaken for average outcomes when creators transition to streaming, leading to unrealistic expectations.

The Data Reliability Crisis - Addressing the fundamental problem that much online engagement isn't authentic, with nearly half of internet traffic coming from bots.

Generation Z's "Creative Maximalism" - Examining how younger audiences have developed entirely new creative frameworks that challenge traditional media production.

The D2C Imperative - Why direct-to-consumer strategies are becoming essential rather than optional for traditional producers.

Creator-Led Sports as a Microcosm - Using sports leagues as an example of broader shifts in entertainment consumption and production.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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

Our guest is Sam Sadi, CEO of LiveScore Group, and a regular visitor on Unofficial Partner. 

Last week he announced a groundbreaking new partnership between the LiveScore sports content and betting platform and xAI, the Elon Musk owned social media platform's artificial intelligence company.

This gives LiveScore access to X's data/content APIs and xAI's technology for real-time sports conversations, sentiment analysis, and AI-powered engagement tools.

What happens next will tell us much about some of the big words we use a lot on the podcasts: personalisation, content, audience sentiment and engagement.

Don't miss it.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

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

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