Everyone agrees the current sports ticketing market doesn't work. It rips off fans, is vulnerable to touts and is an inefficient way to manage supply and demand. But is regulation the answer? Labour will cap the resale prices of tickets and regulate resale platforms if the party wins the next general election, Sir Keir Starmer said recently. The plans will clamp down on ticket touts who rip off music and sports fans going to live events, Sir Keir said.  The party says it will address ticket...

What is the Invictus Games Foundation and why is it still relevant, ten years after the creation of the first event for injured servicemen and women in London in 2024? A powerful and important conversation with Dominic Reid OBE, the CEO of the Invictus Games Foundation, the international governing body for the event that promotes sport's role in recovery from traumatic physical and psychological injury.  Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of...

In the UK 500 pubs closed in 2023. By the end of June it’s predicted 750 will have closed in 2024. It’s stark, there’s no two ways about it. We asked YouGov again to help us make sense of what’s going on. They found that one in four sports fans – equivalent to 3.4m people – are going to the pub less than they did a year ago. And more than half (55%) of sports fans (7.8m people) said at the moment, sport doesn’t form part of their pub experience at all. Shit. Maybe a partnership under strain...

In 2017, Laura Youngson led a group of women to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro to play a record-breaking football match with the campaigning group Equal Playing Field to highlight gender inequalities in sport. During this experience, Laura discovered the women were all wearing boots made for men (or kids) which left their feet in pain long after the final whistle blew. That's the origin story of IDA Sports, the company Laura co-founded with Ben Sandhu, a former professional cricketer from...

Cause and effect. If this then that. Attribution is the holy grail of marketing. The quest to provide evidence of the impact of a sports sponsorship on the sponsor's business. The digital era was supposed to solve this puzzle. But it might have made it worse. To discuss this big question are Tom Smith and Charlie Boss. Tom is Chief Product Officer at Datapowa, the sponsorship analytics company. You'll hear him reference datapowa VENN, which measures customer acquisition by securely...

The Bundle is our popular long running series that unpicks the latest news to emerge from the sports media and streaming marketplace. A new feature is The Bundle Bulletin, an accompanying newsletter that goes to Unofficial Partner subscribers, featuring thought starters and strands from the conversation. Each month, before we record, Richard and co-hosts Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke share possible topics, random thoughts and possible storylines that make up the episode. I’ve always...

Football shirts are front page news in England and Germany in the last week, so this is a timely conversation about our relationship with sports jerseys, and the nature of their commercial value. Guests are Mike Fordham and Kylie Bishop. Mike has worked for IMG and the ECB and played pivotal roles in the set up of both the IPL and The Hundred, and was more recently CEO of Rajasthan Royals. Kylie is Head of Sponsorship Valuation  at Turnstile, having previously worked at The Boston...

The Saudi Question permeates the global sports business conversation from top to bottom. Billions of pounds has been across multiple layers of the industry, including buying players, purchasing foreign clubs, developing domestic clubs and buying or developing tournaments at home and abroad. These deals have been pursued by the government itself, the PIF sovereign wealth fund, and Saudi Aramco, the oil firm that is the world’s most profitable company. The scope is enormous, with at least $10bn...

This a live podcast recorded at the London HQ of LiveScore, to commemorate the company's 25th anniversary. It's a conversation with Sam Sadi, CEO of LiveScore about our relationship with tech, from colour television to AI.   To mark the occasion, LiveScore has created the Evolution of Fan report which delves into the last quarter-century of football fan culture amidst the dynamic backdrop of technological progress. Download the report from the LiveScore Group website. Unofficial Partner is...

You might know Utilita Energy from the front of Luton Town's shirt, the journey of the newly promoted club is one of the stories of the Premier League season. But there's so much more to the company than that. Luton and Utilita have partnered since 2015, back when the club was still in the fourth tier, becoming front-of-shirt sponsor in February 2022. It is just one part of a comprehensive and wide ranging sponsorship strategy that uses football to educate fans and club owners about how to...

More Than Equal's mission statement is to find, nurture and develop female racing drivers, while identifying and removing the systemic barriers they face. It was founded by 13-times Grand Prix winner David Coulthard and the entrepreneur and philanthropist, Karel Komarek. Their website explains why having a woman as an F1 World Champion matters. "Imagine the rewards for our sport and for women everywhere when the chequered flag comes down on that first female champion. Every girl deserves an...

Thomas Hitlsperger is the former German international footballer who played for several leading British and European clubs during a career that took him to Aston Villa, VFB Stuttgart, Lazio, Everton and West Ham, culminating in over 100 Premier League appearances and 52 caps for Germany. He was director of football and then CEO of Stuttgart and now balances media work with a business career that combines football and food. He is part of the ownership group of Danish club Aalborg, having...

Manchester City are in the process of extending their most important and lucrative sponsorship deal, with Etihad, the Abu Dhabi-based airline, whose brand is synonymous with the club following the takeover by Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), which bought 90 per cent of the club from Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, in 2008.  But, for obvious reasons, this is not just another sponsorship renewal. The City-Etihad relationship plays a central role in a...

The Bundle is our regular deep dive news analysis podcast on the sports media marketplace, with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett. 00:27 Discussion on Discovery Fox, Warner Brothers, JV 00:58 Deep Dive into the Raptor Project 01:52 The Great Rebundling: A New Era in Sports Broadcasting 03:19 The Uncertainties and Challenges of the New Model 05:20 The Future of Sports Streaming and Bundling 11:13 The Impact of the New Model on Rights Holders 17:31 Apple's Venture into MLS Season...

Jason Stockwood grew up in Grimsby, became a hugely successful tech entrepreneur and came back to his home town to buy the local football club, Grimsby Town FC. One of the best articulations on the reality of the football business, the mistakes and myths, the role and limits of private equity in sport and the ineffable magic that makes football so very different than any other industry. We recorded the podcast at L'Escargot, the legendary Soho restaurant now owned by Thomas Hitzlsperger and...

A conversation on the potential and limits of AI technology in a sports context, both performance and commercial. What's possible, what's probable, what will get in the way of progress. Will AI be an engine for inequality between the haves and have nots of sport, and what can we do now, today, to embrace the coming wave. Our guests are two leading experts in sport and technology. Gonzalo Zarza is Chief Data Officer of Sportian and holds a PhD in this space. Leanne Bats, head of web3 at New...

We caught up with Roger Mitchell while he was in London, to talk about his new book Sports Perfect Storm: An Industry Now Totally Adrift. Roger describes himself as 'a chartered accountant from Glasgow' who at the end of the 1990s 'made his personal passion for sport a profession' when he became CEO of the Scottish Premier League, giving him a seat at the UEFA table. Now he runs his own boutique investment firm Albachiara, from his home on Lake Como.  The venue for the conversation was...

The Super Bowl is the biggest day in sport.  So who will be in Vegas for the game and how much have they paid for a ticket?  And of course, has Taylor Swift had an impact on demand and price for those tickets? We're joined by Cris Miller, Chief Business Officer at StubHub and Global Managing Director at viagogo. Cris is joined by Rob Wilson, Professor of Applied Sport Finance at Sheffield Business School. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of...

The Buy Side is our regular series where we talk to brand side marketers about sport and sponsorship. Our guest is David Paro, Head of Global Sponsorships at MoneyGram, the financial services company which became the title sponsor of the HaasF1 team in 2022.  So this is a conversation that takes us inside the business of Formula One, the sponsor's view of Drive To Survive, superstar drivers and team principals as well as marketing return on investment, strategy and the future of the finance...

Erin Ruane was vice president of content acquisition at Netflix for more than a decade, participating in the formulation and execution of the company’s strategy, from the  launch of the streaming service, international, pricing and culture. Her responsibilities included negotiating and managing all studio relationships, over $350 million in annual spend.  Joining Erin is Claire Kelly, General Manager of Gemba Europe.  Gemba is a strategy consultancy for the Sport & Entertainment...

This is the story of when football met the crypto boom.  Spoiler: it took the money, no questions asked.  After that, everything that happened was inevitable. Martin Calladine's new book looks at how some of the most famous clubs in the world  indulged in misleading marketing, grotesque failures of due diligence, unethically monetising fan relations and failed to take responsibility for the damage their new crypto partners did.  As the energy around DeFi picks up again, we ask what the...

Richard Shotton, author of 'The Illusion of Choice,' joins Richard to talk about how the findings of behavioural science apply the sports market. We make hundreds of decisions every day. What club to support, what subscription to keep and how much is too much to pay for a match ticket?  These decisions may appear to be freely made, but psychologists have shown that subtle changes in the way products are positioned, promoted and marketed can radically alter how customers behave. The Illusion...

 Richard Gillis, Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke deep dive into the media rights and streaming marketplace for sports. This episode is sponsored by We Are Sweet, the leading provider of digital platforms for the sports industry. Are you tired of the same old headaches when it comes to building digital platforms? We Are Sweet excels in crafting best-in-class software, ranging from unique engagement experiences to next-generation websites. With more than a decade of innovating alongside...

The big news in the sports industry is the sale of Two Circles, the sports marketing group co-founded and led by today's guest Gareth Balch. The deal values the company at £250 million (US$317.9 million), representing a big payout for George Pyne's Bruin Sports Capital, which paid $40million for 80% of the company in December 2019, when it bought it from previous owner WPP. So why is the company that amount of money and what does it tell us about how the finance community values...