Unofficial Partner Podcast Unofficial Partner

Live from Madrid, The Billion-Euro Club Football Brainstorm.
Big ideas discussed by great panelists from across the European club game, courtesy of ECA Club Connect, the inaugural business summit convened by the European Club Association.
Over 350 directors and operational leaders from more than 200 clubs met at the Meliá Castilla Hotel over 24-25 April.

This podcast features 12 experts, 4 topics, 1 hour.

What decisions will we make today to build a robust and sustainable football club of the future?

Group 1 - Commercial
Ebru Koksal - Galatasaray FC, Mercury13
Daniel Levy - Maccabi Tel Aviv FC
Diego Sanchez Trillo - Atletico Madrid FC
Group 2 - Data
Johannes Dobretsberger - Austria Wien FC
Pal Orosz - Ferencváros TC
Catriona McCallum - Heart of Midlothian FC     
Group 3 - Content
Helena Heckschen - RB Leipzig FC
Sebastian Helbig - BSC Young Boys
Anna Nordström Carlsson - Malmo FF
Group 4 - Mop Up
Charlie Marshall - ECA
Fran Jones - Brentford FC
Rouven Kasper - VfB Stuttgart

Find out more about ECA Connect 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 300 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 Buy Side is our regular series where we talk to brand side marketers about sport and sponsorship.
Today's guest is Anneliese Mesilati, Head of Brand Activation and Sponsorships, Americas at UBS, the private banking group and wealth management business.
We talk about the brand's extensive sport portfolio and its role within the marketing of the company, which includes the Mercedes Formula One team.
Last year, UBS took over Credit Suisse Bank, posing the question as to the future of many big name contracts with sports stars, teams and tournaments, including Roger Federer and the Swiss National Football Team.

The Buy Side is sponsored by KORE Software the global leader in engagement marketing solutions. More than 900 brands, venues, and sports organisations trust KORE’s tools and platforms as a source of truth to manage partnerships, assets and measure impact, with real-time insights. Through Sponsorship Management and Evaluation, Ticketing, Fan Engagement, Data Management and Analytics, KORE unites corporate sponsors, properties, and their fans with solutions that help enhance the fan experience, drive smarter decisions, and enable marketing and operations teams to spend time where it matters.
Learn more at KORESoftware.com or follow them LinkedIn or Twitter. 
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 300 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.

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 touting – buying up tickets to sell on at inflated profits – by capping resale prices and giving the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) powers to regulate resale platforms. 
A strong pre-election soundbite, after all who doesn't want cheaper tickets.
This podcast discusses the second level implications of regulation and uses it as a way in to assess the problem with the ticket market, one of the key pillars of sports revenue generation and asset value. 
Our guests are Simon Bazalgette and Matt Drew.
Simon was chief executive of The Jockey Club during a long career across sport and music industries, and now chairs investment and advisory business called Global Venue Services.
Matt leads on overseas development for Viagogo/Stubhub, the secondary ticket marketplace, having held senior roles at Perform, DAZN, OPTA and WWE. 
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 300 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.

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 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 300 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 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 is putting it mildly. It’s a marriage heading for divorce.
Around 14,000 pubs and bars in the UK currently show football - what does it mean for Sky?
What does it mean for football clubs?
And what does it mean for the future of football in the UK? And specifically football fan culture?
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 300 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 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 Melbourne. Today you'll find IDA on the shelves of some of the big sports retailers. But it's not been an easy journey, and this is a conversation about what Laura Youngson's learnt along the way, about how the sports business works, how the market power exerted by famous shoe brands shapes our buying habits, the counterintuitive relationship between young girls and their sporting idols, and finally how she thinks the women's professional game should evolve.

This week’s podcast 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 names like IMG, ATP, Professional Triathletes Organisation and F1,  you can trust that their software delivers.Whether you're looking to kickstart your community and transform the way you communicate with professional players, bring data to life in a second-screen experience, or need a website that monetises fans, We Are Sweet is the digital partner you need.   Visit www.wearesweet.co.uk


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 300 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.