389 episodes

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. Our guests are a who's who of the international sports industry talking about the big issues.

Unofficial Partner Podcast Unofficial Partner

    • Sport
    • 4.9 • 185 Ratings

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. Our guests are a who's who of the international sports industry talking about the big issues.

    UP389 The Buy Side - UBS, MercedesF1 and inheriting Roger Federer

    UP389 The Buy Side - UBS, MercedesF1 and inheriting Roger Federer

    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.

    • 47 min
    UP388 The Ticket Market Doesn't Work - Will Labour Regulation Make It Better?

    UP388 The Ticket Market Doesn't Work - Will Labour Regulation Make It Better?

    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.

    • 49 min
    UP387 The Invictus Games, Prince Harry and the 'Unexpected Survivors' of War

    UP387 The Invictus Games, Prince Harry and the 'Unexpected Survivors' of War

    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.

    • 33 min
    UP386: Last Orders? Football and the Pub

    UP386: Last Orders? Football and the Pub

    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.

    • 35 min
    UP385 The Business of Women's Feet

    UP385 The Business of Women's Feet

    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.

    • 41 min
    UP384 Cause and Effect: Sponsorship's Attribution Problem

    UP384 Cause and Effect: Sponsorship's Attribution Problem

    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 matching partners' first-party audience datasets. You can contact the company here for more info on that.
    Charlie is Chief Commercial Officer at Southampton Football Club, having previously held senior positions at The Jockey Club and ESPN-Disney.

    This episode is sponsored by SportAccord World Sport and Business Summit, which is taking place in the UK this year at Birmingham’s ICC.  From 7 to 11 April global leaders and senior execs from over 125 International Sport Federations, the IOC, rights holders, professional leagues, host cities and major event organising committees from all continents will be meeting to make decisions that will shape the future of sport.
    With a thought-provoking conference programme, busy exhibition and a host of networking events, evening receptions and cultural activities SportAccord is your chance to organise a year’s worth of meetings in a week with executives from across the global sport ecosystem.   With senior execs from FIBA to FORTNITE, from FIA to Kansas City Chiefs don’t miss the chance to rub shoulders with the worlds sports and business leaders.  SportAccord are offering Unofficial Partner  community a discount of 10%, just click here to get your UP 10% discount
    More information at https://www.sportaccord.sport
    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.

    • 50 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
185 Ratings

185 Ratings

ka333333333333333333333ka ,

10/10

10/10 podcast! Highly recommend for anyone interest in sports business. Great way to build knowledge on the go and is always entertaining

dimitri2908 ,

Good listen

Quality podcast 🔥

tomwilliams_ ,

Tom

Top podcast. Gives a great insight into the world of sports business

Top Podcasts In Sport

Stick to Football
The Overlap
The Rest Is Football
Goalhanger Podcasts
The Overlap with Gary Neville
Sky Bet
Up Front
Folding Pocket and William Hill
The Tooney and Russo Show
BBC Radio 5 Live
Football Weekly
The Guardian

You Might Also Like

Let Me Talk
Audio Always
The Price of Football
Dap Dip
Blue Moon Podcast - A Manchester City Show
Blue Moon Podcast - A Manchester City Show
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
The Gary Neville Podcast
Sky Sports
The Totally Football Show with James Richardson
The Athletic