Unofficial Partner Podcast

Episoder

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  UP366 Chat UP: I never want to hear the phrase 'Palantir for Sport' again 18.08.2026 53min

  Chat UP is Unofficial Partner's series on AI in the sports business. Today's guest is Mike Bracken CBE. He built the UK's Government Digital Service, became the country's first Government Chief Data Officer, and now runs the consultancy Public Digital, advising governments and institutions worldwide. Richard sits him down to test a simple, uncomfortable idea: that most of sport's "AI problem" isn't about AI, isn't even about data, and can't be bought from a vendor. What follows is a mastercla...
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  UP565 The Buy Side: Unilever on FIFA, creator budgets and the new World Cup playbook 11.08.2026 56min

  Ben Curtis is Global Brand Vice President of Sure/Rexona at Unilever, and is just back the US where he ran the brand's first-ever Men's World Cup as a FIFA official partner. He came on Unofficial Partner before the tournament to talk about what he was walking into; this is the debrief — what worked, what didn't, and what a global personal-care brand actually gets for the money, from the armpit branding on the fourth official's board (a Rexona first at a World Cup) to the New York activation b...
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  UP564 Other People's Money: Andrea Radrizzani and Alistair Brownlee OBE 28.07.2026 40min

  A conversation recorded at the recent SportsPro Investment Summit, bringing together two very different investors: Andrea Radrizzani, media entrepreneur and former Leeds United owner, and Alistair Brownlee OBE, double Olympic triathlon champion turned investor. The through-line is what actually makes a sports asset worth owning — and where the value really resides. Leeds United and the weight of history. Radrizzani reflects on the Bielsa era, the club's identity as the sole footballing focus ...
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  UP563 Jude Inc: 'I don't suppose you've got any Bellingham?' 20.07.2026 46min

  Dan Jamieson secured exclusive rights for Jude Bellingham the week before the FIFA World Cup. The ICONS CEO takes us inside the complex world sporting memorabilia, where fame, fans and intellectual property collide. The Bellingham bet — talent-spotting as a business model Icons approached Bellingham three years, eight months ago while he was still at Dortmund — long before the World Cup made him a global name. The signing model is a venture bet: identify the X-factor early, earn the ent...
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  UP562 The Bundle: Hydration Economics; Sky's ITV portfolio; Survive to Survive; DAZN, NRL and Bundesliga 17.07.2026 1t 4min

  The Bundle with Yannick Ramcke of OneFootball and Murray Barnett of West26 Sport. Agenda: 1. The Commercialisation of the Hydration Break 2. Did the Ratings Success Change US Football Broadcasting? 3. Sky's £1.6bn ITV Takeover: The Return of the Full-Funnel Broadcaster 4. Is the Sports Doc Gold Rush Over? 5. DAZN's A$5.3bn NRL Bet Cross-cutting threads Reach vs revenueCommercial innovation is a ratchetEveryone's paying not to loseThe access era is endingThe Unofficial Partner Scho...
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  UP561 Is your name on the list? The winners and losers in Two Circles' $174bn sports IP revenue league table 14.07.2026 58min

  The Two Circles Sports IP Revenue League 2026 is full of numbers. The headline is that sports IP is worth $174billion. But the story is more interesting and nuanced than that. Richard went to the agency's offices in Holborn to hold the report up to the light. Joining him is Gareth Balch, CEO of Two Circles, and Charlie Dewhurst, Chief Commercial Officer of SailGP — the race sailing property founded by Larry Ellison of Oracle fame. Who's in, who's out and why should you care? Unoff...
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  UP560 What is IMG now? 07.07.2026 53min

  Today's guest Adam Kelly has been at IMG since 2001, connecting the business back almost to the McCormack era. Now President of IMG within TKO Group — which also owns UFC and WWE — he oversees IMG's media rights, production, digital, brand partnerships, and events businesses. This is his second appearance on Unofficial Partner; the first was in 2022, when he laid out a vision for reimagining IMG as a full-service growth partner rather than a transactional rights broker. Episode Summary Record...
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  UP559 Revenue-maxxing: How FIFA Changed The Game 03.07.2026 35min

  FIFA will make $13bn from the four-year cycle culminating in this summer's tournament — nearly $9bn of it landing this year alone. For comparison, the Paris 2024 Olympics, the other Greatest Show on Earth, generated $5.24bn. Total. For the whole Games. It wasn't always this lopsided. The World Cup actually trailed the Olympics financially until 2010, when South Africa's edition pulled in $4.19bn against London 2012's $3.23bn. Since then the gap has only widened: 18% revenue growth from Russia...
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  UP558 Chat_UP: What The Mythos Shutdown Means For AI in the Sports Business 30.06.2026 46min

  Host: Richard Gillis (Unofficial Partner) Co-host/analyst: Andy Shora (TFG Labs) Three stories this episode: The Mythos/Fable shutdown — Anthropic ordered by the US government to disable its two most powerful models for all foreign nationals globally, with ninety minutes' notice. First-ever export control action against an AI model. Discussion covers the jailbreak vulnerability cited as justification, the EU's response (calling for "technological sovereignty"), and what abrupt model withdrawa...
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  UP557 Ed Smith: What Sport Got Wrong About Moneyball 26.06.2026 53min

  AI commoditises knowledge production and throws judgment into scarcity. In this episode, Ed Smith asks what that means for sport, education and the people building careers in the business — and why the humanities might be the most undervalued edge in an age of machines. About the guest Ed Smith is an unusual hybrid in today's sports world. An academic, he left Cambridge with a Double First in History, and is the author of several excellent books including Luck, Making Decisions and What Sport...
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  UP556 'Serviette Maths': Sky Sports Boss On The Premflix Threat 23.06.2026 58min

  Jonathan Licht, Chief Sports Officer at Sky Sports, discusses Sky's dominant position in UK sports broadcasting, strategic partnerships, and the future of sports media. Key topics: Sky's portfolio dominance: 225 Premier League matches, 1,000+ EFL games, 118 WSL matches, Formula 1, cricket, golf, NFL, tennis, darts, netballThe growth paradox: How building sports audiences creates competitive tension at rights renewal timeSky Labs & The Hundred: Co-creation process that helped develop franc...
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  UP555 The Lord's Question: What Does The MCC Brand Stand For? 16.06.2026 53min

  The £295million sale of London Spirit franchise was one of the big sports business stories of the last year. Some of Silicon Valley's most successful and famous leaders buying 49% of The Hundred's Lord's based franchise, in partnership with The MCC, one of the most storied names in cricket. So what is the MCC today, and how is that changing in one of the most important years in the great ground's history? In this episode, Richard Gillis is joined by Katie Maier, Chief Marketing Officer ...
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  UP554 The Bundle World Cup Special 12.06.2026 53min

  Richard, Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke convene for a World Cup special, using the 2026 tournament as a lens on how sports broadcasting is shifting beneath the surface. The conversation moves from Qatar-to-2026 comparisons (more accelerated change, more fragmentation, but a still-basic mainstream default) through the "AI slop mountain" that the expanded tournament and unfriendly European kickoff times will generate, into the rise of creator- and personality-led shoulder programming — ancho...
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  UP553 Live: The Business of Horse Racing 09.06.2026 57min

  A first for Unofficial Partner: six years and 550+ episodes covering every sport going, we'd somehow never devoted an episode to the sport of horse racing. So we fixed that — live, in front of an audience at The Big Belly Comedy Club, London. We had as a starting point Spotlight Sports Group's new report, The Horse Racing Audience Opportunity. Compiled by the Racing Post's parent company, a deep dive in to the commercial future of the sport. Panel 1: Charlie Boss (Bristol City CEO, form...
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  UP552 Chat_UP: Google's AI pivot and the end of the subsidised era 02.06.2026 57min

  Chat_UP is Unofficial Partner's AI series created in collaboration with TFG Labs. The brief: cut through the AI firehose, work out what matters, and bring it back to the business of sport. Three stories this week. Story One — Google I/O 2026 Google used its developer conference to reposition from "a search company that does AI" to an AI infrastructure company. Headlines: Gemini 3.5, Gemini Omni (real-time processing) and Gemini Spark, a proactive always-on agent that brings agents to search. ...
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  UP551 Coke's Cole Palmer Problem: When the ambassador misses the party 26.05.2026 43min

  On 22 April 2026, Coca-Cola unveiled Cole Palmer as its newest football brand ambassador, fronting Premier League and World Cup activations. A month later, Tuchel left him out of the England squad. We use the Palmer story as a way into a wider conversation with Ricardo Fort — former global head of sport at Coca-Cola, now advisor to brands betting billions on the World Cup — about how personal endorsement deals really work in 2026. The anatomy of an endorsement deal. Ricardo breaks down the nu...
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  UP550 Inside Edge: IPL Auctions and the Financialization of Everything 19.05.2026 1t 7min

  Richard Gillis, Mike Jakeman and invited guests dissect the business of cricket. The IPL auction has become one of the most watched events in world cricket — part financial instrument, part entertainment spectacle. This episode gets under the bonnet: how it actually works, what it means for players, why it's reshaping cricket's global talent economy, and whether any of it translates to the UK market. The conversation moves fast from mechanics to philosophy: competitive balance vs. team ident...
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  UP549 Priced Out: FIFA’s Big Ticket Gamble 12.05.2026 40min

  The news agenda around this summer's FIFA World Cup in North America has been dominated by the price of tickets. Why are they so expensive? What's it got to do with changes made by FIFA specifically for this tournament? Guests: Professor Rob Wilson, Dean of University Campus of Football Business (UCFB) and Shaun Stewart, vice president of StubHub, known as Viagogo in Europe. Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and though...
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  UP548 The Bundle: Gary Neville's Noise Strategy; What World Rugby sees in IMG; Amazon pitches for the Super Bowl 05.05.2026 57min

  The Bundle is the original and much copied series on the sports media and streaming marketplace with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke, General Manager of OTT at the streaming service OneFootball and Murray Barnett, founder of 26West Sport and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN. 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 weekl...
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  UP547 Picks and Shovels: The Ecosystem Investment Thesis 01.05.2026 51min

  Picks and Shovels: The Sports Investment Thesis That Doesn't Need Media Rights to Work Altman Solon's seventh annual Global Sports Survey lands with a central argument: sport is maturing into a full-stack asset class. But the more interesting story isn't at the top, it's in the layer underneath. Richard Gillis talks to David Dellea, Christophe Sommer and Matt Del Percio about where capital is actually moving, what the $400 billion ecosystem really means when you strip out the double counting,...