Unofficial Partner Podcast
Episodes
574 episodes
UP574 Vibes vs Effectiveness: 'Cultural relevance is this generation's brand purpose'
A conversation about sponsorship effectiveness, creativity and the price of chasing vibes.Richard is joined by Mike Grumbridge and Peter Wilson of Sid Lee Sport to talk about Mike's recent Marketing Week piece: "Stop confusing vibes with...
UP573 The Summer That Changed The Sports Business - Live
Recorded live in front of an invited audience of senior sports-industry figures at Teneo's London offices overlooking St Paul's Cathedral, this Unofficial Partner event asked a deliberately awkward question about the summer of 2026: not what ha...
UP572 Creators: What Are They Good For?
Wimbledon didn't ban influencers. It said it wouldn't create a creator accreditation category and would confiscate ring lights and selfie poles under existing rules. The headline ran anyway, and it tells us more about sport's gatekeepers than a...
UP571 The Bundle: Warning signs from the top of the market; IPL and NFL the same but different; DAZN's IPO; The Anti-Netflix
Unofficial Partner's regular series on the sports media and streaming marketplace. Host: Richard Gillis. Co-hosts:Murray Barnett, founder of 26 West Consulting (formerly F1, World Rugby, ESPN); Yannick Ramcke, general man...
UP570 Spin Class: Here We Go! Premier League Transfer Window Special
Spin Class is our regular series with experts in sports communications, PR and reputation management. Football's transfer window is one of the definitive sports business stories. Its cast of characters include players, agents, manag...
UP569 Rushman's Rules: Deals, Woke and the Lost World of Langan's
Nigel Rushman is one of the most effective operators in the modern sports business — a fixer and dealmaker who spent four decades at the delivery end of major events, building a parallel international career brokering deals across governments a...
UP568 Real Time Economics: When the Clip is the Product
Few people sit closer to the epicentre of the sports digital economy than Daniel Kirschner. As co-founder and CEO of Greenfly, he oversees the connective tissue running between rights holders, athletes and fans; the infrastructure that turns a ...
UP567 Spin Class: Infantino's fightback; Saudi post-LIV; AJ v Tyson, Hearn v White
Spin Class is Unofficial Partner's series on sports comms, PR, reputation and crisis management.Three stories:A FIFA president everyone's written off who isn't going anywhere. A billion-dollar golf breakaway running ou...
UP566 Chat UP: I never want to hear the phrase 'Palantir for Sport' again
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 P...
UP565 The Buy Side: Unilever on FIFA, creator budgets and the new World Cup playbook
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 a...
UP564 Other People's Money: Andrea Radrizzani and Alistair Brownlee OBE
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...
UP563 Jude Inc: 'I don't suppose you've got any Bellingham?'
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 Bellingha...
UP562 The Bundle: Hydration Economics; Sky's ITV portfolio; Survive to Survive; DAZN, NRL and Bundesliga
The Bundle with Yannick Ramcke of OneFootball and Murray Barnett of West26 Sport. Agenda:1. The Commercialisation of the Hydration Break2. Did the Ratings Success Change US Football Broadcasting?3. Sky's £1.6bn ...
UP561 Is your name on the list? The winners and losers in Two Circles' $174bn sports IP revenue league table
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 ...
UP560 What is IMG now?
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 part...
UP559 Revenue-maxxing: How FIFA Changed The Game
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 whol...
UP558 Chat_UP: What The Mythos Shutdown Means For AI in the Sports Business
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 powerf...
UP557 Ed Smith: What Sport Got Wrong About Moneyball
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 unde...
UP556 'Serviette Maths': Sky Sports Boss On The Premflix Threat
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 P...
UP555 The Lord's Question: What Does The MCC Brand Stand For?
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...
UP554 The Bundle World Cup Special
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 ...
UP553 Live: The Business of Horse Racing
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, Londo...
UP552 Chat_UP: Google's AI pivot and the end of the subsidised era
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 — Goo...
UP551 Coke's Cole Palmer Problem: When the ambassador misses the party
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 ...
UP550 Inside Edge: IPL Auctions and the Financialization of Everything
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...