UP424 Expected Goals - Introducing the brand new podcast on the business of women's football

Today, we're launching a brand new show called Expected Goals, hosted by Matt Cutler and Maggie Murphy.

Together Matt and Maggie will explore the business of women's football.
Matt Cutler is the former editor of SportBusiness and was Director of Communications at Two Circles. As the head of Unofficial Partner Productions, Matt led on our hit series, The Pirates Versus The Premier League and the more recent Last Orders, on football's relationship with the pub.

So he's the perfect person to be running the show alongside Maggie Murphy. Maggie was formally chief executive officer of Lewes Football Club and has been one of the most outspoken and most interesting contributors to the debate on the evolution of professional women's football over the last five years or more. She was a board member of the FA Women's Super League and Women's Championship Board, as an elected club representative onto that body. Before that she was director of public policy and sport integrity for the Sport Integrity Global Alliance and senior global advocacy manager at Transparency International.
So we're in good hands.
Expected Goals will sit outside of the usual Unofficial Partner channels.
You'll find it on the Sport Social Network and in all the usual places, including Apple, Spotify and your favourite podcast app. 
Just search 'Expected Goals'. 

If you'd like to contribute questions and queries to the show, get in touch.  

You can email Matt at Matt@UnofficialPartner.co.uk. 

So listen to this setup episode and then tune in every Wednesday. 

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Transcript

0:00

Hello, Richard Gillis here and welcome to unofficial partner. The sports business podcast. Today, we're launching a new show with Matt Cutler and Maggie Murphy. It's called expected goals. And it's about the business of women's football. It's one that we've been planning a long time trying to get the right people in the room. And we've done that now. So we're really excited about getting it going. Matt Cutler is the former editor of sports business magazine. Also formerly director of comms at two circles. And is the head of Unofficial Partner productions. And you'd have heard his series, the pirates versus the premier league. And the more recent one about football's relationship with the pub. So he's the the perfect person to be running the show alongside Maggie Murphy. Maggie was formally chief executive officer of Louis football club and as been one of the most outspoken and most interesting contributors to the debate on the evolution of professional women's football over the last. Five years or more. She was a board member of the FAA women's super league and women's championship board elected club representative. Onto that body. Before that she was director of public policy and sport integrity for the sport integrity global Alliance. And senior global advocacy manager at transparency international. So we're in good hands. We've covering a lot of bases with these two people. And we're really excited about getting expected goals going. It's going to be a weekly show. It's going to be sitting outside of the usual unofficial partner channels. You'll find it. And we'll put links in the show notes to it, and we'll bombard you over LinkedIn and various other channels. And there'll be a newsletter. There will be events. There'll be all sorts of stuff, but essentially From now on every Wednesday, matt and Maggie. We'll tell you all the things you need to know and won't find anywhere else about the major news stories of the week. They'll dissect the trends, developing across the sport and ask the questions that you want to know about the business of sport. And they're looking for people to contribute. If you are one of those people, then get in touch. You can email Matt at Matt at Unofficial Partner dot co.uk. And you'll find Maggie Murphy and Matt on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest place to go. And I know that they're looking for listen to questions that they can play out during the episodes all that, and more is going to explain over the next 45 minutes or so. So we're excited. You should be excited. Next Wednesday is the first episode. Make sure you tune in.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 2:30

This is exciting. It's actually happening.

Matt Cutler: 2:32

It is happening, finally, finally it's happening after much talk for months and months and months.

Maggie Murphy: 2:37

why, why, why do we need another podcast?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 2:41

Why the world needs a podcast. yes. So. There's loads of things to talk about, but let's talk about why, and let's talk about what it is. So, Expected Goals is the title, and it's you two presenting, which I'm excited about, which means I'm not presenting it. It means it's you two fronting this thing, and the idea came about really just from, I mean it's an obvious idea, and there's a space there and it's about what's happening, where it's going. there's a sort of element of, we want not to be cheerleaders. know the cliches around the growth of women's football. We know the arguments broadly and We don't need someone else, another podcast coming on and say, yeah, everything's great because not everything is great and we need to question what isn't and we're a sort of critical friend position, I think. What do you think? What's the aspiration? Let's talk about why then.

Maggie Murphy: 3:33

I think that the growth in women's football that we're seeing right now is based on lots of compromises. And I think that if we're able to explore some of those compromises, that will be really helpful. I think that sometimes you hear fans or journalists, demanding that, for example, their men's team do more for the women's side of the business. And I think that. Whilst evidently that's what is needed right now is a lot of investment coming in, there is the other side of the scale. So if, we can explore what those compromises might be, if that's the chosen route, that's an interesting thing to, go into and discover. And I think the other thing for me is probably this exploration around women's football being an ecosystem, not just a pyramid. And so I think that sometimes we look at football from the top and then every so often there'll be someone, usually me, that's shouting, what about the bottom or the mids? and actually that's not even right. It's about the ecosystem and how everything fits together from the clubs to the leagues, to the broadcasters, to the media, to the commercials, to the sponsors. And within that, then you also have the different levels of the pyramids and you have overseas coming back to, to the UK as well. So for me, I think exploring what that means within an ecosystem, because you want a healthy ecosystem, if it's going to survive and then thrive, but also understanding the compromises. If you put in a lot of money over here, it happens as a result.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 4:58

Yeah.

Matt Cutler: 4:59

I think that's a really good point. I think what we see both from a fan perspective and sometimes in the industry perspective is you see a lot of people talking about women's football or women's sport in isolation, which is good because it's giving it lots of attention that it needs and there's never previously needed. what we, I think what we're trying to do with this is to try and look at it. In the context of the business of sport more generally. And the pyramid thing is, coming more into the public eye now because you're getting investments lower and lower down, which is great. So that's bringing that more to the fore. So that's, there's loads of stuff to explore there, but also I think at the top end, you see lots of news news lines or, or easy kind of headlines around. Well, this club is not focusing on its women's team enough, rightly or wrongly, but as we all know, in the business of sport, these things are so nuanced, they're so, uh, dependent on lots and lots of different factors. And yes, there'll be loads of instances where that is the case, but there'll be loads of instances where people are taking really tough decisions where they might not be able to prioritize their women's football team or they're doing things that might not make sense from a, Maybe like a layman's perspective, but I think we, we want to bring all this stuff into. into that context and have a in depth balanced debate on it. And I think that's also where hopefully mine and Maggie's backgrounds come together quite nicely. Cause obviously Maggie's worked in women's sport, but also you've worked in the football industry, right? So, and Lewis is a great example of that because I think lots of people might know you from, oh, you know, Maggie's the one who's, you know, really Promoting women's football, but you also run a men's football team that maybe some people think about. And you know, as well as anyone, the, the tensions that come with what I was kind of explaining there. So I think that leads to like a really interesting kind of tone perspective is that this is, you know, it's called Expected Goals. The reason why it's called Expected Goals is because there's a lot of people expecting lots of Big stuff to happen for, women's football. But I think we will constantly be looking to contextualize this really champion best practice, but also really, really explore some of the decisions that have been making, are they right? Wrong? Should they've been done differently and where we can bring in other expertise to kind of help us form that debate.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 7:06

Yeah. I think there's a, there's a whole load of urgent questions. Obviously we've got the new CO or what, you know, what is now the thing that is, the organization that's taking over. So you were at that moment and it's an important c domestically. You've got sort of noises off from gianni, open doors, Infantino question. You've got the, the international, the governing bodies. You've got UEFA selling various things around the place. So you can start to see that. People sense there's money. There's a commercial question. You've got these investment groups that are circling and buying things. And there's whole loads of questions there that I've got. We talked about on the podcast, which I'd love you to explain and follow for me, because I think there's a whole, you know, getting into the rationale of what they're doing, because you've got some smart people with access to funds and they're pointing it at either Standalone, if that's even the phrase, women's teams, or they're trying to decouple famous football clubs, women's teams, and how that's going to work, what that actually means in reality. issues there that I really don't understand how it's going to work. And I'd love to have explained to me with, you know, this week Barclays have re upped on the sponsorship. There's a whole question here. I think around what the appeal, where the value is of the women's game today. And I've heard the arguments that actually it's more valuable to Barclays than it is to Sky. Discuss. There's a, there's a, in terms of return on investment, direct return on investment, it's more of a sponsorship product than it is a media, traditional media return product. Again, I don't, I'd love to just get into whether that is true. I think there's a whole load of thing about the audience. Again, I trot these things out on a very, very narrow data, base of fact in terms of the different audience question, which again, links to the sponsorship thing, but you've got this whole thing about, well, it's different people. And we know anecdotally that's true, but I'm looking around at looking at Arsenal and we're saying, well, why is that filling out? Why are they not turning up elsewhere? Who are these people that are going to the games? What's the link between the lionesses and a Tuesday night, et cetera, that perennial question of migrating that audience from, you know, the, the big moments into the big event is into a sort of fan tribalism. And then you've, you've also got the players. You've got these emerging cast of stars, some of whom are really popping as big, big names and famous personalities in their own right. What, where is that going? What does that mean for the game? And you've then got the old question of media. What are Sky and the BBC and NBC and all of these people who are traditionally been checks that sustain this whole world that we live in, what's their attitude and where are they in this debate? And now they're in terms of the risk. reward relationship, which is traditional, you know, the basis of it. We're seeing it across the board, not just in women's football, but we're seeing, okay, the skies of this world are thinking, hang on a minute, we can't take all this risk anymore. We're not going to start, carry on writing checks and come back and see us in three years. And we bid again for the same thing. That game is changing and we could look outside of women's, you know, the women's game and say, right, okay, what's happening in the hundred, for example, in terms of there's a sort of element of risk. sharing, developing new products, blah, blah, blah. So there's a whole mass of things that I love you guys to get into.

Maggie Murphy: 11:09

Okay.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 11:10

So it's a long in, but it's a big inbox I've given

Matt Cutler: 11:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think also.

Maggie Murphy: 11:15

even some more. Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 11:16

there's loads more that I don't know about and you do Maggie, because you, the exciting bit about having you involved, you're always the person I would say, right, okay, I need to know what Maggie thinks about this. When it was about ruins football, because you were articulating a different perspective from the mainstream opinion, which is why. I think this is going to be really interesting, but there's loads of questions. I hadn't, those are just my questions. You've got a whole list three times as long of your own.

Maggie Murphy: 11:44

think there definitely are some areas that we just don't have answers for. So I think to be really clear, it's not, this is not an, Educational podcast in so far as we're going to tell you things. We're going to be exploring them. We're going to be diving into them, uh, bringing other people on to discuss them with us. Again, not necessarily directly interviewing people to tell us what is correct. And I think that's really important. I think that there are some really big questions facing women's football right now. None of us know the answer and things like you've described what is the best, most coherent, harmonious way for a women's team to operate within a club. Is it possible? How is it possible? Do you have to separate those teams out? What would that look like? Is it possible to be harmonious? I think that's a really exciting question that, that we'll be delving into. And also I think the other thing is we don't actually know whether we've explored all the revenue options for women's football. I think this is the exciting piece. We kind of know what works in men's football, but women's football could completely turn it on its head. It could be, there could be other revenue streams that we just haven't thought of or that people are chipping away at, at the moment might look insignificant, but could become extremely vast. You only have to look over at Angel City, and I'm sure they'll pop up a fair amount to see how they're doing things differently. Not yet having the success on the pitch that everyone thinks they should be having. But they're building up a brand and they've been quite vocal about that. It's brand first, their merchandise sales are massive. You know, they've done a documentary. They're kind of coming at it a little bit like a media product. And, and that's just one example of other types of models that could be out there. I'm curious about if you just go down a few layers into the likes of. Hashtag united. You know, that the women's team there is, is now in tier three, growing, developing, and perhaps they won't have, uh, 40, 000 people in their stadium anytime soon, but they might have a million people watching online. We don't know. Uh, and Should we hold them back or hold them to block them from progressing through the pyramid if they don't hit certain license criteria because they don't have a big enough stadium, they might have a stadium online. But, you know, those are the kind of questions that we just don't know yet. And it's really exciting to see where that's going to go. And, and, and maybe we can help contribute to that debate.

Matt Cutler: 14:03

definitely. And I think the revenue opportunities is really interesting because one of the great reasons to launch this podcast now is how many opportunities do you have in the sports industry where you can basically almost track a startup business, business or a startup industry over the course of it's happening. And actually, frankly, that, you know, there is a model for, think about the UK, you know, there's a model for men's football in the Premier League. And. There's lots of stuff to use from that, for the women's game, but also the market is different now than it was in 1992 when it comes to the Premier League and to your original thing that you said, Rich, if you can remember what that was around like the media rights, you know, is this, could this be a media rights play versus sponsorship play? Actually, women's football, particularly in the UK, might not have a choice around that because, you know, media rights are depleting across the board as it's continued to fragment and, and at the moment, you know, if the, we all know the numbers are always wrong, Rich, Richard Gillis, trademark, trademark, uh, trademark phrase, but if you were to believe the media coverage of how much the WSL media rights are worth at the moment in the UK and how much Barclays are paying, In terms of their central sponsorship of League, it's about the same. And I found it quite interesting earlier on this week when we were recording this, where Nikki Doucette was talking about the Barclays renewal on Radio 4, but then immediately, and maybe this is me with my comms mind thinking, Oh, A and B, are they connected? And she, she was very keen to point out how much the, the reach of the League had grown by just moving, moving the games that used to be on FA Player. Onto, onto YouTube, you know, significantly more. And then maybe that's my old school marketing head. I'm thinking, well, okay, more people are watching. That's more value for sponsors. So maybe that is a sponsor play. I don't know. I don't think maybe they don't know yet, but I think it's really, it's interesting to see the different models that will, Develop and we're seeing it in real time, basically.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 15:51

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things from my perspective has always been, I'm looking at it as a way into some interesting things that are happening to sport generally. And when we talk about the business of sport, quite often the conversation is actually it's the business of the premier league, you know, people land on this thing, that's this sort of monster in the middle of the marketplace and it's not just crowding out. Women's football or women's sport. It's crowding out everything, you know, it's rugby and cricket and, you know, men's and women's. and as it's evolving, there's a sort of question about, well, what do you do if you're not one of those big monsters and IPL and NFL, we know they are the MBAs of this world who the bundle is going to continue being the sort of essentially the business model for, for many years to come and they'd be, you know, we're not, they're not going to shift, you know, they might, they they might Make changes in particular markets, geographically, whatever, but actually what you're doing culturally, you've got this thing that sits in the middle. And what do you do and how do you build tribes and fan bases? Again, I'm not, I'm looking at this and saying, well, this is actually a really interesting sandbox for lots of different questions that are facing everyone. So it's not just about women's football for me. I think it's about some of the ideas that are going to be, you know, sort of run through in real time. And we're going to see what happens. That sort of FA so owned and operated versus YouTube and YouTube, it's role in the scheme of things, cause again, it's sort of hidden in plain sight quite often people sort of choose to ignore it. And the story of the sports business and media over the last five to 10 years has been build your own. You know, go get your audience, find a walled garden or something to build a wall around. Do act like a small, platform. And the question is now, is that a good idea? And should you do that? Just because the tech's there to do it, it doesn't mean the marketing, you Sort of a skill is there to build audiences, which is actually a different thing. So again, I think angel city is a really interesting case study, but it might be a totally left field case study. It might not be a proof of concept for 95 percent of the clubs in the, in the marketplace

Maggie Murphy: 18:04

You mean not everyone has a Natalie Portman? on hand. Is

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 18:07

well, they're not, there aren't many Natalie Portmans around, you know, so you can't rely on Natalie Portman to come and do your, do the, do the marketing job for you And

Maggie Murphy: 18:16

It's probably interesting though, how many people are looking for Natalie Portman.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 18:20

Well, yeah. And, and it's the same with Ryan Reynolds at Rexum people jump on. Okay. We need a documentary, you know, or we need to be, we're a content house now because Ryan Reynolds has turned Rexum into this phenomena. These case studies that pop are quite often pop because of their difference, not because of the stuff that you can, you can, you know, copy and steal.

Matt Cutler: 18:43

Yeah. Yeah. The I think all those things are that they should be inspiring, but not necessarily horses for courses. And I feel like I put a tweet about this last week around. So Arsenal to take about to the UK Arsenal always considered as like the, you know, Really a great case study for WSL football. They do loads of good stuff. They do an amazing job of marketing, particularly their games at the Emirates and with their stars, you know, it's no coincidence that they've got a really good sponsorship portfolio. They're doing really good stuff. But then also if you think about there's not many clubs. In the UK, not even necessarily in, in women's football, sorry, in football generally, who can fill out a 60, 000 seater stadium with any event, let alone a women's football event. And that's also partly because they're in central London and I live nearby the stadium and there's a lot of middle class families who have disposable income who can do that and, you know, they can, they can take a family on a Sunday for, for 50 quid and it's a great thing to do, you know, and I'm, I'm You know, I'm an Aston Villa fan. I live in London now, but until this season Villa women have played at the, at the it's not the Bescott stadium anymore. It's the Poundland stadium in, uh, in Warsaw, which is, you know, far less of a local audience that they can, they can bring to like less people just generally. And I feel like it's a good example of where it's very easy for everyone to say, well, just do that. Just do that. Just, you know, just get, get a famous person to invest in it. Or just market it better. I think those things are slightly unhelpful and. They're the things that hopefully we can highlight the difference in approaches that might work for different, for different organizations.

Maggie Murphy: 20:18

And again, it might be a little bit different. I think a lot of people are going to watch Arsenal games who don't have a club. Arsenal's become a destination club. Uh, you know, it's going to be good. You know, the quality is going to be good, but you know that you're going to have a good time. And so how, how do other clubs create themselves to be, you know, create a destination club of themselves in a different part of the country? It's maybe not, as you said, Rich, you know, trying to develop your own tribe. It's maybe it's something completely different, or maybe one or two of them will do it differently to say, actually, we're going to be the club that's for everyone up in a particular part of the country. And then how do you escape the fact that you've got Nottingham in front of your name or Newcastle or whatever, you know, how do you, there's a balance, isn't there to kind of try to be for all and grab a wider audience, a genuinely curious audience. And then there's the other element, which is no, we're going to go really, really hard. Like the people of Burnley are going to love our club. I think that's a really interesting thing. And as more investment comes in, and as more people are thinking, I want to buy a club in tier four, tier three to five, what are they going to do with it? What do they want to do with it? Is it to, to foster it in its, in its own town? Or are you just trying to buy the license so that you can grow Lioness FC? You know, wherever it might be, which sounds a little bit like London city lionesses, but that's not what I was meaning.

Matt Cutler: 21:40

I was at the opening game of the WSL, uh, at Chelsea. But obviously Chelsea, Chelsea women play in, well, further out from, from London, basically in Kingston, effectively. Is that right? Is my geography right? The station I went to is Norbiton, I don't know. I'm a North London, I'm a Northerner. I'm a North London boy. And, and what I was, you know, I was told by a few people that the WPLL, what used to be New Covid, they were trying to push Chelsea quite hard to have that in Stamford Bridge. The first game in the WSL stadium, have it in Stamford Bridge. Stamford Bridge capacity is quite similar to Villapark, I think it's about 40, 40, 000. It's something around those. But when I was there, and this is completely anecdotal, the audience felt a lot different to an Arsenal women's game. It felt very, very, uh, in relative terms, Kind of Chelsea Tribal, but also there were four and a half thousand people there. So, you know that, that, that's, so it's, and you would understand that if there's kind of, if it was more local, uh, well, not necessarily more local, but there's, Chelsea owned that stadium, so they're trying, so they're trying to, Chelsea women own that stadium, so, you know, they, they. It is almost a destination itself for Chelsea women. So there's like a little bit of a slightly different thing there. You know, what, what, what is the, also, what is the right answer there? Do you host it at Stamford Bridge? Because it's the first game of the WCL. It puts out a marker for the league to say, you know, this is, you know, you've, you've seen the growth in the product. The first game is at, you know, one of the most iconic stadiums in the UK, but they chose not to do that. And was that a good idea? I don't know. It was a sellout. It was an amazing atmosphere. It was a good game.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 23:09

I think it's always tempting. And one of the questions I'd love, to get closer to is the attitude of the club owners themselves. So again, I'm a Spurs fan. What Daniel Levy has said about. Women's football in the past and what he thinks about it now, Todd Boley, these characters that populate the, you know, the news agenda. What is their view really about the women's team? And now, which goes back to these, you know, the sort of investment groups that are circling. does that change things for them, you know, and Chelsea put 200 million on a, as a price tag on their women's team. So what does that really mean? Where did that come from? And obviously if you're Todd Bode, you want a big number, if someone's going to come and buy something, I get, you know, you get it, but actually decisions like that. Are they, we talked about nuance, if you're thinking in obvious terms, you think, well, actually that's just a, is that just a priority question? That's, is that just a, okay, you're further down, in the decision making process and we'll find a place for you to play on the first game, you know, big game. We go back to Angel City and again, the Cara Nortman line of, we think about women's football when we get up in the morning, Man United think about it at four o'clock in the afternoon. So that's, I think that's real. And I think the focus thing, although it's an easy glib thing to say, I do think looking at decisions that get made and then questioning, well, would you, if, if the women's game, if the women's club was the only thing you owned, would you have made that decision? it can be slips of tongue, Jim Ratcliffe, you know, almost sort of dismissing the women's side before we get, you know, we've got to sort the first team out before we start talking about, you know, women and boys and other stuff that's going on in the club that I don't give a toss about. So there's a whole load of questions there, which people reveal themselves. And even the sort of, you know, the billionaire class, they reveal themselves by the decisions they make. And I think that's, Something like that. I'm tempted to just push a bit further on that and say, yeah, that is an interesting decision in terms of why you wouldn't use your prime real estate for the first game of the year.

Matt Cutler: 25:23

can I just say something and then I'll hand over to Maggie because Maggie's got, I know she's got some strong opinions on this. But yeah, that's a good, that's a good point because if, in my understanding, you know, this, this season Chelsea women have, you know, they've been flipped out to their separate entities because if you host them at Stamford Bridge, that also requires. The club effectively subsidizing it and losing money on it because, you know, at the ticket price and probably not selling out. And if you're having to open all the stands, it's like you don't make money that way. But anyway, sorry, I'll, uh, maybe I'll leave. I'll leave this one

Maggie Murphy: 25:51

No, not at all. I mean, this is definitely something we're going to have to explore more because it, you know, you can have a whole podcast just on, say, Chelsea or on this ownership question, but I think it comes back to my first point around compromise. So. If you are going to be almost entirely subsidized by your men's team, then you will not get to play your women's team in the main stadium as and when you want to. I think it is just one of those things that the more that you are able to develop and grow your own revenue streams and become more autonomous and independent, the more power you have over some of those decisions. Of course, you need Something to click internally for you to be able to be more autonomous and to generate revenue. I'm curious about the Chelsea decision to shift the women's team, I guess they called it sideways from, I think out from underneath the men's team. which I think is just Chelsea FC. I think that to be clear for anyone that, that wonders, every single club has to have a legal entity, which is their women's team. It's not possible to be in the top two tiers and probably below without actually having a legal entity. And that was designed to by the FA, uh, requirements to protect the women's team from being picked out, I guess, if money was going to come in centrally to the women's team. So every single club has to operate independently. Now, where it sits in your business structure, that is the question. Do you sit sideways? Do you sit along, do you sit beneath the main club? Uh, and this was a live conversation at Lewis. So. When we were there, we did things a little bit differently. So we did have this entity, but we used it as a pass through vehicle, probably exactly what the FA didn't want, ironically because of our club commitment to split revenue equally anyway. So the money was coming in and then it would split out, which seemed to be at the time, the wisest way to do it. But I'm sure there's conversations ongoing about whether that is the right thing going forward now that the women's team is generate is a lot more generative than it had been before. And so I think with Chelsea moving out, I think one thing that's going to be really interesting is how much data and information will improve as a result of that will the new CEO, Aki Mandar, will, will she now be held responsible for, uh, a lot more information? Of the, the budget, the revenue, the investment, you know, will she have to report centrally on data that before maybe wasn't available because they were just borrowing resources? So I think that's, that's going to be an interesting thing. Obviously they've moved it sideways and the, the assumption is that that's to increase the opportunity for investment coming in. Other cynics will say it's clever accounting on the Chelsea side to avoid other issues that are taking place at Chelsea. But if it is moving sideways in order to open it up to new investment, then the question comes in, which is at what, how many, how many shares is Chelsea at? willing to give away. Is it 51%? Is it 49? Is it a hundred? And will Chelsea want it back in the future? And I think that's the question we're talking about Chelsea, but really this is about any club. Uh, what is the best, most viable way to have a group like Monarch, uh, come in and say, do you know what? We know that this is A distraction, which was the word used by one premier league boss to me once about their women's team. If it is a distraction, let me take that distraction away from you. Let me build it for you. And look in five, 10 years time, I'll sell it back to you at a good rate, but I will have made a lot of money for you. And I think that is the, the kind of crucial question around this ownership structure and external investment coming into a club that is heavily embedded in a men's side. Obviously that is way easier if you're a standalone club, but you probably won't have access to training facilities or a ground. And I think infrastructure is one of the biggest things holding back women's football, women's sport in this country. If you can name a club, a women's team that owns their own stadium, congratulations.

Matt Cutler: 29:34

Yeah. And also the reality is if you're in particularly a Premier League owner and you're under quite strong PSR restrictions and looking for ways to make money, if someone's turning up to you and saying, I'm going to write you a check for something that's going to go into your main P& L and we're going to help, you know, build an asset for you that is going to benefit you longterm. That is a pretty attractive proposition. And, you know, I'll make a prediction. I think we're going to see more particularly Premier League clubs doing what, following what Chelsea doing very closely and potentially even do the same.

Maggie Murphy: 30:07

And then the next question is, do you make sure the owners of the big clubs don't get greedy? And start saying, Oh, by the way, if you want to license the badge, then by the way, that's going to cost you 3 million pounds a year. And then suddenly something which you thought you were trying to take something that was a distraction away to build and invest. Suddenly you've got loads of clauses in there about how much you're paying to run this distraction. And I think that's that level of. Greed, opportunism is going to be a key, a key question going

Matt Cutler: 30:35

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, and we, there's like, there's As Maggie was saying earlier, there's kind of a bit of a data gap. There's not a huge amount of data around like every single area that we've been talking about, but if you believe that the Chelsea are valuing their women's team at 200 million, let's say 150 million quid, and we're talking about, we've already said it, a central media rights deal that's worth in the UK, 15 million split between 12 clubs, effectively, and four and a half thousand people going to watch a game. I don't know what the multiply of, you know, I don't have in front of me what Chelsea Women's Revenue is. But what's the point? The multiplier on that that gets it to 200 million dollars is quite big, I

Maggie Murphy: 31:18

Yeah, and especially when Angel City has just been sold for 250, but we know that they're smashing their revenue targets. And, and we know that there's huge potential growth there. And so the similarity really with the valuations was interesting, but to be honest, I think that's the first club other than Lewis that's been quite public about their valuation. So it's almost like a marker in the stands. They've gone out there, they've said, this is what we think. And then I guess they're having conversations. Yeah,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 31:47

accounting thing is interesting. Obviously I'm not an accountant, but there is a question there about the, about IP value, intangible value versus the sort of traditional accounting revenue, the nuts and bolts of, those revenue streams that are coming to the club. And when you're looking at Chelsea. That's a good example, or Arsenal or Spurs, they are, or Man United, they are bringing the halo, the brand halo. That's the argument of keeping it in house is that you've got this thing. You don't have to spend decades building it's there already. So the Barcelona, the, all of these things, the value of those entities it's enormous, but it's also a lot of it isn't. based on revenue. There is a, there is a huge sort of, uh, uptick just in terms of the intangible. So which doesn't apply to clubs that are sitting outside of that, that are coming in from the outside, that don't have those, you know, that, men's heritage, you know, it goes down to positioning and all of the things that marketing does, that work's already been done. So if I am Todd Boley, and I don't, you know, this is a sort of weird thought experiment, but putting yourself in position, you think actually to your point, I will take the meeting with Mercury or Monarch or whoever the, you know, wants to come in and have a conversation about buying this thing off me. It's been quite tricky. I know I haven't done in much to build value in this, but I have built a lot of value on the other side, on the brand. So, Again, I, when we had Victoire on from, Mercury, the question was what do you do at the end? Okay. I can see an entry conversation, but getting out in a way that you're sort of happy with, and that you don't get fleeced by owners because you'll get, you know, if I see them coming in the door, I'm thinking, yeah, okay, take this for 10 years, five, 10 years and build it into a success. And I'll, you know, you're doing that, you're building value in my brand. And then the question of coupling and decoupling of things like, you know, a sponsorship level. Where you attribute value to a Chelsea sponsorship. One of the problems that, you know, one of the things that Man United said, or at the time the noises around the, the Glazers and the senior team there, why they didn't get into football until much later, women's football until much later was because they didn't, they were worried about the, the IP value leaking out the door, selling it. You know, if you sell the women's shirt at a lower price point, you're allowing a brand in at a lower point. All of those sort of tactical commercial questions come into play. And I, I don't know the answer. And we, you know, and, and I talked to Kira Maguire about this, you know, it's, it's not easy to attribute properly what's happening here. So again, it's just, that's just one of the really interesting questions.

Matt Cutler: 34:39

Yeah, on the flip side of that, and again, it goes back to my point about following these stories in real time. It's more like the London City Lionesses who Maggie referenced earlier, where. They had an historic affiliation to Millwall, but I don't think that's, but I don't think that's like a necessarily like super strong, but they're London's in the name, they play in London, they're in the second tier of women's football in the UK, which is a great position to be, and there's lots of clubs who are, you know, investing at lower tiers to come and basically get those slots in the, in the top two divisions. What they do, you You know, as a standalone with with the investment from, from Michelle's group. Can they, and there's lots of people who like football, but don't have an affiliation. All those people are going to Arsenal. They want to watch quality, quality football on a, Sunday or a Friday or a Saturday afternoon. That is fascinating. I think to see what they're, they're going to be doing with that, because how often do you get it in a capital city where there's. Almost like a new team that you can build your own brand around. Uh, I have no inside knowledge about how they're going to do it. Hopefully we'll get them to talk about it, but that's, that's almost the flip side to the argument. And if you're an investor, what's the best thing to go into? Do you go into a Chelsea where it's got like, you've got all the IP and historic stuff and fan bases or something where you've got a massive blank canvas where you can build it yourself? Both are good opportunities.

Maggie Murphy: 36:04

definitely. And I think that the other element that people talk about a lot is that there's not so many of these independent clubs left at the, at the highest level. You've got Durham who have a huge history in developing youth talent and have been a bit of a lone wolf up in the Northeast until Sunderland and Newcastle started investing. Oh, sorry. Sunderland has had a long history as well, but had been uh, had to work their way back up into, into tier two. But I think that there's something interesting about the Millball connection, which might be of interest to the owners of men's clubs, which is that the London City spun out of Millwall after a, after a disagreement, after an argument, after a a belief that they weren't being taken seriously. And so look at where London City lionesses are now as a result of falling out and being brave, uh, all credit to you know, Uh, to the owner, Diane over there that had, that took that decision to separate them out. And you're only looking at this six years later, so it's not, it's an interesting element that maybe some owners of men's clubs need to, to be aware of that they could have a very, very valuable property that could get this huge investment. They might need to treat and treat their women's team better. The other thing that I think is interesting, so obviously Canisca has now launched. Canisca is the overarching company because London City is now part of a multi club ownership group, and that's also going to be an interesting development. Mercury 13 they want to be a multi club ownership group. And so Knizka now, one of this, one of the most interesting things that they've said right from the start was that they're investing in infrastructure, so they now have their own training facilities. So that's completely for London City Lionesses. That's where some of the investment is starting to bear fruit. And they have intentions to build their own ground or to find a ground that they will, they will take over. And I think that's really interesting because as I said earlier, there's women's teams don't own their own property, but as soon as you own your own stadium, wow. Like what are you going to do with it? That, that could really change the game. We don't even know what. In this country, what a stadium built for women's teams that have a different fan base could actually, it could look completely different. We don't know. So I think that's going to, that's obviously something that is going to be further down the line cause it'll take several years. But I think that's an interesting element and that infrastructure piece also adds to your value. It's, uh, once you've bought a piece of land in London that retains its value immediately. So, I'll be interested to see what, what else is going to happen in the infrastructure space as well.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 38:26

Okay. I've got a thing about the value just again, in terms of, we, you mentioned earlier about ticket prices what if you flip this? if you trust the audience and say, right, okay, this is a more affluent audience. This is a different audience than normal. Shouldn't the thing be more expensive? Shouldn't it, is there a route? And I'm not here advocating for higher ticket, but when I am probably, but that question of do we fill stadiums out, get them in cheap, build the tribe and then we'll put prices up afterwards. I remember in the netball. case study, which I think is some quite interesting echoes there. And they had the same challenges in terms of venues, how you move from a small venue to a bigger venue. It's not easy and it's not straightforward, but there is a question of that balance between building value in the product, which again is a bit intangible, at what point do you put prices up? What people, what, at what point do people want to pay more for a better experience? I remember one of the very early conversations, Maggie, we had about the match day experience, the ability to offer something tangibly different than that goes on at the traditional men's. Saturday afternoon experience, all of that stuff. I'd love to, again, it's not for now, but if only we had a series coming out that we could answer all these questions, there's an issue there about how it evolves as a product, not, and we talk a lot about the media product, but also as an experiential thing, one of the. Questions that is on everyone's mind, I think around sport generally, we've just come from golf Wentworth, the festival of golf. We had Jack Buckner on talking about UK athletics, a Glastonbury for athletics. Everyone, it's in everyone's heads about, well, we need to broaden what this means. You've got. Twickenham Rugby, Clive Woodward, it's a pub with some rugby going on. Everyone is pissed. It's posh people pissed out their heads. Always has been, but people are now saying, oh, well, they, you know, there's a disconnect between the fans and the players. The players don't like playing there because it's, they're different people. They're just, you know, we want more people that look and sound like us. Cricket, likewise, you go to a hundred or a bash, it's full of pissed people. You know, and alcohol and me and Matt have done this in the, you know, recent past, the relationship with alcohol is really interesting. It's wedded in a, you know, a very, very distinct level. What does women's football actually mean when you go there? Are you going to go for a different experience? We all know anecdotally that when you go, it is different. It feels different. It's less angry. It's less tribal. Alcohol plays less of a central role in the experience. That's historically why people go to these, to football matches, to men's football matches. There's a different story here. And then you then move to other commercial questions about, well, what does that actually mean? All of these are questions that I'm not asking for. Immediate answers. But I do think there's a sort of bit of this, which in the sports business conversation, and we are very guilty of this, is it becomes a media presentation question. But actually, I think a lot of the value here is in the experiential and the, the match day. And it doesn't have to be match day, broadening the match day. What does that mean? The tailgate question that again, for 25 years, English footballers try to then say, what if we get them in earlier? And you know, yeah, they just get pissed earlier.

Maggie Murphy: 42:05

Yeah, I think, I mean, I think there's, I want to dive in and debate all of these things, but I'm also aware that we were hoping that we'd keep this short and sweet so that people would want to come back for the next one. But I do think these are really fascinating questions and And there is that concept of the, the family audience in women's football that people have traditionally taken as basically meaning NAF. And I think now we're shifting away to go, Oh, hang on a sec. You just mean like, it's more representative of our nation.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 42:35

Yeah.

Maggie Murphy: 42:35

People hanging out together, intergenerational, like it's a, it's a more diverse crowd. You mean you have women and men hanging out together? together. Crazy. So I think that there's actually loads of opportunities down there. And yeah, ticket, ticket prices are the one thing that have developed a lot over the last five years. I think that Lewis FC ticket season ticket price for our women's team was four times that of the Man United women's season ticket price a few years ago. I'm hoping that that's changed, but maybe not. And that was because, you know, us at Lewis, we had to make money and we had people that were willing to buy them. So I think ticketing is an interesting element, but I think you're right, Richard, like personally, I don't think this, the tickets are the only place that you're making money. You have to create a great environment. And at the moment, far too many environments at women's football clubs are a bit rubbish for the fan. The food is terrible because. It's been when you rent the stadium, you rent whatever comes with it. And that's often a soggy burger and some flabby chips. So like until we can see women's teams having a little bit more ownership over their match day experience, then you'll get people going, Oh, actually I do want to pay double the price for a burrito or whatever it might be. You know? And I think you make money outside of the game gently, but also from my perspective, and I would stand by this, I don't mind. Like monetizing fans, but only if it's stuff that they want to buy. I need to make money out of people, but I need to do it in a way that they're not absolutely pissed off with you. And so that means creating things that they actively want to spend their hard earned money on. And I think at the moment we haven't quite got that in, in women's football. But you know, that's something that we should be looking out for. But again, look, I've dived into it and really we didn't want to, so

Matt Cutler: 44:23

My new women's season ticket this season is 80 quid for an adult.

Maggie Murphy: 44:26

yes, I think those have caesars still. More than that.

Matt Cutler: 44:29

Interesting. I went to a I went to a villa women's game on my stagadoo. I don't know whether I ever told you that in Liverpool. It was in the

Maggie Murphy: 44:36

I saw that you're wearing your colors today. You've gone out strong

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 44:39

even paints his, paints his walls in villa colors.

Maggie Murphy: 44:43

It's a lot, isn't it?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 44:45

That's a very hipster thing to do though, Matt. Let's be fair,

Matt Cutler: 44:48

but, but it was quite interesting because there was a few, cause it was, it was the, it was like a two night stag do in Liverpool, which was fantastic. So we, on the Friday night, we, you know, did the usual winter kind of bingo stuff. And then,

Maggie Murphy: 45:00

that usual?

Matt Cutler: 45:01

uh, I think it is now, if you want, if you want to really,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 45:03

world he lives

Matt Cutler: 45:04

if you want a really fun night, go to Bongo's Bingo. It is absolute chaos. Also it's the first time I've properly visited Liverpool and I absolutely love the city and the people. Anyway, sorry, uh, uh, distracting from my point. But we, I think it was a 1pm kickoff. So people were there, but there were some people thinking, okay, should we get some, should we get some beers in? Cause you know, it was like lads and the stag do. And I don't think they sold, sold alcohol there, which was actually quite a good thing because that's probably the last thing we wanted to be doing is just like starting drinking at 1pm on the day two of the, of the Stag Day.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 45:33

Been done in the past,

Maggie Murphy: 45:33

It's, yeah, well, it's one of the, it's one of the rules that is applied to men's football. That's just been lifted onto elite women's football. The no alcohol inside of the pitch is, it's just a rule. for the top tiers. One that Lewis kind of broke a little bit, maybe. But it was, you know, that, that's, that's one of the reasons that if you're trying to find a drink, you can't unless you're outside in other activations. And, you know, I think that's, it's another question for us, which is around the rules that are picked up from men's football and applied by default to women's football.

Matt Cutler: 46:05

that's right. Cause, cause at Chelsea, the game, you could buy alcohol, but it was in the, in the enclosed off bar when you walked in.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 46:12

And the, and one question again, I don't, again, we've got all these questions, but those rules, does Nicky Doucette have the ability to change those rules? Or is those rules set from another body or are they? Governmental or are they club based? I don't know.

Maggie Murphy: 46:29

Yeah, so these would come into the competition and the license rules. And so, you're licensed to play in a league and some of them are competition rules. So it's, it's an interesting, I think though the license does transfer over to, uh, the WPL now, so it will be interesting to see what shifts, uh, but they will take loads of advice as well from the FA. I mean, look, it's still, this is the first year they've literally just separated. So this is, you know, all power to their elbow. This is a transitional year where there's so much. Legal stuff that needs to get sorted. So much governance work, they actually have to start functioning in this new governance system. They'll find that there's a rub, there's friction here and there. I think that's the other thing that I would say. I mean, people know that I'm a bit of a critical voice or I speak out on a lot of things, but when you're on the inside, honestly, it's really, really hard to do this and to get this right and for all the. Challenges that I posed in those rooms. I was on the WSL and championship board for three years. Yeah, Lewis FC is very different to Chelsea and we were trying to find common ground and we would argue and we would debate and ultimately. Someone's got to make a call and I might not be happy with it or Chelsea might not be happy with it. But that is now at the, at the door of Nicky and the team and I'm excited for them because it is exciting to think about what's possible now outside of, of within the FA where often it would go back to an FA board. It was a little bit faceless for those of us working in the game and wondering why is it that part of the FA makes a decision on, yeah, FA Cup prize money or, you know, These types of rules around alcohol in stadiums. So yeah, this is going to be super exciting, but we need to be patient as well. And so if I'm saying that, then I think, uh, you know, other people should take heed.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 48:15

Maggie Murphy says, be patient. That's that, you know, you heard it here first,

Maggie Murphy: 48:19

not exactly, yeah, yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 48:23

right? Okay, fantastic. Listen, I think we've re we've established the idea that there are lots of questions and you two are going to be answering them. I'm really looking forward to this. I really am. So it's And again, it's what's great about it is it's going to have a life of its own and will encourage people to stop listening to Unofficial Partner and start listening to Expected Goals. It's going to sit in its own world, in its own sort of ecosystem, which is the word of the, uh, word of the day. And if people want to get in touch, what should they do? We should encourage people to sort of, there are so many, we've talked about questions, other people will have lots of questions as well from the clubs, from within the game, fans, everyone, they can presumably get in touch with you, Matt. I'm going to point them towards

Matt Cutler: 49:11

Yeah, do it. I think that's, that's a good, it's a, it's a good point that you raise just in terms of like also on format of the podcast. So, so we each episode is going to be weekly about 45 minutes long. We're going to cover, I think two key topics of the week. Some of them, one of them will be, uh, one of the biggest news stories that happening. So it'd be very timely, but then we're also going to do deeper dives into some of the topics a minute. Some of the many topics that we've discussed today. on our own mostly, but sometimes we'll have kind of expert people within the industry come into it. And we're also leaving space for, to your point, Rich, to audience interaction. So if you want to know what, how Lewis on a match today treated, you know, women's games differently to men's games, Maggie can tell you all about the different food offerings and all of that. All that, all that jazz. But we, we, we Prosecco, Prosecco, but occasionally only sometimes in front of the pitch

Maggie Murphy: 50:01

Stop. I can't get my teammates into trouble.

Matt Cutler: 50:04

But, but, but but on that last point is like, we know you've got as many questions as Rich has been posing throughout this podcast. So get in touch and we, we, we'll answer them. We'll answer them. you can send them to me on email. So I'm on Matt at unofficialpartner. co. uk and Twitter's a good one for me. Uh, Matty Cutler. But don't call me Matty because I only registered that because I got onto Twitter too late and someone had took, taken Matt Cutler. So sometimes I meet people in real life and they say, Oh, hi, Matty. And no one calls me Matty.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 50:31

In retrospect, that was an error, wasn't

Matt Cutler: 50:32

it? was a real, it was a real error. And what about you, Maggie? What's the best, what's the best way?

Maggie Murphy: 50:37

Yeah, I I'm still on X. I'm now happy to call it X. I didn't used to like calling it X, but now I feel like there was a, Before and after, so I'm still on X, but I'm very, very quiet on it, but I will see stuff there. And otherwise I feel like LinkedIn is probably a good space to, to be in for genuine questions. And I think that'd be nice for us to try to touch on some of the things that we are talking about in the podcast and maybe post a little bit on LinkedIn, which seems like a, uh, an obvious place to go as well. I don't have an email address that I'm willing to share just yet, but you know, we'll see how that goes.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 51:08

At some, at some point you might migrate to maggie at unofficialpartner. co. uk.

Maggie Murphy: 51:11

Who knows, who

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 51:12

there's a, there's an enormous test, you know, the, the, you know, it's just an administrative nightmare. I, Sean has to organize it, which, uh, you know, Tends to take six months.

Maggie Murphy: 51:23

Let's just see how I go. You might want to get rid of

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 51:25

yeah, exactly. But I mean, we can scrape, we can put a line for the Maggie bit and just change it. Listen, go well, it's going to be exciting, really interesting. And we will flag it up when it, when the first episode appears, which is very, very soon, isn't it?

Matt Cutler: 51:41

Very soon. Very soon. Hopefully you will have said it in your intro to this.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: 51:44

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I might not even do an intro. I might even say, you know, we might run in organically. Yes. I will do it in an intro. Right. Maggie Murphy, Matt Cutler. Thank you very much.

Matt Cutler: 51:55

you.

Maggie Murphy: 51:56

thank you.