UP445 'We invented the kit launch genre. It's like Christmas for football'

In a sports industry obsessed with data and measurement, brand is the great intangible asset, the bit of the balance sheet that remains largely opaque, which is why it’s so important. 
But mention brand in the vicinity of fans or the football media and there's a row. 
It’s no surprise that the kit launch genre has evolved during this period, growing in importance and sophistication (and cost). 

Homeground is one of the hottest creative agencies working in sport today. The London based company has pioneered the kit launch video. Working with Adidas, they are the people behind some of the most outstanding recent work in this area, from Manchester United, Arsenal, Aston Villa to name a few. 

We talk with creative partner Rachid Ahouiyek, formerly of Iris, McCann and Wieden+Kennedy, and Polly Barnes, new business director also formerly Iris and is founder of the Women’s Rugby Association. 

Click on the showreel to see the work referenced in the podcast

https://www.homeground.london/work

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Transcript

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Barry Keoghan's got a really legit link with Man United. Absolutely loves them. You know, we've had people asking to be in these things. Black Sabbath, Aussie and Giza, massive Aston Villa fans. We know that, So they feel authentic. So it certainly wasn't a sort of badging exercise. You know, let's stick famous person on there. And actually, if somebody came to us and said, we've got this talent in this club. Can you do a thing? We'd probably say no. Because it has to feel right happening. that's not really going to work. You have to be a bit smarter than that. And yet, like we say, the data can show us lots of stuff, but actually quite a lot of the time experience. Heavy level of cynicism and a bit of common sense is actually what you really get if you sit in a room and go, What's the thing that we really want to talk to people about? What's the thing that they're going to go? Oh, yeah, that's true. That feels real. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Unofficial Partner. It's Richard Gillis here. That was poly bonds of home ground, which is one of the hottest creative agencies working in sport today. The London based company is. Pioneered the kit launch video. Working with Addy desk. They are the people behind some of the most outstanding recent work in this area from Manchester, United arsenal and Aston Villa to name a few. So we talked with poly. Who've just heard. It was new business director. So formally. Iris. And he's a founder. Of the women's rugby association. And Rashid. Uh, creative partner of home ground, who is formerly also of Iris. But it'll say McCann and Wieden and Kennedy advertising agencies. We saw very quickly that what was more important than the shirt was the time that the thing was being announced, right? So there's the shirt, and everyone loves a new shirt, that's fine. But, used to that. But the window, man, that it drops is the thing. Because that's football Christmas, right? We recorded the podcast. Uh, home grounds found an office and you can hear some interference is a crackly line as we go through. So apologies for that. But, uh, bear with it. It's a really good conversation. there's a question about Homeground. It's a bit of an origin story, I think, to be done. Who wants to do that? No, I can do that. Do that? Okay. Okay. So, what is it? Give us the whole background. How did it come about? Peace. A dream. A vision. It's amazing. It's like living your dream every day. It's basically realizing this isn't LinkedIn. No, it's basically like realizing that you really should be doing what you love for a living. And we're only doing half of what we love, which is, you know, working in advertising and creative and working with cool brands. But sport was the thing that we thought if we could do that all the time. then it would be perfect. So you were at Iris? We were at Iris. Me and my two partners I started with, Nico and Henry, were all from completely different backgrounds, which is great, not just professionally, but culturally, different parts of the country, all the rest of it. And we realized that, you know, even though we just met and we were all quite grown up, started quite late because we were all, you know, in our forties to start an agency, I suppose. And we just had a great connection and viewed how work should be made the same way. Viewed the industry the same way and the opportunities the same way and we were like, let's do this for ourselves and let's only work on sport and it will be amazing and cannot fail. And then you know, fleeting sort of conversations, but not something that, it was lockdown really that, you know, That was like, now's the time. Yeah. This is like, might be the best or worst time to do it, but now's the time. And there was nothing kind of nefarious about it or weird. We weren't trying to cause any trouble or steal clients or the kind of ways that all of the people that I know that have started agencies did that. It was full clandestine, like war, like, you know, warfare vibes. We were just like, we're leaving. Let's tell the people that we've been working with for many years on the other side that we're leaving, see what happens. and Adidas came with you. Well, they said, we want to keep working with you. And that was it. And it was great. And we, you know, for the first year, we didn't have an office, a lot, all fully remote, you know, they're based in Germany, obviously. So that's great for us because there's no actual people to meet in person. But far enough. What you need is a client, your main client to be in a different area. We need, yeah, we need, to start we need a client and we need them to not be in the UK, preferably. But yeah, and it grew from there and, you know, we backed ourselves. We hired people that we know and trust and, Man, the difference between starting your own place and working somewhere else that already has a set culture and finally be in a position to define your own culture and choose who comes in the door. Yeah. You can't really fail if you get it. If you know what you're doing, you get it right because you just hire people that you know are gonna, they're going to bring it and do it. And I'm very much in, you know, as cliche as it sounds, I'm really into the hire slowly, hire quickly. Get rid quickly thing. That works. That really works. So yeah, now we're three years on past the tricky two years when everyone's supposed to die off, right? So what does Polly do? I'm one of those people who doesn't really fit into a job spec. So when people say, what do you do? I'm like, Oh, I do this and that. And that's generally when people's eyes goes there because they don't understand it. Do you get paid for all these jobs? No, actually, I get paid for my home ground jobs. I have a lot of different roles in sport and a lot of different interests in sport. These guys are amazing. I didn't grow up through. Advertising and marketing as a planner or a strategist. And I get to do a lot of that here, which is incredible. I think when you start off in this industry you're a suit, as we used to call it, you look after clients or you are a creative you get to do the work or you do the thinking stuff. Never the, you know, never the twain shall meet. You can't do any of the other stuff. And when you get good at it, they put you into management and they're not allowed to do fucking anything. And so that's why I only work with independent people, and I only work with people I like as well, and these guys are incredible, they let me do what I do best, and don't make me do anything I don't want to, so anything from a client whisperer, to a strategist, to a women's sport specialist and everything in between it's joy, it's a joy. It's a pleasure to work with these guys as well, because they are genuinely the best people I've ever worked with. Let's come at it this way. First of all, I knew Henry and Nico from their Iris days. I knew Henry anyway. And, I've see you around the place and you create a lot of noise around what I would call the kit launch genre. Let's talk about that because I think you were very, were you early to that? Were you one of the sort of people that were doing it when no one else was? Where we were before I'd go so far to say is We created that, let's say, genre, if you want to call it. I like genre, it like a film reviewer. Yeah, before, let's make it seem like more sophisticated and important than what it really is. Which is just tons of gas. But the, before, Our first thing for Arsenal, which was Adidas returning to London with their Arsenal sponsorship, football kit launches were small commercial product things, like kind of gross, like very, you know, it could have been washing up powder, could mean, not really tapping into the power. And what we saw early on, and I don't know if it's, you know, Something inherent because we all love football and we're also fans. We saw very quickly that what was more important than the shirt was the time that the thing was being announced, right? So there's the shirt, and everyone loves a new shirt, that's fine. But, used to that. But the window, man, that it drops is the thing. Because that's football Christmas, right? Yeah. And what that means is At that time, it's near the end of the season, sometimes before the season's actually ended, most of the time it's when it's actually ended. Fans have come to terms with what, where their club is at, right? We're done, we're in the Champions League, we're not, we've won, we haven't, we're fucking relegated, you know what I mean? Yeah. But we're okay with it, it's done now. You've got another year of mid table obscurity facing you. Exactly, but Spurs fans. Exactly, but they're also simultaneously hopeful of a clean slate and what can come next. And in that moment, you can't really put a foot wrong. Like if you just do, like, just do the basics right, you can't go wrong. So you're selling hope at that moment? Fully. Redemption, hope absolution. We're selling All the big words. Commiseration. Yeah. This brings me to a point, another thing about football fans and sport fans, sports fans in general is that you can't treat a sports audience, no matter what your product is, the same way as any other product, because their highs and lows, their ceiling and their floor is much higher and lower. than someone who's in the market for anything else. And they are suspicious of outsiders. They're suspicious of non football people. Inauthentic people. That's a good phrase. Inauthentic people. So you've bought your way into my, the thing that I love the most. I'm not interested in small talk. I'm not interested in platitudes or small. messages or boring things, right? Yeah, right. I mean, it's no lie that it's one of the most commercially ripe places. opportunities for a football club and a brand involved in football of the season, every season, right? Yeah, they're gonna buy the club anyway. They might fucking hate you as a shirt sponsor. They might, you know, there are all sorts of foul brands all over shirts that I disagree with or whatever. But I'm going to buy it anyway because I love my club. Right. But so the opportunity to give them something more and sell them a dream, transport people somewhere creatively with the marketing that you're doing around it, which allows you not just to sell that shirt, but it also allows you to start building that brand. So it's not just a little cherry that you're feeding people a bit of sugar before the season, buy this shirt and jobs done. Your opportunity there, transporting them, making them feel something like. Talking about something that they understand, so they know you as a brand sponsor, get them, is brilliant because that's something that then can form that narrative for your whole season, it can form the backbone of a new relationship maybe, if you're new to the game and that's a very powerful and potent mix. Who is your team, Paul? Brentford. Ah, okay. Yeah. The Bees, Heart of West London, etc. But it allows you then to start building that brand or certainly that brand affinity with them, which is one of the only things that can transcend performance on the pitch. So, I've got a few questions about this. So the pushback would be the fans, they will buy it anyway. Why do I need to spend this on that? Why do I need a brand building strategy? We're Spurs fans. We will buy the shirt. Although I don't, he does. That's probably, you know, the distinction between me and Sean. He buys a shirt. I don't, but. Why do it? Why spend money? Because that would be, if I was a commercial director, thinking yeah, we don't need to worry too much about brand because they're all addicts anyway. We don't need, we'll take them all for granted. they'll generally buy the shirt. There's people that won't. But as you know, there's more than one shirt and there's lots of other drops throughout the season and lots of other ways to kind of interact with the club commercially and otherwise. It's always great. building up your club, even though I know what you mean about the idea that it's not, they don't see it as a brand, they see it as their Well, I've got, I am leading to a bigger question. I am leading to another question, which is it's brand in football? Because I think actually, Is the return on investment of your work product sales or is it, has it moved into being a brand argument? I think there's definitely there's definitely more, you can definitely get more attention and engagement, more interaction with your club, even if you're a long, you know, a long term fan or whatever, but it's limited to, I'll watch a game on the weekend. I might follow a few, you know, social, you know, get a few tidbits, some gossip or whatever, and I might buy the jersey. But if your club's doing more to show that they're, what they're about, what they believe in, what they're connected to, how they're connected to you, and what they're doing in your community you can definitely get drawn. Closer to the mothership and there's some commercial advantages to that, but it's also just really good long term for the brand. It's hard talking about a club as a brand because it is this kind of, it's a limbo thing. It's in between some of those two things. There's definitely advantages to having the, having your audience closer. And like you more than just, you know, a sort of once or twice a year transaction. Part of the reason it's important to have them like you more is because if you start playing appallingly or you get some big injury, I mean, look at some of the big, yeah, right. Exactly. So some of the big dogs are falling now. Some of the more surprising clubs are on the ascendancy. That's fine. But you can't legislate for that at the beginning of the season. That's something that you need to weather yourself against. And if you're you know, if you're serious about your investment in the longterm. It's great to do something fun in the beginning and then walk off and sell those shirts, but wouldn't it be great if you'd given yourself permission to come back another five times and talk to them about other stuff because marketing and sport, particularly football and things like that, it's not just about winning, right? And That's a big trait. We see it all the time. It's a massive cliche. It's all about kicking balls and scoring goals and those fan scenes of like joy. That's not what football is. And that's not what fans think football is. Fans love the lows as much as they love the highs. They wouldn't admit it, but they do. That's what they live for. Imagine if you can talk to them in a rounded sense about the full fan experience, then you can come back in and talk to them when times get harder. That's a good example of exactly what your, what is the value beyond, right? So, We were working on Arsenal when they were literally at the full Arteta out era, right? Like real trouble, right? And you know, they might even have been planes. It was like, it was bad. AFTV they're at full power. Yeah. Yeah. golden days. And yeah, exactly. I didn't want to say, but and new shirts coming out. Yeah. So what do you do? You can ignore all of that and be like, look at the new shirt and honor and integrity and passion and all this shit that everyone talks about. Or you can be like, dude, there's no way of escaping this. You have to lean into how your fan base feels about the club and particularly about this manager. You've got to embrace it. And we think you should build this shirt launch around him and have him. give a team talk to the Arsenal fan base as if it was the first team and they full credit to Arsenal they did not shy away from that they saw the value in it they were like absolutely that's the kind of club they are as well like great relationship with their fan base the community you know so they're well up for that kind of stuff ignored The kind of glory chat and we're like, right, what are you thinking? We create something for him where Arteta gives a pep talk to the Arsenal faithful and says, look, man, it's okay if we can disagree. You know, family, hurt each other, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, there's a few non negotiables that we should always observe, you know, and then he can talk about, you know, we've got respect each other and this kind of stuff, you know, all the usual. And that film pops up every few months. When there's a little dip in Arsenal, form or whatever, and has done since, that was like five years ago, that pops up, people, the Arsenal fanbase share it about, and if you just read the comments and engage, it stabilize the vibe around the club. It's interesting because he's sort of, he's someone, was that before or after the Amazon doc? It was before, actually. Because he's someone who The reading was that the Amazon documentary actually did him quite favours, because he is quite a sort of difficult guy to read, he's quite enigmatic, he looks like a sort of, you know, there's a sort of robotic aspect to him in a nice way, but the, but we all knew there was something else, you know, lies beneath, because obviously of his record and who he was working with and the pep factor and all these things, so it's quite interesting to try and get at that, in some way, because the Saturday afternoon, you know, the two hours at the game face and all of those things. And I think he's someone that you need to have a different approach with him. We wouldn't have suggested that an idea like that if it was a different manager, but we knew that he could deliver that with sincerity and the audience would, they'd believe him and they'd listen to him. So it was really, it was, I'd go so far as to say that was a campaign about our teta. It wasn't really about Arsenal. So your client is, who is that relationship? Client is Adida. So your Adidas is your client? Yeah. Arsenal the club. Arsenal. The club. But the relationship is, so obviously it's a unique situation where it's, there's, they're so, it's so tight. You are really dealing with the both of them generally. So you could say the Arsenal Adidas relationship via Adidas. Where is that going? So if I'm, if I'm one of the big clubs, I'm thinking, okay, do we need to get these guys in? They've shown us the way, let's do it ourselves. Is that a route that you can see a club going? And I can, you then get into the in house, I mean, it's happened, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, off the back of this type of partnership work, we get all sorts of calls. I think the reality is that a lot of internal teams are very good, very talented and won't name check any of the clubs. And some aren't because there's a truth to it. In the fact that the smaller your team is and the more insular you are, and the more you look at the same thing every day, the narrower your view is. So I think the more people you have in the room, including the brands, if you can, the more experience you get. Diversity of thought, diversity of voice is so important in football. I mean, let's not forget in sports marketing, everybody looks the same mostly. So, so that is a big risk. But also sometimes it just takes a bit of confidence to have a brand like an Adidas or somebody like that behind you to go, yeah, no, we can do this really. And what they tend to do then is bring that marketing experience to help clubs show something that people don't already know. So it's back to that original point. We show. kicking footballs, we show fans cheering, we show people drinking beers and having a lovely time and all of that sort of stuff, but what they really want is an angle that they can't see. So peeling off a layer of the onion and going, this is something that you didn't know. They think they know everything already. They've seen it all. Many people have supported teams for decades, but you can find something they haven't seen before. Even if it's transient, managers change. That's something that is just going gold dust. And sometimes you need diverse sort of brains in the room to go, it's this. And they could be too. So it's like the sort of when you see like the classic sort of Pepsi had their in house agency and then they did some terrible ads and it's that. So there's the technical bit. There's the sort of because this gets to a bigger question about how football clubs view themselves now and how that's evolving. But you've got the sort of the sort of mechanical bit, you know, we've got the ideas and we, but there is also the perspective. What you're getting at is the perspective and that is really, yeah, it's subjectivity versus objectivity. It's an interesting thing because you'd think that as the club, And I'm not talking about any particular club here. As THE club, you would know your club better than anyone else. But actually, that's not remotely true. Because there are people that have been working at that club for six months. And there are people that have been, on the other side, working on that club for ten years. And just because you've got, you know, the club's logo on your, you know, Payslip. That doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean, you know, so, and this, but this happens with brands in general, right? Like I've been working on some brands for previous agencies for like five years and had to deal with brand new sort of comms people. Know everything and aren't really into it. Well, it's not that, it's not so much that. You can say that, we can't. Maybe they could stop to consider that the person on the other side, and I'm not even talking about me, I'm talking about other creative or whatever that they might stop to consider that they might know something about your brand that you don't. Even, I think it's also it's as simple as, I mean, it's perspective, you know, in terms of you the bit you said at the beginning about football, people being really obsessed with details and you know, specific details, authenticity details, authentic details. There's that bit, which I imagine the club overthinks it over indexes on. It thinks that's the job and actually. It loses that third party sort of perspective. That's just veneer. And they're also not willing to maybe be as challenging as they could be. Whereas, you know, we'd be very happy to find something and be like, You need to talk about this, or you need to address this, or this is what is important and what matters right now and they're not willing to often go to those places. Yeah, and I think what's led to it generally is, you know, we all know the last sort of 10, 15 years that the, Prevalence of the growth of social media and all these different formats and data, actually data driven marketing across the sport industry, not just in football. That's really contributed to this conceit that you can know everything from a database where you cannot. And we've been speaking to a really smart CMO over in the NFL at the moment. Who said, I can tell you how many sugars every single fan has in their tea in my stadium, but I can't tell you anything about what they actually feel. And that's also partly driven by the data and by the media, which often is like the tail wagging the dog, rather than the idea of being the thing. Or what's the, where's where are we trying to transport people? Where's the creative rigor of advertising days of yore? And you're going, I've got, you know, TikTok's doing well at the moment. Let's do one of those. That's not a great way to do it, but you've also got the problem within the industry that a lot of these deals are done on corporate golf days, etc. The deal is signed, we've got my sponsorship rights, and I've got all these things I've got to film, and I think the job is done. Well, it's not really done, is it? Like, you can do that if you want to, but if you want to do something more, you need that external perspective to go. what are we actually talking about here? And sometimes what you need to be talking about can be a bit uncomfortable, that sport. So, there are a few things to break down within that, but some of these clubs are 120, 130 years old. Yeah. And there's still new thing. Things that, you know, they need to, they could learn from and do better and do more of or add to there. whatever you want to call it, their approach to brand, their approach to how to kind of engage their audience beyond the pitch, right? Yeah. And, but there's also clubs that don't have, you know, long baked in values and creativity. I was going to say us, but creativity can also help you find those things. So either find you new behaviors to reinforce what you're already about or give you or find some behaviors from scratch, things that you should start doing. Yeah, you know, and even like a Brentford will still have some things that they some little seeds that they that one day could be the thing that makes them, you know, well, it's also I mean, you know, so there's a few things what You, Homeground, and I think a very small number of agencies that are around the place, is a small number. I think there's a, the reason I find them interesting, I find what you guys are doing interesting, is because it's a sort of, like you were saying Polly, it's an antidote to the data thing. And we all know that's been, you know, the story of the last 15 years, as you say. And the idea and creativity is a sort of counter to that. I remember when this is a few years ago, but a lot of, I won't say who they were, but there was some, you know, agencies who are selling fan engagement data, the last click, you know, the performance marketing stuff, all of which is relevant. I remember talking to a, CMO. And they said, Yeah, but I wouldn't give them my brand. And what we're seeing now is actually, well, what is, you know, it's interesting. What is the Brentford brand? What is the idea of Brentford? That's changed in my mind. I mean, I grew up in West London, so I know Brentford, and it's not the Brentford that is now. And I've got friends who, you know, it's transformed. I can't think of many. I live in Brighton. That's another one. The story of the last 10 years is not the story of the previous 50 years, you know, by any stretch of the imagination. So it's sort of, Evolving that and that idea whilst still being true to the details and the stuff that the fans would recognize as true and authentic, but also giving them something else to talk about. There's a future idea. brand building takes a while, right? What we call them is like low nutritional things, right? Shiny sweets, boiled sweets or whatever, like they'll taste good and fizzle out and, but they're not healthy for you long term. You need to be having big hearty meals, big brand swings, big statements. I've completely lost what you're talking about. I'm talking about, I'm talking about brand, long term, long term brand building versus Putting out, jumping on the late, any sort of social trend. Okay. My food. Yes. Food metaphor. Food metaphor. Yes. But brand isn't obviously, it's not just about ads. Brand is not about ads. We all know this. It's about is the company you keep. It's the the way your people behave. It's the way you talk, the way you speak. When times are going well, when times are going badly. The things you do. The things you do. And actually, if you can just invest in that and you know, invest in that in a really small way, Smart way that's going to help you make all of those different decisions. This is what we stand for. This is how we, this is who we are as a people. Do I want to work with that sponsor? Absolutely not. It's all got to stack up and that doesn't take five minutes to do. That takes years. But I guess our point is that, you know, the data feeding everything has meant that the marketing, sport marketing industry started to really heavily rely on vanity metrics. You only got to look at everybody's reporting about what they think is a success versus what they don't think is a success. And it's. All got to do with reach and engagement and all that sort of stuff. Well, yeah, sometimes that's fine, but that's all just hygiene. The biggest stuff is where you're actually prepared to put a stake in the ground and go, this is what we believe in. This is what we're saying. Are you coming with us? And this is how we're going to do it. So that's kind of, that's kind of how we operate. Really. We try and stay away from a lot of the commodity stuff. And there's also a fact that when you're, you know, when you're letting the media tail wag the dog and you're going TikTok performs well for us or you're going, Oh, Instagram is really good for us. We get loads of engagements. That's absolutely fine. But most of the time you're just showing stuff that people want to see in a few seconds. And they'll just be swiping on and they won't remember you for anything. And a lot of people get into the habit of just showing more sport, right? They so they're like, Oh, we work in football. Let's just show loads of people kicking balls or we work in tennis. Let's show you know, Like that's all great. They get that, right? They go to Sky Sports for that. They subscribe to TNT for that. They see that on X. They watch it on wherever they watch it. They don't need more of the same. What, as a brand, what are you showing them that's interesting? There's a lot of competing with what fans and audiences already have in their lives. Like, so if they're already going to a season ticket holder and they're going to a game or they like live sports and they've got all their, you know, why would you show that? Again, or some kind of synthesis, lame, synthesized version of it, you know, it's never gonna compete with what their actual Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon is like. And brands keep doing it. They keep trying to approximate the culture. And, you know, the thing around, you know, just reflecting the culture back at them. Like, look, we know who you are. Look, we're just like And actually it's not. I don't think that's successful. I think that the stuff that gets remembered and, you know, gets credited is. When brands enter the thing, the space and define, find their the, what they can kind of, do and offer in that thing and do it uniquely and interestingly, and it is not like anyone else and is not trying to kind of put their arm around and and some brands are really good at it. And, but so many just kind of, you know, they just do. That same thing of just trying to kind of prove that they're in we get you with the wink and it's not my line on that is that I think you've got the sort of endemics you got Adidas, Nike and Puma and you know, the obvious, they're in the game. They're central to it. You know, enmeshed in it. And then you've got the others. You've got the sort of sponsors who are trying to use football in this case as a marketing platform. I've come to think, I can't think of many who don't, who ever get beyond sort of, necessary evil as a sort of position. They're there. We'll take your money in terms of the relationship with the fans. And you can imagine on a, you know, a podcast like this, you get a lot of people saying, well, look, we have been, you know, we, our role here is, and we've earned our place at the time, which I don't come away thinking, I can't think of many brands, non endemic brands that have made that journey or have got beyond that level. Even from a spurs perspective, who I sort of attribute much credit to. Neither can we, you know, we actually, in preparation for talking to you, we had this chat this morning. We were like, they're going to ask us who we think does it really well, and we went shit. There are a few, but it's interesting because it's a, it's more about longevity. The Heinekens and the Pepsis and even the Continentals with their, with the stadium in the tie. I remember Martin Sorrell at Leaders saying the most underrated thing in sponsorship is longevity. Exactly. And so being there for 20 years. Every kid knows and even our age knows that Pepsi drop a, you know, a banger every year. put megastars in it and most of the time it's like it's what you'd expect it's you know shenanigans football shenanigans normally some kind of historical based roman warriors it's gladiators this year next year it's this and then it's a western and then it's always shenanigans right yeah but what you do have to say is like longevity matters because it's you know it's commitment and fans are all about commitment right you're in it long enough you also get in you can get in that way Yeah. Just by showing that you're you're in it. Heineken, Pepsi, you know, Emirates by volume, like you could say, and there's two ways of looking at that, right? It's like they're, Every stadium's called the Emirates and it's on every shirt and you could say, okay, but you could also say like, they aren't messing around. They mean what they say, they love sport and they're on lots of different sport. And because it's not just longevity, it's clear investment, it's abundance, it's bloody everywhere. Like when Investec came in and took over from Heineken and EPCR Champions Cup, you turn up to the stadium, you expect it to be green and it's not. Even just that cue to Heineken shows abundance and investment, which somewhere in the back of your mind tells you that it matters to them, because it's not just, yeah, it might be badging, but it's a lot of badging, and it's a lot of money that they put in there. So whoever comes next is either going to have to put a lot of money in for a really long time to match it. Or do something that's a bit more interesting and it speaks to you. And not every brand can do that, right? You know, Guinness and Six Nations have had a wonderful history and O2 in rugby and all of that sort of stuff. There are brands who have sat there but not everybody can do that. So if you're not a brand who can spend multi billions over 25 years. You've got to think a bit smarter and do something else. You're right in that there is a power signal, isn't there? In terms of this is a corporate power signal. Correct. We are at the top table. This is the, you know, where we can afford to do this. And so that's why we're here. There's also the, on the delineation between brands who are, you know, in the inside sport and brands outside, right? And I have to give credit to this. There's a lovely lady that I used to work with called Alessandra. Way back when I was starting out, right? And I used to work on my on Nike football and Nike Europe. And I remember Was it Widen and Kennedy was a Widen and Kennedy a long time ago. Right. And I remember this how, 20, 20 years ago. And she said I just used the word celebrate in something that I was writing some kind of intro for some kind of script or whatever. And she stopped she's Italian. And she said, we know, we don't use that word here. Okay. We never celebrate. And I was like, she sounds Welsh. I was like yeah. I was like what do you mean? She's like, we don't do that. Nike doesn't do that. They don't celebrate. And I went and sat, I thought about it. I was like, she's fucking bang on. They've got no business talking about celebration. They should only be talking about ambition and winning and all that kind of stuff. And then immediately it was like, of course, man, in this thing, it, we're either talking to athletes or fans. And athletes can be fans, but not all fans are athletes, right? And that's how I look at it now. And that's how Homeground looks at it because anything that smells remotely sort of fan base kind of, it's wrong because that's not what they do. They make 200 gram boots for the elite strikers, right? Conversely, if you're Lays or Coca or whatever, You shouldn't be talking about performance. You shouldn't be talking about winning and victory and like going out, you know. And once you know that simple thing, and I've been across the table from a lot of people that don't know the difference, and I'm like, you can't, you shouldn't be talking about it. Things become a lot easier. And then you can really, to your point about who's inside and who's outside, you can really carve out your thing. so there's two bits of work that I Saw recently the Villa work and the Man United work. And let's pick one of those and just get, let's just take me through, because I'm interested in how it works and what the sort of blocks are, if you like. So in terms of what the potential pushbacks are, in terms of from the club, because the club is becoming increasingly viewing themselves as a brand and viewing themselves as an entertainment organization and a media platform themselves. What are the sort of conversations that you have initially? This is the idea. We've got, let's take the let's take Villa as the example. What were the early conversations around that idea? It all starts with, again, this one is talking about the Arteta things. Where are the club today? What are they on today? They're a sleeping giant. You could say big club. past glories invisible for a while, but now sudden, like, massive ascendancy. So it can't be about past glory because it was too long ago. So it can definitely be about the buzz, like everyone, like Villa are back and the villains are absolutely losing their shit. Giddy happy villains, right? Yeah. And so For us, it was clear. It was about the idea was like, everyone wants to play for Villa. Now, everyone in Birmingham and lots of people were not begrudging Villa their success. They're in, they love the story. They love the manager. They love the players. Like they've got, they're enjoying it as much. So it was very much this, and once you've got that, like, you're rocking, cause as a thing, and that's what we what is the thing you're saying? What's it built on? Adidas have come in as the kit sponsor, Castor have gone, Adidas are in, so it is slightly different because it's a new relationship, so there's a bit more expectation, right? It's not like we've been doing stuff for United and Arsenal for five, six seasons or whatever. So it's a new thing, so it's got to be a big thing. Villa were keen to obviously show that they're backing on, Champions League place and all this kind of stuff. And so it's there. And then what was cool with the Villa is you got to match the ambition we match their ambition, but they have to match our ambition for their club. Do you know, we think you could say the biggest things that we think you should get fucking Ozzy Osbourne in this. We'll never under, we'll always overreach. We'll always go. What is the absolute coolest in saying this biggest thing we could say or do for this moment? let's climb down from there because it can't be the other way around. If you're a club and a brand who's also willing to stake some of your sort of equity on it as well and make hard things with us, doesn't mean it has to be hard to do, but it, you know, sometimes those things aren't easy to broker. Let's get You know, a lot of people are going, Oh, no, that's not possible. They wouldn't even have the conversation, but that happened. And then it goes from there. And if you think about it, that was not just because we told them that maybe they already knew that Giza Butler was a massive villain. Right? That was something that we knew, right? That's important because it's like, did you know this? This is your way in. But if you think that was just to, that was just to launch this relationship, launch this jersey. It's now gone to, you know, this was in Times Square. It's reached the other side of the Atlantic. You've got people, Sharon Osbourne came to the mega store. You've got people quoting lines out of it. And now Black Sabbath are on about that. So if you have mad ambition and everybody involved is willing to stake some of their energy and their, maybe their money and some tricky, but you know, why not conversations on it? You can do that. A similar, you know, the Man United launch this summer was also done. Just a jersey launch. But you're looking at a club at a very different time. Aston Villa was on the ascendancy. The vibes are good. They're back in Europe. It feels really pure and really exciting. Man United wasn't that. And with the greatest respect in the world, it's one of the best teams, you know, biggest brands in the whole world period. Wonderful. But has it had a great few seasons? Absolutely not. So the approach is different. It's radically different to villa. But you Barry Keoghan? Keoghan. Keoghan, is that how you say it? Yeah correct. So, again, it was one of those things where you write a monologue, you write a story about love. The boys did a really good job of talking about something that you can't quite put your finger on. It could be sport, it could be anything, it could be music, it could be acting. But it's something that everyone can go, Oh yeah, like I can understand a bit of what he's saying. I don't know really what he's on about, but it sounds really exciting. And I feel that too. Back to that point, you know, preseason, everyone's got a bit of hope. You write a story, you suddenly get somebody with a link to the club, like, you know, Hollywood megastar who does love United. Keeoghan's cousin, is Frank Stapleton's cousin. United Striker. And so the guys that worked on that, they, again, they were burrowing deep and they unearthed that and they were like, And he was, you know, he was hot right now but he's legit, legit United fan. You know, you call these people up and it's not, the chat isn't about money. It's about what I can come to, I can come to the cliff and hang out with you know, Kobe and Garnaccio and just like, and yeah, what do I need to do? So. Again, power of sport, right? It like works on everyone. So what happens he's got a really weird energy about him, isn't he? I mean, he's a brilliant actor, I think. Great, you know, the, obviously we've seen him, all of him but what happens? You sort of say, right, okay, we need, we've got a day with him, we need to use him. We have an idea which was about the role reversal of fans and the players. So in the film, the players are watching. a local team play at their old training ground and so it was about community and the, you know, the unique relationship that United has, the fans have with the players and vice versa. So it's not talking about winning. It's not talking about trophy, you know, it's not because that's not where United are right now. But that bond never goes away. And so we were like, well, let's talk about that. And then once we had, once we knew we had Barry, you write something for him. It wasn't anything written and then he's gonna say it. He's like, what would Barry say? And he's a United fan. It's a heck of a thing. I mean, yeah, you know, so you've got a, I'm interested in this sort of juxtaposition of he is a Hollywood actor now, you know, he's, as you say, he's really hot, but that's why it works because he's also just, what happens when he turns up, he's a United fan, you know, he's looking at your script, you've got, it's not, no, a famous director behind the camera, you know, but if you write the right stuff, He actually, this is a great story, right? You'll like this. He we wrote a VO which was around like being, knowing when you really love something, right? And that could be talking about football, but for Barry it could also be talking about acting. And if you notice in the VO he doesn't talk about football at all. There's nothing in there that would suggest that he's talking about football. He's just talking about when you know you really love something. It's like forever, right? And he's talking, he could be talking about United, he could be talking about acting, it doesn't matter. And so that's the VO that we delivered and it was written for him because we knew we had him. And then he arrives and he's like, you know, it's like a shoot and it's not like a commercial shoot because it's United days or anything. He recorded the VO and then when we sent him the rough cut to have a look, he was like, I want to rerecord my VO. And that never happens, ever. Like, what a, like, superstar's gonna be like, I'll make myself available to re record the video. And that's the power of Man United. That's the power of football. It's the power of football, the power of Man United. It's not because he's a nice guy. Because even Barry Keoghan, L. A. Superstar had the humility to go, I want to do this justice because the origin story of this particular kit launch. And if you've seen it, it's that beautiful third kit where they've got the return of the Adidas Trefoil logo, which hasn't been seen on a football shirt for 30 years, or the Adidas originals logo. And it's got that lovely cream, red and black stripe across the front, which comes directly. Yeah. So the banners that you see every week made by the real fans who hang it at Old Trafford. They've been around for donkey's years and that's where the Adidas designers got that inspiration. So the point around this isn't about a big brand coming in and chest beating, or an actor coming in and chest beating and telling people what to think. It's that coming in below the radar going, this is about you. And you'll notice that those Kits weren't shown on Garnaccio, and they weren't shown on Cobi Menu, they were shown on the fans and the people playing, the grassroots guys. And actually the big megastars were playing the supporting roles. You got Yapstam running the line and all of that sort of thing. And so that kind of flip reverse was just a really sort of touching way to talk about the nostalgia of times that have been for Man United, but also to remind them who they are at a tricky time and it really did. I think that that hero video that we launched had about 20 million views in the first week, which is by any stretch for a kit launch that launches only on social media. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting with, a brand like Addy is largely a sort of fashion brand in the sense that they follow fashion cycles, spring, summer and fall winter, right? Because the way that the product has to be designed, manufactured and distributed, but football obviously does not move in those big chunks. It's like literally daily shit is going down like that will change the whole season. Yeah. Right. Injuries, players moving, whatever losing streaks. And so your bank, you have to put something on the table that you're hoping in six months time will still be relevant. It makes sense. So you also have to have an eye on that. And that's why it's not too important about brand building. It's what we need. We need to find something that will just ride. Over all of that stuff, whatever, you know, whatever happens at the end of the season. And then, you know, you can maybe take a big risk. And if it's a certain, you know, if you're around Madrid, I guess you could always talk about winning. But that's a tricky, that's probably the hardest thing to navigate for us at least. And with a brand like Addy, but it's also the same no matter what your involvement is. You have to be You kind of really have to look after your brand because it's that's what, at least in sport, what will weather you through the ridiculous up and downs like And that is your boiled sweet analogy to go back, you know, as in it's Yeah, exactly. You can easily jump on the Exactly. That's what social media is for and what it's good at is the immediacy of we won, triumphalism, we lost, we said this, we're, but also embrace where your asset is going. Thanks. If you're sponsoring RefinerDAO. And, you know, he's on the losing thing. Go with that. Don't keep talking about winning and world number one and best on clay and this many wins. You know what I mean? Or, you know, integrity and honor. That's all fine. But you've bought you, you sponsored this person. You sponsored Serena, whoever. Go with them on their thing. And you can only do that if you've got a strong enough brand that can, you know, just float in that middle space where it doesn't matter if they're winning great. But if they're losing, you could, there's still some value to be gleaned. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, I mean, both of those examples, what's interesting is obviously you've got someone from outside of sport. You've got You know, famous musicians, actors. You get to the phrase cultural relevance, which is something that gets banded around a lot and people say, okay, well, we need to be in the culture. We need to be culturally relevant. And you hear brands say it. We had Pepsi on saying it. That's a constant theme now. playbook emerging. If people aren't careful, okay, we need someone from outside to come in to do that job for us. It's just another box to be ticked that we need the actor with some connection, that's job done, we're culturally relevant. Is that the danger of Are you talking about Snoop Dogg at the Olympics again? Well, yes. Because I know you feel strongly about that. Well, I think, you know, I, yes. What did you feel about, what did you feel about him? It was, you were not into it. I just I'm sure it works, data will tell me it worked for NBC or, you know, whatever, but it felt weird. And I just thought it looked a bit transactional if I'm completely honest and I mean, I'm sure it'll get awards. So, you know, and I might be wrong. I'm sometimes am, but it felt a bit odd. But I just think part of it, part of the reason I sort of felt odd about it was that I think, okay, when I can see, when I can see a brainstorm whiteboard in real time, when I'm watching something, it's like when you're watching a film and you start to see the words and the acting, you don't want that. You want to be sort of. I'd go as far to say when you pick something like that out of what seems to be complete obscurity, you're showing borderline disrespect for fans and people within the sport. I think the difference with these two, and I would defend it because it's home grounds work, but Barry Keoghan's got a really legit link with Man United. Absolutely loves them. You know, we've had people asking to be in these things. Black Sabbath, Aussie and Giza, massive Aston Villa fans. We know that, you know, you can see when Google shows you So they feel authentic. So it certainly wasn't a sort of badging exercise. You know, let's stick famous person on there. And actually, if somebody came to us and said, we've got this talent in this club. Can you do a thing? We'd probably say no. Because it has to feel right and you can, You know, pop cultures and trends in popular culture pop up all the time. That's the nature of the way we're consuming things. Now, if you just bring in a celebrity or somebody, someone or something to just reflect a mirror back at people about the thing that's happening, that they already know is happening. That's not really going to work. You have to be a bit smarter than that. And yet, like we say, the data can show us lots of stuff, but actually quite a lot of the time experience. Heavy level of cynicism and a bit of common sense is actually what you really get if you sit in a room and go, What's the thing that we really want to talk to people about? What's the thing that they're going to go? Oh, yeah, that's true. That feels real. And that's how you get to it. It's not easy. There's no there's no equation. But we definitely would, I hear what you're saying, like, If it felt like it was becoming a theme, we would 100 percent just take a left turn and be like, let's do something different. And that is what we, that is what we do. And you see it with that sort of creator thing. Okay. We need their audience. Let's bring them in. And you know, that just, that's another box ticked. that's not what creativity is. You know, it's not just a sort of moving of tables and you know, templates, but people want to template this stuff, don't they? That's, those are easy wins. Aren't they? Get what his face in and bring his 5 million followers or whatever. But I've seen plenty of stuff with celebrities in and influences in that sucked mean in fact more often than not. So it's no guarantee of success for sure. So there is, there is there is that who's. You can't have Cantona because I think he is Joe Gomez Not Vinnie Jones Joe Gomez I think he's a really good one, he's Paul Pogba As an actor? I think he's quite a good actor What did he act in? Well just in terms of on clips and on thing Oh There is something. I don't think he's acting. No. Well, that might be it. I mean, that's what he's performing. That's what he's like. I've we've worked with him. I've shot him, we've shot him a bunch of times. He's a great guy. I dunno. Football or athlete? A athlete. I mean, I love the sports person who then has to act in something.'cause that's always you. So you mean like in a commercial or something? Like in an ad? Yeah. I mean the probably the worst ever was Rory McIlroy on the Santander ads. I mean they were so bad as to be, you know, but that's good. He's not got it. He's not got it. He's not got it in his locker. You can tell. Who did we, Roy Keane's pretty cool. But you've got to remember most of the time they're just being asked to play themselves. So it doesn't really count as acting. So that's actually a really good challenge. We don't just work with clubs and launching jerseys at all. We're working with very exciting tech brand in music. At the moment we haven't got anything out the door yet, but we will do soon. And it's one of the most exciting things we've worked on in a while. So people who are bringing talent on board as not just ambassadors, but you know, sponsoring these guys and girls. And again that's a new thing. So who are they picking? Why are they picking them? Are they picking them because they are good on a pitch or good on a court or what have you? Or are they picking them because they've got something else, a bit of je ne sais quoi? These guys have got Or there's a commercial deal. Correct. Yeah. I mean, there are any number of reasons. But when you have smart people at the other end who are connected as a company, and they're talking about this, it's not just about money. They're also picking people. ascendancy, people that have got a bit of je ne sais quoi about them. Something enigmatic maybe, which is just catnip for these guys. We write a brief in the creative teams just go, wow, this is incredible. And we're getting to work with some players at the moment that we're able to write things specially for. So it's not just, you know, write me an ad that's going to do it for you. Sell me this pair of boots and by the way, put this person in it. They come into us and go, we're sponsoring this person. What are you going to do? So you get to write for that person. If they can perform brilliant, if they can't perform, you write something else, but it's got to be completely bespoke in every sense. So there, unfortunately, isn't that much cookie cutter that you can do. I mean, you can, if you want to create more commodity stuff, but you want to create something magical that people go, wow that's so insightful. You write for what that person is. That person or that athlete is really good at. I mean, there are it's fun. It's interesting because brands will normally just go, I'm sure there's some sophisticated metric internally where they decide who to go after. Right. And it will be about amount of followers. Are they stable? You know, are there any scandals? Are they going to, do they win a lot? All those kinds of things. But I bet you their personality, unless you're Nike, like where you. It isn't, it's not in the top three. It will be amount of followers. Do they win a lot? Do they look cool? But actually Like Paul Pogba, because he's, he's so charismatic. He's like incapable of being bland or boring. Yeah. I think it probably is charisma, isn't it? It's like the sort of, you sort of know it when you see it. As a creative, that's the most important thing to me as a CMO, obviously, probably not, but There's a question just to finish off really, and it's to do with the marketplace and we've talked about top Premier League, clubs, it's sort of lower down I've got a question, which is, they can't afford. much, but they've seen Wrexham they've seen various other things pop and they know, or have been told that they should start behaving more like a media company should have a, an aspiration in terms of their brand and be more entertaining. I'm wondering what they can do, what the limitations are and actually playing with the limitations of being smaller. Maybe part of the answer, but that's it. It's quite difficult to see how that's gonna evolve. And maybe it's just a social media question. Maybe it's just something they can be clever at locally. Yeah, I'd say you got to start with what can you afford to actually make, right? What is your playground and don't try and do anything beyond that and stretch yourself. And then, okay, once you've kind of come to terms with that, you can still blow the doors off everything because that's what social can do for you. You know, like the thing that you can be the biggest thing that day. It doesn't matter whether you're, you know, division four or Van or Armalee, whatever the, or Man United, but they got to have a good. handle on their story. just have to have, they have to have, they have to have a thing, right? Like whatever you want to call it an idea, a kind of an approach, a kind of a glint in their eye, whatever you they, and they have to have the ambition, right? It's, they can't come at it like we need some social media content. So let's make some social media content. The brief to themselves has got to be like, we got to be the biggest thing on the internet today. What could we If Messi just ate a sandwich and you posted that, it would be the most watched thing, right? But you know, what does it mean really? What would he? So there's that and then and I think that also even small clubs, small outfits their audiences still want their club to be, they still want to be proud of their club, right? In beyond football. So they would love it if their club did something. It's like, yeah, that's my club that and that's actually our tenet at home ground is how can we get other clubs fans to love this? It's not about we don't need to know no worry about catching the United audience. That's fine. That's done How do we get you castle or the London clubs or everyone to be like fuck this? That's sick. I love that. I wish that was my club. Yeah, I wish that was my club. Yeah. And they have to start by being honest, don't they, about who they are. Anyone can do that. You don't need a massive budget to do that. You don't actually need to make anything. You need to sit down and go, who are we? Who are our people? Because your people in West London or Brighton are going to be very different from your people up in Sunderland. Or like, they're just culturally different. Everything's different. The fibre of each club is totally different. Who are we? And what do we want to say? Well, what do we want our people to say about our club and be really honest? And that's a really good place to start because although they might not all be making big campaigns, they will be sending out newsletters. They will be trying to sell season tickets. They will have hoardings around their stadiums, even if they're non league side versus whoever. You know, they've got the local media on side, they've got players who are talking to people. What's the thing we're all saying? Be consistent, be honest, and say something interesting about yourself. Once you've got that sorted, you can go anywhere from there. But that's the thing that's gonna stick with you and be true and remain something that is true to your fans that they can use. Regardless of your performance. Who's that goalie that was podcasting his matches live? Was it Ben Foster? Yeah. And he had a GoPro in the goal. Dude, that would work if it was the smallest club in the league. If it was the goalie just every now and again popping over to the thing and saying, This right wing is a right shit house. I mean, I've had my eye on him the whole game. He's a right And he was just doing that and it became a thing. That would be the most watched thing out there and it wouldn't matter how big the club is. In fact the smaller the club the better and the most fun content actually on there is all the candid stuff that you see in the lower leagues and sunday leagues and all that kind of stuff because it's real and it's authentic and so they've definitely got their own lightning to bottle you don't have and it's got nothing to do with size and star players and stuff. It does sort of again it made me think of a just a question as you were talking there. And Polly, this might be for you in terms of, there's a question about the story when it reaches an international audience. So you mentioned the NFL, you know, everyone is congregating around this sort of global fan. So with the Avids, we'll be fine, you know, they'll be catered for. But there, everyone is reaching for that group of people. So what That story looks like, and does it change, you know, the confidence of maintaining that when you're talking to an American or a different audience. The other bit to it is, should the women's team have the same story as the men's? So the first part of the question about the international fan again that's a bit of a monolith of a, of an idea. You can't talk to everybody. Every club will have, or every club with a marketing department will have an idea of where the pockets of their fans are. I think the smartest thing you can do is work out what you stand for, who your people are, and then find sort of copycat communities around the world. Not even copycat necessarily but, cultures and cities and who had shared similar experiences to you. So good example is, you know, looking at a Newcastle, for example, you know, their post industrial, you know, they've got a very rich history and sort of gritty working class values. They talk a lot about progress, et cetera. You know, what are the other cities around the world? that have matching values to you. You're probably going to have quite a lot in common. Your message is probably going to land pretty well. They're probably going to go, fuck yeah. I feel, you know, I can get on board with that. Do that. Don't treat everybody as the same thing. Cause it's just not going to land. And everybody, as long as you know who you are, you can map those communities around the world and you can go out to them and they can go, yeah, we've got something in common. In terms of should the women be the same as the men? I have personal feelings about that. And I think Obviously, a lot of brilliant progress has been made over the last few years, but there definitely has been a clamour in communication to, to sort of equalise. And I think what that means is that, you know, a lot of the briefs we get around women's football and all sports contain words like unapologetic and we're fierce and it's just as fast and furious. And if you talk to anyone down the pub, you still hear that refrain, which is around, Oh, it's actually quite good, really. You know, there's always. That comparison, whether they say it or they don't, it's always there. And I get that's fine. I could get that, you know, I'm a feminist, but I'm not fuming about it. It's just the way it is. And everybody's working really hard to try and equalize. And so they're pushing, I think a bit of a bit of that narrative and trying to guide communication to go in that way. We're just as strong. We're fierce. And we've had some brilliant role models over the last few years. My daughter plays a lot of football and she looks up to Mary Earps. And the way that Mary Earps carries herself and yells and like, she's amazing. She's fierce and ferocious. Is that the only way a female footballer needs to be portrayed in the media? Absolutely not. But by putting words in your briefs around, I'm an unapologetic sports girl, I'm strong. Yeah, maybe that works, but what I don't think people have done yet is enough research into what women's sport culture or women's football culture really is and what it actually needs to be. So, what does it look like around and about? How do girls really want to be spoken to and about? And I don't know what the answer is yet, but what I do know is it's, we need to be very careful not to try and equalize too much and use the same words and show them in those same ways. There's been a lot of good work in rugby recently, the PWR has, have tried, it's not our work, but they've tried to show women in all sorts of different ways, shapes and sizes and fashion and non fashion and fierce and, and soft and that's been really good. That's I think had some success. The Rugby World Cup is talking about energy which is great. That's a better way because energy can be ferocious, fierce, powerful energy. It can also be emotional energy, you know, so we need to look at things that can show us a gamut. But what I don't think we know yet is what people really want. And I think a lot of people need to spend time really making sure we're not putting words into people's mouths in terms of how they, you know, Should be receiving women's sport. Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting because also there, you know, you've got a marketplace That is evolving rapidly across not just in football, but in rugby in cricket. You've got the hundred franchises Yeah, you've got a whole load of different things going on and they're all looking for an audience and You get back to this, you know, the thread of this conversation is the story, you know, what is it? That's a really interesting point. But for this generation of younger girls coming into sport, who are going to be our consumers of the future, They aren't quite as cognizant of the struggle that I'm of that sort of lost footballing generation. I did play rugby, but you know, I didn't have the opportunity to play football like my daughter does. So I'm aware of the struggle. I work in sport in a lot of, in a lot of different areas. And we are fighting, but those girls don't know about that yet because they've actually got these things. Facilities now, they don't actually know they don't have as much access as the boys when they're little. So when you're shouting at a seven or an eight year old girl to be unapologetically yourself, My daughter doesn't want to be apologetic. She just likes playing football. Mary Earps is an absolute legend, by the way. I'm not knocking that type of thing, but I see that word all the time and I'm like, I don't know if these girls are on that flex. I don't know if they're, they know that they're fighting anyone yet. They'll find out. They'll find out. From a pure sort of comms view, it got very tedious. The whole girls can play too. And like, you know, and it's like, really, is that all there is to it? Is that, because as Polly said, it's like, it's okay to not know What it's gonna, what way it's gonna go. It's a different game, but it might be something that people watch both men's and women's football, or people will choose. And it's okay to not know, and everyone's like pretending to know because it's the hot thing that, you know, Is gonna get some more money behind it, and everyone wants some of it. So they need to position themselves that they've got it all figured out. And, you know, I don't think anyone does. The only thing I would say is that is the equalization things is like really tedious. Conversely, it's also the thing around, like, it just feels like it's sort of forced propping up. It needs, you know, it needs propping up, like, let's protect the girls and give them the, that's tedious as well, because there are a lot of badass players that you can watch that don't need any. Help. Thank you very much. We're talking about Bon Mati and players like that who are just amazing to watch. But yeah, and the other, the only other thing I'd say is again, as a dude, it feels like the things that maybe we throw money at and not the things that would get it to where it needs to go. Like if there were just more games in the main stadiums, I think that would be massive. Because you want the occasion bit as well, right? You want it to feel You need to listen to Expected Goals. Yeah, there you go. I'll just say that. And obviously Grassroots as well, because we need more girls playing football, so there's more yeah. There's a bigger pool coming up, and more stars, because We need more yeah. Bon Mattys and Russos and I think And also, I think you should go on Expected Goals, because it's sort of They are covering this in a depth and a detail and at a perspective that is No one else is doing. I'm really Yeah. I think it's great. But that's a plug for our own podcast. So, but that will bring us to a, to an end. Listen, thanks. We could have gone for hours, so come back soon. But in the meantime, thanks a lot for your time.