Unofficial Partner Podcast

UP447 The 3: The 2024 Christmas Barrioke Wrap Episode

• Richard Gillis

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The 3 is back for a special Christmas episode, looking back at the sports business in 2024.
Richard is joined by David Cushnan and James Emmett from Leaders in Sport, each of whom is tasked with revealing their most interesting story, person and sport from the year in the sports industry.
What could go wrong?

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James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

always pretty relentless on all fronts, I

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Christmas season, how we found that? We're now, what is it? We're, what, what's the date? 20th of December. Got five days to go to make it through. I think it will now pair off. This, this weekend feels like the sort beginning of the end.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

it's really when your, your professional life sort of ramps up and hits the same kind of cadence as your personal life. Like you're, you're just saying yes to everything and, uh, constantly hung over, Richard, I guess in your case, maybe.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Well, I mean, actually I say no to 90 percent

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Oh, do you? Okay.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

That's, that

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. I'm very hard to get out of the house after six

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Because you're at a lot of stuff. simply can't believe you're getting that many

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Rich, what is your, what's your traditional sort of Christmas uh, routine? I guess you're a, I guess you're a darts guy, right? You go to the, you, no, no?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

no.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Have you ever been to the darts? No, neither have I.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Those are 90 percent of the invitations that you decline, right? Come to the darts, Richard. No, yet again, it's a no.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I'm sure it's great fun. It looks, looks good fun. It's become a sort of, you know, there's a sort of meta thing going on, isn't there, about, you know, a sort of post ironic thing. There's the, there's the darts, and then there's the sort of middle class hipsters look at us at the darts type of

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Did you see they've actually put a VIP section in this

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah, and Murray Barnett was there the other day, you must have seen him Rich. Talking, talking of middle class hipsters.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

No.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

in Brighton, closer to home the other day? It was the talk of the town. Barry from EastEnders, whatever his name is.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Bariokia, what a fantastic idea.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

imagine what it, what it is. But it's got a darts vibe to it.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

That is brilliant. He think, I think he is an incredibly underrated actor. When in, I mean, when he was in, um,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

though. You think he's underrated, but

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Extras, Sean something or other, isn't it?

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

from EastEnders, that's what he's called.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I thought he was really, really good in Extras, and I think he's really funny but he's deeper than that as well. I'm surprised he doesn't get loads and loads of work. You never see him

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

But he must be making

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

an important touring show that does all the provinces.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Wow. Barry Oakey. Fantastic. What I found this quite difficult. this job that we've given ourselves.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Hang on, remind us what the job is, Rich.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay. The job

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

should we introduce ourselves or should we wait till the end again

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

yes. So I am Richard Gillis from the Unofficial Partner Podcast, which people will know because they've clicked on the Unofficial Partner Podcast. So, you know, there's a, there's a sort of assumption, you know, built in, but who are you to?

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Well, I'm James Emmett from Leaders in Sport and I'm the editorial director there.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

And I'm David Cushnon, same company, slight different job title, content director.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Is there a sort of hierarchy between you two? Are you sort of, there's a, there's a, one is higher than the other. I'm not going to ask which

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

No, a hundred, a hundred percent rich and it it's, it's sort of, it's a crown. It's a sort of a floating crown. It's a weekly competition, uh, to be more senior and actually better paid. Uh,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

sort of sexual frisson.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Is

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

there? we work quite hard with HR, Rich, to make sure

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

very

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Sounds like you can't keep your hands off each other.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I'm not sure.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Or am I just projecting?

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

you're rejected.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

odd way to start a very

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I don't, Richard, I'm not sure, I'm not sure how you and Sean work together, but that is absolutely not how David and I do it.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

We occasionally attend, we occasionally attend the same meetings, is the reality.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yes. Which I think, you know, at our age that will do that. So the job, the task, so 2024 in review, and David has come up with this format sort of calling it a format, but it's a, so we all each bring a story, a person,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

it a format, yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah, a story, a person and a sport and we've sort of under bracketed off, you know, most interesting or whatever it is.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

When you, When you, say, can I just say, Richard, when you say I came up with the idea, correct, I did, but I won't, I won't die on the hill of this idea. Okay, you know, it's very much, very much

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

open to

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

yeah, top, top line concept.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Well, I think this is sort of the, the challenge I had was the, there's an obvious, the obviousness problem. And then you get to, okay, so it's, it's an Olympic year, or it's a Euro's year, or it's, it's a Saudi question, or it's a, whatever. And, Then you say, right, okay, what if I don't choose one of those? And then you're sort of being deliberately contrarian just for the sake of it. And you say, right, I can, and I'm going to go in pursuit of interesting angles. And I'm not, I'm leaning into David's A to Z of the year, which, you know, is, I'm in mourning for the decline of Twitter. Is it coming out? Are you doing it again for 25?

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

TBC, TBC, Richard, we're looking for a, you

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

100 percent you're doing it.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

I'm doing it, it's just, I'm doing it, but it's just how we're, how, how it's distributed is, uh, you know, remains a question mark.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I think you take ownership of it yourself. You just, I think you take ownership of it yourself. Yeah, yeah. It's like Cushton's Truth Social.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Just one post a year.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

One post a year. so yeah, that was my dilemma. I'm gonna, so I'm gonna ask each of

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

the other thing to say to sort of set this up because I think we're setting up the format

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yes, we are now. We're

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

yeah, the other thing to say is we, in a change from the format of the first series of the three, we have not shared with each other what we're bringing to the table here, to bring a sort of, you know, a small element of jeopardy to

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Absolutely. Yeah. And, and, potential for fuck ups. That's also, that's also built into the, uh, to the process because obviously we are going to

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Well. If, yeah, well, if we do duplicate, it's on the person who goes second to either think with agility or simply fess up.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So, and then the other question is, do we go around? Here's my person. or do we do, do, do we do it? This is how do we do

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

well, should we open, should we, should we open all our presents first, display them in front of us, and then go round one by one saying, ooh, what's that? So, by that I mean, we all say what our person, our story,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Well, yeah, that's nice. Why

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Sport is, and then, and then we dig into it,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

I quite like that.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

because then it gives us some time when we do, uh, all have exactly the same story or person to, uh, uh, to think nimbly, to get something else.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

okay. Right. James, you go.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Okay, so, person, I actually have two options for person,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

That's unhelpful to the format, James. Okay.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

go with Emily Prazer, who is the Chief Commercial Officer of Formula One.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Okay.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Wow.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Um,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

reactions there.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

yes.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

I went with okay, Richard

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I've done, I've done a lot of uh, obviously sort of second guessing here David, because I assume that Formula One's going to be on your list somewhere.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Interesting assumption.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

hmm.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

the contrarian?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yes.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Now, sport, I, So I have messed up here because I, in my head, uh, wasn't thinking sport. I was thinking organization. And it's just dawned on me just now that actually we're thinking about sport, but I haven't been thinking that I've been thinking about organization and organization. I'm going with Netflix. If you want to change it into a sport, let's go with WWE slash, uh, acting and wrestling.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

and then story. I've got something to say about sumo wrestling, as ever. But the main one is a story from a little while back about UK sports industry salaries catching up with their US counterparts.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Ooh, that would be interesting to get into. Good. Right. That was annoyingly niche, wasn't it? That was that he's given some thought to this. I've got.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

niche.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I don't

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

man,

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Formula One and Netflix and these

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

who gave every indication of not having prepped for this. we are.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

What a swot. I bet he was like this at school. He'd finished the exam 20 minutes early.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Oh, who bothered, who bothered revising for this? I'll

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

I genuinely, I genuinely did that once and then turned the piece of paper over just at the end and realised there were, you know, five more questions.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

And here we

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

yeah, yeah, yeah, here we are doing some more moderating next year. Um, Richard, person, story and sport,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

No, no, you first.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Okay, uh, so my person is, uh, I'm going with Michelle Kang.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Ah, no, she was on my list, but yes, good.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Uh. Sports, I think we should talk a little bit about boxing

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Oh,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

and for my story I had a few but I think one that we should talk about is World Athletics deciding it was going to pay gold medal winning

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

ah, very good. Lovely choices. Solid choices.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

You got anything?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

And Michelle Kang was on my, uh, my list. I'm not going to show you the piece of paper, just because, but you have to just take me on trust. I certainly didn't have Emily Fraser of, uh, Formula One on mine, so that was good. I've got, so my obvious choice was Yasser Al Ramayen. Because of the way into the Saudi story, which is a dominant theme of the year. But I do think probably my person of the year is Infantino. So I might have to go obvious there. You've, you two have gone sort of, uh, you know, with interesting, but I'm going to go through the front door. My story, I was going to have Netflix and Tyson Paul because I think it's a container of lots of different things, but we'll leave that for James. James's one. So, I am going to go with the Nike German football shirt story from March of this year, which I thought again is there's a, an interesting sort of counterintuitive thing. And I think Nike are one of the big beasts, but also have had an up and down year. Let's put it that way. Sport. Oh, okay. I'm going to be really obvious here. I'm going to go, I'm not going to go for, Uh, so like you, James, I was thinking about is it property or sport? And we might need to mention Kings league at some point because it's, you know, it's become, uh, uh, fundamental, but I'm going to go with golf as a, as a sport that is going through interesting times. I was going to talk about paddle actually, but I'm not going to do that because I

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna do, I was gonna do a film review of something Rich, but then, but then I realized I haven't watched anything and dunno what I'm talking about.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Well, Paddle's interesting because of the commission. I say paddle, but it's actually pickleball, isn't it? That story I think is quite, is going to run through 2025 and what a sport is and etc. But we'll get into that in a minute. But right, James, away we go. Let's talk

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

What do you

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

where do you want to start with your list?

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

shall we start with the, should we start with Netflix?'cause that's the biggest thing, obviously. And I, what did I have this as the organization slash sport? So obviously you know, last minute pivot to actually talking about WE but really I'm talking about Netflix. So it was the beginning of this year, February, I think, Jan or Feb this year when Netflix, and T-K-O-W-E announced a gigantic$5 billion deal, uh, broadcast deal for W's, uh, raw, uh, line of events to be broadcast on Netflix from next year. And, I mean, it was a completely pivotal moment in sports media history, I would say. It's the first point at which Netflix jumped into live sports broadcasting with two feet. People have been flashing their ankles and, you know, wiggling their arses at Netflix for years without much without much reciprocation. Uh.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

noticed that! I think

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Look, look around

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

saw a

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Your home screen's been showing something different.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Rorschach test this.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

but at the beginning of the year the, the canny chaps at TKO, uh, which is an Endeavour property, so it's Ari Emmanuel, Mark Shapiro and that crew, managed to land, uh, one of the, the biggest fishes in the sea. Uh, when it comes to media, content, investment, power. And Sport will hope they've kind of opened the floodgates here, and there is some indication that that has happened, because just a few, a few weeks later Netflix were announcing another major deal with the NFL to broadcast live NFL games at Christmas time, in fact, just in a few days And since that point, Netflix has been carrying on with its, I think, if you take a macro view, it's quite clear that Netflix has been doing a test and learn. On sport in general, they've been mucking about with all sorts of content, really just to test things like concurrent streaming, technology, production, technique, and tone, uh, perhaps presentation, or discovery, search, all of the stuff that they need to do to run an effective sports streaming operation. And you can, and everyone has, taken advantage of that. Those individual things on a, on an individual basis and kind of analyse the shit out of them. And that's probably not wise. They're, they're all, it's all just a big test. So they've done they've all, they've done all sorts haven't they? They've done golf, they've done tennis exhibitions, they've done comedy, they've done comedy boxing. They've done, they've done all sorts. But it's all leading up to these NFL games over this Christmas period. And then Bang into WWE in earnest, but that I think is the organization of the year. If you want to call it the property, it's WWE for getting them in. Ari Emanuel joked actually later in the year that uh, that Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner owed him a significant commission. Uh, for essentially bringing Netflix to the, uh, to, to the NFL. But of course, Arie Emanuel is gonna, gonna want to joke about commissions. But yeah, that's my, uh, that's my organization of the year.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

David, views?

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Well, I think, and this was talked about a lot at the time it was announced, which was, as James said, right at the start of the year. The thing to say about WWE is that they have over the past good number of years been really at the cutting edge of new media models. They've been quite bold in what they do in terms of one of the first to launch their own streaming service, then making a bit of a pivot to, uh, one of the streaming services run by one of the major US broadcasters which was Peacock.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yep.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

And now Netflix, uh, what it delivers for Netflix is sports, but also sports entertainment, uh, but probably most importantly for Netflix, a pretty consistent year round product, which not a lot of sports actually are. And obviously, as James said, they've, they've, uh, now started to build out that sports portfolio. The NFL games in the next few days, I think you're going to be really fascinating. It has, uh, meant that Netflix has to move into line in some respects with some of the ways that traditional broadcasters work. So they're working with Nielsen in terms of proper, proper, more transparent audience ratings, uh, because they're selling advertising around all this stuff. It's interesting actually, Netflix have done a deal with CBS, so it will essentially be a CBS production of the NFL games, so Netflix really is the, uh, the delivery platform for this. And Yeah, we are going to see over the next over the next 12 months, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of excitement when this WWE deals kicks in in in a few weeks time. It's very nearly, and I think will be quite soon once a few contractual bits are sorted out, a global deal, which is also important to to Netflix, I'm sure, and makes things probably in a way a little bit more straightforward. for them rather than going into sort of the, uh, you know, geo blocking and all of that. Uh, so yeah, I think this is going to be, this is definitely, and we had this feeling when it was announced, one of those stories that is very quickly going to appear in a lot of trends decks and case studies being delivered to the sports industry by all sorts of people over the next, uh, few years probably. And it's a long term deal as well, isn't it, uh, James? Is it? Yeah. Is it as long as 10 years? But it's a substantial, a substantial partnership and, you know, good news for the rest of the sports industry who have been sort of, uh, working on the assumption and trying to play the game that Netflix were a bidder for rights all over the shop for the last few years. now they're actually at the table.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

And it's definitely worth saying that Netflix has quietly been building out its sports expertise. sports focus within the organisation. You know, just a couple of years ago, they really didn't have many people that were focused on sport. Uh, they had a chap called Bradley Edwards who's been there for a little while, who was kind of focused on the documentary Bits and Pieces, a guy with a really good sports background, uh, but since then, and we used to hear about Ted Sarandos all the time, he's always the chap who was quoted, uh, when Netflix commissioned a new show or did something wacky. And there's been less Ted in the sports stuff, uh, and more Bella Bajaria who is the relatively recently appointed Chief Content Officer there. Bela Bajaria supported on the sports side by Brandon Reig who is a big non fiction documentary guy, but is also the VP of sports, so I guess he now has a much broader responsibility. And then in a, in, in what is I'm sure a sign of things to come Netflix has a specific sports rights acquisition deal. Executive for EMEA. And as far as I know, they don't have any specific rights yet for EMEA. They've obviously got the WWE on a, on a almost global basis. But there's a lady called Lena Brunias who is the director of EMEA content acquisition for sport at Netflix. So building out a bit of a team which I think is a sign of, of where they intend to go.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right, very good. So, just a couple of slight builds or responses to that. One is, but is it sport? Is the question, is a question. NFL is obviously sport and a lot of the other stuff isn't. It's more in the entertainment side of things. There is a, the guy Greg Peters, I'm not quite sure of his job title, but he was at the FT Live event. In the middle of the year, he says an interesting quote he made. He talked about Netflix plans to Netflixify any sports they get involved in investing heavily in storytelling and unique productions, which is sort of, it's, it's what the WWE your point, David, they've been doing that for a very long time and they are very underrated in terms of just that side of it. And a lot of the innovation that we see now that would so called innovation they were doing a long time ago. So what does Netflixify mean? And if you are, I always think, okay, if I'm running a sport, how do I catch their eye? Or, you know, if that's the game that is now going to be played, what do I, what compromises do I need to make to my core sport? And therefore the audience of my sport to what would they, what would happen to my sport? If Netflix, you know, decided to invest heavily into it. And that's a question for everyone, I think, in terms of, you know, the, you get to an integrity type

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah. And also you get to, that's all very well when you are working in a sport that really feels the need to change. to, you know, to evolve or die. When you're working as Netflix are now with somebody like the NFL, I think they're going to be much more risk averse in terms of making big changes to the way the production looks, which is probably why they've got CBS, you know, involved. And it will look Any NFL game, what they are doing over Christmas is they're, they're building a halftime show and they're putting Beyonce in the middle of it, uh, to perform, again, which is a sort of, you know, building on the, you know, sort of mini Super Bowl and sort of trying to make these things feel like big events, big one off events, even if they sit in, you know, a larger seasonal narrative, I suppose, which is the same as they've been trying to do with, you know, As James said, award ceremonies and comedy and I think the odd music live music concert as well. Sport is the next thing and maybe news is the next thing after that.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I think with all of those things you mentioned there, Dave, the thing that I am yet to be I think Netflix absolutely can do sport and will do sport, and actually I think, to your point, Rich, Netflixify, what does it mean to have your sport Netflixified? I think it, I mean, it's just great production value and an episodic approach to storytelling, right? I think it's

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Well, that's, that's a rosy view of it. It's also, it could take a, take the sport and make it, know, trick it up

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Potentially. Potentially, yeah. But I honestly think that the most significant challenge that I still do not see them having solved, and I look forward to seeing what their approach is, for the NFL particularly, is in the search and discovery. In the kind of alert, there is something happening, it is live right now, you will want to watch this.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. Which gets to the sort of buzzer. Buzzer was ahead of its time. It was a great idea, but it just corporately or whatever, they just weren't powerful enough to get that away. Netflix are, it's a really interesting idea.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

and I will say My experience of watching sport on prime video, whether that was tennis or actually the Premier League stuff they've done now, they're doing the Champions League games on Tuesday in the, uh, Tuesdays in the UK, you know, that ticks all the boxes in terms of slick, professional, good people involved, clearly a very sort of well thought through production. They're not trying to, you know, revolutionise or gimmick up these things but they're delivering it in a really sort of sensible way. And ultimately. There's a trust in those products and as long as the thing works and you can stream it and, and to James's point, you can find it, then it's, you know, it's, it's good news all around.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

There's a sort of power dynamic to it. in play. You're not going to muck around with the NFL. It's just too valuable in its own right. And you know, you just can't do

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

don't need to, there's nothing,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

You don't need to.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

will be there, they'll be, they'll be big.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. I think again, talking, we talked about many, you know, many of the Christmas parties we've been to, I had quite a few conversations about what's, why the Premier League has taken its production in house away from IMG Media. And one of the readings that kept coming back was it makes them easier to buy. When you get to a Netflix, you know, you mentioned CBS production, Premier League having complete control over its production, whether that's, you know, via IMG or by themselves, they are streamlining themselves to make themselves easier to buy in that type of environment. So when a Netflix, you know, as James said, they are just, they are the retail end. They, they, you're not going to trust them with the production of it. So you present it to them in a simpler way as you can. And you own that production from start to finish. I can start to see that. I can see, I can see the point of that. Now I, what I don't know is I don't want to get into now in terms of why you had to do it in house and not have IMG do that because that's what they've always done. But that's the, you know, that's minutiae. But there's a I think that's the significance in that. Because I can see as the over the next 10 years, they're going to start to look at Apple, Amazon, Netflix as much more central to the thing, rather than these marginal sort of test and learn type experiences, they are then going to sort of go in the other bit, I'd say, which I think is quite interesting on the other side of that, which again, leans into what Greg Peters was saying at the FT thing was that They are, Netflix like to frame themselves against Amazon in a very favourable way. So they, they're saying, you know, he's, the quote was Amazon came into the market in a pretty strong way. My general sense is that they are an advertising company. This is core, a core part of their DNA. So their angle was it's advertising. And then you have this option of sort of buy out of it if you want, but it really, it's advertising first. And very much like Amazon does, they Came at sport and said, their mantra is your margin is my opportunity. They came in and said, we are going to drop to the bottom essentially and start to compete from that basis. And that's their playbook. He's saying that Netflix is premium. Amazon are discounters. Netflix are the creative. They are the Hollywood to Amazon who are shopkeepers. That's a, I think it's interesting keeping an eye on that. It's obviously Amazon would come back and say sod off, but. That sort of framing in the marketplace on the other side, because quite often the conversation is about what sport has to do to get to Netflix, I think it's quite interesting that they're trying to put some sort of white space between themselves on the other side of that.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

but that's very sort of philosophical, isn't it? Because, uh, if Amazon's an advertising company and Netflix is premium Hollywood, then Netflix is competing in sport at Amazon's level. They are only doing sport because they want to be an advertising company. So

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, I, I'm deeply skeptical that Netflix is a premium sports destination at the moment, because you look at, you know, the obvious Tyson versus Jake Paul, and it trying to present that as top of the market is, is a bit of a stretch. I thought it was just a sort of just a greedy stunt and. If that's the way in which it's going, that's the way Netflix perceives premium sport. I am not buying into that at all.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

That may well be the case, I wouldn't disagree with that. I do think for the sports industry there is a a little, you know, there's a little bit of mystique around the Netflix brand. It's, it's still, I think, for a lot of people, feels a little bit out of reach. You know, everybody wants the documentary on there, everybody wants the behind the scenes. There's something, uh, you know, I'm not quite sure whether that's premium, but certainly I think there is a, there's some brand attributes there. On the Amazon side, I think the, the argument that they would make is that, and I think this is true, The opportunity that a lot of people in the sports industry see with Amazon, and I'm not quite sure if it's ever sort of fully played through, is the sort of potential access to a much sort of richer data set, you know, making the link, much more directly between watching something and then going and buying the product. I'm not sure if we've seen the case study of that in action, sort of end to end yet, but I think that's the, that would be the pitch.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. Right. We're half an hour in

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

which is why Fanatics is the next broadcast platform to watch, in my view.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Okay,

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

That is pure sport advertising by this product that you see here.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

and I will just add, on this, uh, shopping point, because we're half an hour in. Just keep an eye on what QVC is doing in America. Uh, QVC has bought, started buying, at a very, a very sort of small level a number of little sports rights as they sort of look to, you know, launch QVC 2. 0 or 3. 0 or whatever it is.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

and the final and on this, because it's the other sort of elephant in the room, so to speak, is the sports betting market in the US. So it says, so why, why, what that does to the value of media rights. In the US market, and you know, we obviously had Sam Sadion from LiveScore who could, you know, attributed an enormous amount to the NBA's Jump from 25 billion to 75 billion. And it's about the opening up of betting markets, the rate, the way that opens the taps of advertising and betting advertising that can then be recouped by the,

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

think, I think his point was largely about the, the extra engagement, Rich, whereas it's not necessarily the direct link from, uh,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I think it's both. I think it's definitely, it's definitely engagement, but that with engagement comes commercial opportunities to then, you know, but also it does also mean that, you know, you are tapping into DraftKings and, you know, that advertising budget. That you wouldn't necessarily have had before and whether you do it directly as a sport or whether you just take advantage of it indirectly by via just a media sales aspect, I think. I think it's really fundamental. And I think, you know, when you look at Netflix opening up an ad tier around sport, that is number one on their deck is the betting brands, because they are spending like maniacs to, to try and penetrate this, this really difficult market. It looked, you know, the gold rush argument, people are now over that and saying, well, actually it's a duopoly and how do we attack it? And is it worth attacking it? And to attack it, we're going to have to spend a gazillion on marketing.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Do you know what, Richard? We are on track for the first four and a half hour, uh, Unofficial Partner podcast. Nine stories, half an hour for the first.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Do you remember? It was

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

but I do think, I do think actually that that one,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

concept?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

say again,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

the original concept, wasn't it?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

it was, it that, which was ambitious in retrospect.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Right, who's next? Where are we? Story two?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Well, okay, let's go round. I wanna hear James is, oh no, we started with James, didn't we? So David, I want to hear your, uh, person.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Okay my person of the year industry figure of the year. I'm going with Michelle Kang. So, uh, healthcare, And she has become one of, if not the most, prominent figure in the continued development, investment of women's football around the world. So she, uh, has been building this portfolio of clubs over the last number of years. Washington Spirit in the NWSL. She did a really sort of first of its kind deal to sort of carve out the women's team, uh, of Olympic Lyonnais in France. And then I think about this time last year, actually, I think it was December last year, she, uh, bought, uh, London City Lionesses, uh, in the UK, in England, which is the Biggest. independent women's football club in the country. So not affiliated to a, a men's team. Uh, so she's been building this portfolio of clubs, but she's also been doing a number of really interesting things. She's, uh, created this brand Kyniska to sort of sit over the top of these club investments. She has, uh, Given the go ahead and invested$50 million on research into, uh, female players uh, sort of injury, rehabilitation, performance, health. And she has also made two, uh, donations, philanthropic gestures which caught the eye. One was just after the Olympics where she announced she donated$4 million to. Uh, U. S. Rugby, U. S. Women's Rugby, and then, uh, just a couple of months ago, she announced a 30, again, another donation, 30 million dollars in, uh, U. S. Soccer. And, uh, I think there's a lot of interesting bits here. There's obviously the big story is the continued momentum and development of women's sport and women's football in particular and what that looks like. There's the multi club model being played out and there's obviously a couple of other organisations, Monarch Collective, Mercury 13, as well as Canisca who are trying to, trying to play that game. But Michelle Kang is certainly furthest forward in that multi club mission. And And then you've got this, the, the donation bit, which I, I wonder how You know, this 30 million donation. And of course, you know, it's a philanthropic gesture. It's nobody should sort of be critical of that. But I think it does raise an interesting question about the sustainability and the perception of sustainability in women's football and the business of women's football and what that looks like going forward. Somebody should do a podcast about this on a weekly basis, Richard. But I think there's a few things there, but I think Michelle Kang has really You know, she's put herself at the top in terms of leading from the front. She's clearly doing it as a passion play. But she's, she's, you know, she's now got these three clubs and she's got plans for more. That she's certainly seems to be completely intent on building into, uh, you know, one big business and three really successful clubs in each of their markets.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yes. Okay. So I think it's a really interesting story. I mean, I think that you've hit on a really good question there. It is, you know, investment or patronage or a sort of combination of both. And actually the signal and there's a sort of reality and the signal of it. And the, the reality is really helpful. The money is incredibly important at this point in the development of the sport and the rest of it. There are a load of people who sit around the industry who are questioning to varying degrees. Do you know, is this viable? Blah, blah, blah. And the patronage bit just gives them another, stick. We wish to beat women's football because there's a lot of people that just don't either don't like it Don't want it are threatened by it and want to then have a you know pop at its commercial viability and This blurs the line, I think so. It's quite interesting again you can't argue with the amounts of money and whether it's necessary and there's a whole load of things because it's so That the the need is so high across the board in terms of like the health thing You I think he's a really, you know, we had the whale on Baz Moffat. That's a really fascinating story. Just the sheer lack of understanding of, of the research on a, you know, from a sports science perspective. So there's a massive gap that has to be caught up quickly and philanthropy is going to be, have to be a part of it because not all of it is going to have a sort of recognizable return on investment model. And, but, but quite a bit of it will, and you do need these very rich people to step in. That's always been the case. It's always been the case in men's football, men's sport, that there's been, you know, if you look at men's rugby, that's full of rich, blokes who have come in and been supporting the game and are losing a lot of money. And we don't mention that as philanthropy, but that's pretty much what it is. So I think there's a question that, you know, that, that bit of it is really interesting how it will evolve. And I dunno the other bit is the multi club thing. And I think the really interesting moment will come. And obviously we've seen Como as a, as a case study, London Lionesses, and we've seen Angel City being, bought by the Disney guy, Iger and Willow Bay's wife. So you've got this movement going on. There is excitement which is tempered with the usual questions about, financial viability of it, et cetera, et cetera. And then obviously you've then got the Women's Super League at the middle of this, which again, again, interesting question is, and that's running in terms of, you know, its relative size with the NWSL in the States. So you've got all these sort of questions running and what that means to enterprise value to these investors. When and if. Michelle Kang and or Mercury or someone else comes in and buys Man United women, I think will be a really interesting moment because I think you know that all the signals from Jim Ratcliffe is that he doesn't, he's not interested in it or he's just feels that it's secondary, all of the vibes coming from that story are that they're not thinking about this and that's always been the problem. So same with other other significant clubs once a major. WSL club, Premier League club and or, you know, European club sells its women's club or stake in it. I think that would be really fascinating because I think working that through will tell us quite a lot about what the marketplace is. So it's, I think it's really interesting and I keep, as you say, we've launched Expected Goals this year and that's been awesome. I've really loved that because actually it devotes enough time to these questions because they're big questions which have a universal application across lots of different sports. I think it's a really interesting thing. And obviously, as you know, you both guys were both there at our BAFTA event where we had Zara from the WSL and talking about player carve outs and innovation around the broadcast rights and where this product plays out. plays in relation to modern behavioral habits, you know, how we're consuming stuff, the scroll, all of that. So there's, there's a load in it. And I agree that she, Michelle Kang is a really key figure from 2024, James Emmett.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah, just a couple of quick bits and really just reinforcing what you've said there, Rich. Uh, the whole benefactor versus business strategist thing. Uh, it's academic really. I think throughout any, uh, area of culture or entertainment or art throughout history the notion of a kind of, uh, benefaction or patronage is, is absolutely central and these people, you know, art, art patrons, for example, who fund artists to make art, they're art collectors. They are passionate about what they're doing and also they've got business interest in it. They know that these things have value. They don't all have value. It's the same really with investment. You know, these investors that go around splashing cash on 20 different projects, they know that 18 of them are going to fail. It doesn't matter as long as two, uh, win for them. As you say, Rich, I think the two things come hand in hand. The multi club thing is really interesting, I think. And I wonder whether The women's football space is perhaps a lower risk, lower cost. area to kind of experiment with what multi club ownership could actually mean and I know it's really difficult for people who are involved in it to talk about it in the men's game for fear of, I presume for fear of getting stung by regulators or pinged for doing something that's a bit naughty because like if you talk about it dispassionately and without interest multi club ownership should enable you to Move players between clubs, uh, getting around the usual way of doing that. So doing it for cheap and doing it without market interference. And, why not, it should allow you a degree of creative accounting. Moving losses, uh, from one entity to another. It's all part of the same holding company In business terms, that's absolutely fine. But obviously no one's going to talk about how that actually happens. But I wonder whether the women's game is a kind of, is a, is a lower risk and lower regulated environment for experimenting with that kind of thing to see how it

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Hmm.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

And, and to add to that, I think the, the, with the London City Lionesses, because they are not affiliated to a men's club, I do think there is a bit more scope to do things in a slightly different way, be a bit more inventive, maybe a little bit, be a little bit bolder in terms of how they, how they approach, uh, marketing and promoting themselves. Obviously it's, it's relatively rare to have a new. What will at some point presumably become professional team with London in the name. And I think that has some advantages. They're obviously playing on the Lionesses name as well. And I think all this talk about club football, we're in a new phase of women's football, clearly, you know, if we compare to, we wouldn't be having this conversation four years ago, frankly. And there's been such a lot of focus on the club game in 2024. 2025, I'm interested to see whether that momentum, that sort of interest, continues because we're now into a couple of years where we're moving back into sort of the international game coming to the fore. You've got Euro 2025, so there's going to be another Lionesses summer, which again, is definitely helpful and definitely puts women's football on a platform in the UK certainly, but across Europe. And then we're Uh, just, you know, just over a couple of years away from the, the next World Cup in Brazil in 2027, which is a great time zone, not just for the US, but for Europe, sort of prime time prime time coverage. So, yeah, I think there's, uh, yeah, a lot to be, a lot to be excited about, and I expect Michelle Kang to be, uh, right at the forefront of it.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Very good. Okay. We are not going to get through all of these, but it doesn't matter. We can just pick off. We'll have one we'll have, we might, it might even be just, we choose one of our choices

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I think we can rattle through people, can't we? We can just do that really quickly.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm going to go. So my story moment or one of the moments, it came from sort of March and it was Adidas and the German football shirt. And now that's been, that's switched to Nike. So the DFB decision to switch the supply and the national team's kit away from Adidas. Absolute shitstorm in Germany, politically. seen as, as, uh, selling one of the crown jewels. I think one of the, so Adidas has supplied the kit. Oh, I've got a fact here. It's always quite nice for the German national football team for more than 70 years, Nike agreed to pay about a hundred million euros, or 86 million quid per year to supply the kit, doubling Adidas's payment of 50 million euros. And I can hardly imagine the German jersey without the three stripes. Mr. Habeck, of, uh, who is a German politician, said for me Adidas and black, red, gold always belong together a piece of German identity. So you then get into, you know, the shirt as an emblem of national identity. And we had sort of a similar, less interesting, confected shit storm around the England team with a, with a rainbow cross on it. And, I am very. Quick to be flip about these types of things and people sort of, you know, use of the national shirt as national identity, etc, etc. But some people take it really seriously and a lot of football fans take it really seriously. So that's there's a bit of, you know, that. Part of it, there's a bit of anti Americanism in here. There's a, there's a whole load of different stuff. If you then drill down to when I, we, we went to it's the sort of knock on effects. I think which are quite interesting for a sport business conversation, which is having spent that amount of cash on the German shirt. What does it say about Nike and Adidas? Where are they relative these two massive? Figures in the in the landscape and the knock on effect is, you know, I was at the ECA, the European Club Association, a very good conference they do in Madrid and not quite quickly after this story broke and a lot of The club commercial people were shaking their heads about what the implications are going to be and what, you know, how it impacts Nike's spending ability in the club shirt marketplace and what that says and how that is going to play out and how Adidas were going to then respond in that way. So again, trying to, trying to sort of look at the domino impact. Of this and whether it means that Nike, it was a signal and one of the readings was it's a signal that Nike are going to sort of go smaller, but much more high value contracts. So they're going to reduce its portfolio and to a few. Big ticket shirts and athletes. And likewise, what, what, you know, how Adidas is going to respond. A lot of people were hoping that Adidas were then going to come out and spend like maniacs. All of which is fine. And then we get to the other bit of this, which is Nike themselves have had a strange year and getting a lot of criticism in terms of the way in which they have over indexed on performance marketing, digital, and. at the expense of, the classic Nike brand positioning advertising that they are famous for and that has been central to their sort of DNA. And now I'm always skeptical of binaries. I don't think it's one or the other, but the bloke lost his job over this. So I think that's quite, you know, a useful lens and it's real. And it also talks to there's a data versus story element to this and Nike, you know, Nike, always about story, the great sort of, uh, legendary advertising, Whedon and Kennedy. All of that goes back a long time and is inherent in the brand and the accusation from people in America that the You know, the company then became a bit too obsessed with smaller stuff at the bottom of the funnel, the classic marketing funnel conversation. And, you know, Nike are top of the, the champions of the top of the funnel, brand awareness, brand story, intangible

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

so this was Nike replacing John, a man described here, John Donahoe as numbers driven but replaced in October with company veteran Elliot Hill, and here's the story, he started at Nike as an intern in 1988 and then left and came back, so there's, that plays into what you're just saying there.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Having written a book about leadership and its relationship to stories. I love numbers driven because people, the leaders of any organization, and this includes football managers, it includes all sorts of people from across, you know, politicians.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Podcast owners.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

We like to divide them into artists and engineers because that's the binary that allows us to say numbers driven, narrow, and the big picture creative and there are then secondary stories if it goes, when it goes wrong. Those are the sticks by which you be. The creative wasn't into the detail enough, got outwitted by the science and engineering, the data argument. And then the data person is, is a narrow spreadsheet obsessed, can't see the bigger picture. So you start to then divide and the story then starts to take momentum over a period of time. And you see that all the time with, with the way in which we talk about leadership. But yes, that's a,

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

is that a similar thing, Rich, to the uh, the thing where you're supposed to be able to divide every single human up into, they're either a pig or a rat, just looking at them facially. You're either a pig or a rat. Engineer or artist, pig or rat.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Richard, you've, you've got an open goal here for a follow up question if you want.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not even going to go there. I think I've, I've literally, I mean, I've read a lot of leadership books and I've read a lot of, I've not read pig and rat.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Sort of Chinese proverb, I think. Something like that. Can I tell you about Adidas and why the Germans are upset about Adidas leaving the German national team, or not renewing the German national team, need to get off their high horse a bit. So Adidas has about 160, 000 shareholders. Do you know the single largest shareholder in Adidas is? Presumably a good sturdy German chap, right? One of these German industrialists who sits on the board at Adidas, maybe Bayern Munich as well? No?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

No.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

The single largest shareholder in Adidas is Aston Villa owner, the Egyptian, Nassif Sawiris, who owns 6 percent of Adidas. So, in terms of it being, you know, solid German business for German people, not so much these days. It's a multinational company with a multinational shareholding.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I thought you're going to say Kanye West at one point. Now I thought that would be quite a nicely counterintuitive.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

they've probably given him a load of shares, haven't they? Also,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

as a market. And, uh, I think, uh, Two Circles expanded into Germany this year and sort of noted the same thing, that it's, it's obviously a major European market, major European economy, very mature sports market, but we don't really talk about it too much. And, uh, Uh, of course, one of the things that happened this year, sort of link back to the sort of investment piece, was the Bundesliga clubs turning down private equity investment. And, of course, there's all sorts of rules around club ownership in Germany. There was the story of Borussia Dortmund doing the sponsorship deal with the ARMS. company that was signed and then I think was uh, they effectively had to sort of terminate the agreement because it was a, such a backlash, uh, from fans. So there is a, there's a particular, uh, there's a particular attitude without generalizing too much, there's a particular attitude I think towards corporate involvement, corporate creep in and around sports, which is why you can probably, you know, have imagined the reaction to the, the Nike news

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

100 million seems to be the going rate now, for like the very top. 100 million a year, uh, seems to be the going rate for the top sports properties for their Apparel, official Apparel provider. Yeah, Barcelona Nike was around, it was just over 100 million Euros.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

round number

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

It is very suspicious. Yeah, Brazil renewing with Nike as well for a hundred million a year. But there are some things, so Barcelona and Brazil I can get at a very sort of surface level that these shirts, this apparel might have popularity outside the home country. Barcelona shirts you see everywhere, Brazil shirts you see everywhere. Germany, and I appreciate this a massive market. With a lot of spending power domestically. I'm not seeing a lot of Germany shirts Elsewhere around the world and I wonder a whether that hundred million figure is just a journalistic shorthand for lots

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

But you're also paying for the publicity, aren't you, of taking the great Adidas German relationship and sort of blowing it up.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah Then Adidas are on the Italy shirts now as well. I mean that was her They, they, uh, that was the first time that Adidas were on the Italy shirts for many, many years. There was some kind of, I mean, obviously it wasn't a scandal in the same way as, uh, Adidas losing the Germany shirts, but there was definitely a brouhaha around that one happening.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right, let's whiz around people. you've done people? You've done your Michel

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

David's done a person.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

yours, James?

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

So my person, uh, Person of the Year 2024 well I've got two, I've got a runner up and a winner, and very quickly

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

haven't got time for runners up,

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Well, you don't, you don't have to respond, you don't have to respond to it, but I was thinking about having Marina Storti, uh, as my person of the year, 2024. She's the CEO of WTA Ventures. She's done her first full year at the helm there in women's tennis, enacting the opaque will of CVC the, uh, investor into that property.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

CBC's managing partners.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah, well, I think

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Or it could be a sort of Nick Cave album.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Or it could be a name for Bob Iger's next wife. Sort of Willow Bay and then Opaque Will. So yeah, she's been steering through very choppy waters underneath the surface, at least in tennis this year. A lot of a lot of chop and change, uh, potentially going on there. She's brought in Uh, obviously her mandate is commercial. She is brought in Rolex, SAP, Whatsapp and Piff and has forged much greater links, much more lucrative greater links with Saudi Arabia in general. A really good solid first year in a difficult position I would say and also, uh, it's worth saying she's sort of one of us Marina Storti. I think she had a stint at sport business which I think she was at TV sports markets for a little bit, uh, and did some conference selling with Informa. So there we go, but

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I mean that TV sports markets is like a sort of university of the sport, you know, you've got Miriam Sherlock selling is the Premier League's

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Wasn't pickles there?

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

pickles was there both Premier League stalwarts now, aren't they? They're they're, you know, the, the, the sellers of the crown jewels, the media rights around the

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

and they are absolutely embedded in that.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Anyway, Marina's daughter didn't quite get it. I think she's had a great year. But I don't think you can look much further than Emily Prazer, who is the Chief Commercial Officer for Formula One. She is fierce and formidable, Emily. She is an amazing and very industrious person. She was kind of moved out a couple of years ago. from Formula One's London headquarters to lead the Las Vegas project for Formula One, ahead of that race's launch last year, and seem to do a fantastic job. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that year two underwhelmed where year one went large, but obviously Emily is in a much wider role now. And Formula One is very definitely cashing in while the sun is shining. You know, everyone's going mad for Netflix, Formula One, uh, Formula One's rising popularity in America. They're getting new, younger female fans all over the world. And yes, they are absolutely capitalizing on that. So, there is. If you look carefully, there is a new Formula One deal of some sort, uh, pretty much every two weeks, uh, and Emily Prazer and her, uh, team have done phenomenally this year. There's a gigantic, record breaking multi billion dollar deal with, uh, Louis Vuitton Marie Hennessy, uh, this year that came in to replace, uh, uh, Rolex and, and has lots of other categories as well I'm sure, uh, they've done creative deals with Lego, they've got Santander, they've done American Express, the portfolio is swelling, the coffers are bulging, and uh, Emily Prazer deserves a big holiday and a big bonus this year I'd say.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay. No arguments there. I think there's a, I think it's both. It's interesting. I always find the, that commercial position. First of all, they quite often get big, bigger jobs. Those people, you know, so when you look across football, you've got Mark Bullingham at the FA, you've got Richard Masters at the Premier League. Both of those had the, the, the lead commercial job beforehand. So quite often people see They're as having a sort of skill set that is required. Now we can argue the toss whether that's right or not. And it used to be, we used to about lawyers in the same way. But that's interesting. So these are two people to keep it keep an eye on because you suspect they'll get other jobs. If I was To question, I would say quite often is the job of commercial director, the success of a commercial director, how much it's about timing and luck in terms of its relationship to the market. So you are on the right seat at the right time and the money is coming your way and you are a sort of organizer of it rather than someone who is going out and you know, doing deals from scratch. But that's, that's a very misanthropic,

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

happy to respond to that Rich. No, I think that's, there is an element of that. I mean, you know, you've got easier, you've got more straightforward times and more challenging times as a chief revenue getter for a sports organization. The chips fall your way sometimes and sometimes they don't. You still have targets that you have to hit regardless. But what I would say is Emily Prazer came in to effectively replace Brandon Snow, who is a big deal, uh, big name hire for Formula One, who's since gone off, uh, I think he works for Gerry Cardinale and Redbird now. He's a super smart guy and has a fantastic record, but for whatever reason it didn't work out for him at Formula One. And he had the very same conditions that Emily Prazer had. And I think, yeah, it's timing, it's situation, it's what's going on in the market, but it's also are you the right person in the right structure? Can you work effectively with whoever it is that you are reporting into and whoever it is that you've got underneath you and around you and your team? You have to be the right personality, uh, and have the right level of ambition and the right sort of strategic thinking to make that work. Uh, and clearly it is working for Emily Razer in a, in a way that it didn't work for Brandon Snow

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Fair enough. I will not argue any further. David.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Not too much to add, actually, surprisingly, considering it's F1, but I'm looking at the clock. Yeah,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

My people or my person, as I say, I was going to go with, Yasser Al Raminian and that's a whole podcast in its own right in terms of their influence and how PIF, I was told off for calling it PIF, they don't like it. Particularly if I, when I say PIF takes in my newsletter, they don't, they don't like that. So it's a PIF its role, it's, you know, it's, that's the story of the sport. You ask anyone about the business of sport, Saudis will come up very. And again, it's a bit like the Netflix conversation, trying to second guess ambition, trying to second guess future strategy, where it's going to go. The story of the last few months has been a sort of a reductionist story. The story was, was they coming with all the money and they're going to buy it. Come in and own loads of sports globally and blow the whole thing up, then that signal has shifted at the same time. Obviously you've got the 2034 World Cup decision. So all of that will play into, okay, this is probably the most important person in the sports industry. Today. So to leave him off any list would be a bit daft. So you need to sort of tip our hat to him. Not that he needs us to do that. I find Gianni Infantino absolutely fascinating, you know, and the World Cup decision and the way in which was presented to the world, I think, If I was Saudi, I would be furious about it because, you know, the way in which it positioned the whole thing as a, you know, a secretive, almost Pravda esque Politburo type thing where people were sort of told to clap. All of that theatre, I think, did Saudi very few favours and it just, it allowed people to just go the obvious route. Which Let's, uh, let's be honest. There are deep questions about it and how it's working. And so I think Infantino as a character, and I've said several times it talks to the previous conversation about, you know, the sort of role of money in sport and how it comes in in waves and and the timing and the lag of the marketplace, which is quite a slow marketplace. The length of deals means that the tenure of CEOs, particularly, but also chief commercial people. Is very contextualized with the marketplace and we won't know if Infantino is any good at his job probably for a while because there is a mantle thrown over his decisions because the men's world cup is still incredibly popular and it's almost impossible to fuck up in terms of from a commercial perspective. So the rights will come in, there will be money flooding into FIFA. Those decisions that he's making, FIFA plus, question mark, the Club World Cup, these are big, big decisions and he can turn around and say look, the money is still going up and these are decisions that, They will try and hide any individual return on investment from. But I think his tenure, I think, is really fascinating because I think he's making some very, very big decisions, but which are protected by the market and the World Cup itself is just so strong. It's very hard to see whether it's the same with Thomas Bach and the Olympics, you know, there is just so much money and the money is so obvious it's going from one source or to one source that everything else becomes a question mark. I've got deep reservations about the Olympic channel in the same way as I think FIFA plus might be a white elephant. We won't know.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

there's a, there's a, there's a personal brand piece around Infantino, which is really fascinating, and which actually does set him apart from Thomas Bach, and we'll see what the next IOC president, whoever that is, what their approach is. I suspect it will be much more like Thomas Barth and Infantino, but it's at somewhere in the system, and whether this comes from Infantino himself, and there are a lot of really good people who work at FIFA, and we know a lot of them, and they do really good work for the right reasons. But somewhere in that system, a decision has been taken, or Infantino has decided that So many of the announcements, pronouncements, uh, frankly with the Club World Cup selling promotion of the tournament is going to be routed through his own personal Instagram, you know, heavily curated, heavily video edited, he'll have a team around him doing it, Instagram account. And I, in some ways, that's, uh, That's probably a little bit of sort of modern, modern leadership and being the front man, and he is the president after all, and he has been elected, and he is the guy who's got to sort of front these up, and fair play, he does, he does front up to these decisions, he's not, he's not taking the decisions and then sort of shirking away and hiding, he's been absolutely, it's almost a personal crusade at this point, the Club World Cup, All aspects of it. Selling it, announcing the teams, deciding who, which teams can compete and sort of trying to figure that out in terms of, if you look at what happens with Inter Miami, I suspect we're all talking about the Club World Cup in the industry a bit more than it sort of deserves, and we may well see that actually it doesn't make that much of a splash next year FIFA is hoping. But I just think that personal brand piece is, is really fascinating. There's got to be ego involved, of course, because you can't do that in a sort of, quote, authentic way without having an ego. He loves being seen with the celebrities, but equally he loves being seen, and this is probably part of courting the membership and being very visible in how they're doing it, in how he's doing it. He loves being seen shaking the hands of, you know, celebrities. You know, all sorts of football officials around the world. It's not just the celebrity place. It's, it's, it's the whole, you know, as he would say, the football family and somewhere, some, he's either being advised to do that or he's just taking it upon himself to make that happen.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I think there's a strategic leadership error in what he's doing with the Club World Cup and the personal brand element in particular. There's too much of the artist, Richard, and not enough of the engineer in Fantino's leadership style there. Because I don't think it's any surprise, obviously there have been missteps, they haven't commercialised it in quite the way they wanted to. But it's new and there are going to be challenges. But I think if you are launching a new product or project and you are the leader, you want the team to be there. That you're leading and who is working on that project to really get behind it. And you don't want leaks from within your organization saying what a shit show it is. And the way that you do that is you, you don't make it a sort of personal pet project or make it visually seem that way. You have to give people ownership to go along with the accountability that you, you know, presumably are trying to put on them. And it doesn't seem to me like the Club World Cup is a FIFA project, it's an Infantino project, so it becomes very easy for the rank and filers at FIFA, many of whom are very good, as you've said, to kind of disassociate yourself from that and say, well, if it does turn out badly, it doesn't matter, it's, it's Janny's project anyway. And I think that's a misstep, basically. I think you want, you do want to get as many people behind a new project as you can, and this is the way to do the opposite.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Wouldn't disagree with that. What I would say is actually a bit of a rocky start in the probably the first six, seven months of the year, but the Club World Cup. The momentum is building, the, the, the commercials are starting to come together, there was obviously the big, the big fuss over no bids in the sort of initial round, Infantino and his team have carved out this deal with DAZN, which is a, you know, By all reports, a hefty, hefty deal. It will give them sort of free to air coverage that they think is so critical for this. The sponsors are starting to come. Uh, they've obviously worked out, or, you know, at least in part, worked out how, uh, existing FIFA sponsors, uh, will fit and what their role is and what sort of access they have to this entirely new tournament. So there is a bit of momentum, at least from a sort of business side. The test is does it sort of, does any of that penetrate through into fans caring? But again, we've talked about this before I'm sure on this podcast, I do think there is going to be a difference between how that tournament is received in Europe and by the major European clubs and the fan base of those clubs versus Some of the clubs elsewhere in the world who are going to the US and going to be playing Manchester City, PSG, and some of the other big names. So we shouldn't necessarily view this, and this is something that Infantino talks about a lot, we shouldn't necessarily always view things through a sort of European lens.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Absolutely. Right. I've got I think we're going to finish there because.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Because it's

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

We are running, it is Christmas and we need to get on with, with the fundamentals of buying stuff. I've just, I put this question to the Unofficial Partner WhatsApp group of high rollers and got a couple of interesting replies Alex Inglot, Saudi takeover of e sports with Olympic e sports, e sports world cup and the IESF was his story of the year. Caitlin Clark, his person and, Padel, Hexagon Cup launches, participation, blah, blah, blah. But he is very invested in, uh, in Padel. So interesting. Jane Purdon made a good point. Whether you're for it or against it, the football regulator bill is the single most, the biggest, most influential story of something we didn't mention. She also had Michelle Kang as her person. So I think we're, you know, it's an interesting idea. I think we'll, uh, look at it and we might look at the, the, the hazardous. Obviously, once David's got his 2025 A to Z you know, sorted for next year or for January. It normally lands in January, does it?

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Richard, I'm deep in negotiations about how and where this is distributed. I really can't comment any further. Yep.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

got to be quite a lot of competition, unusual competition for K this year. Because obviously you've got Kang you've got Kinesica, uh, you've got,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

F1 partner?

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

yeah, which we didn't mention

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

done it. He's done it

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

done Prazer with Nestle. Uh, you've got Kigali, obviously, you know, things getting real in Rwanda right now in terms of their sports investment. Uh, it's all kicking off with K's.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah, uh, well, we'll see. Just need a I need an ex.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. X is

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Hmm.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

But you know, we'll put it to the, put it to the masses.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Chinese city that's hosting something that helps me out, if all else fails. But we'll see.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So what we might do is once you, uh, you know, once the hard labor is done, we might get you back on and we'll, we'll talk about the, uh, the agency of the 25 and we need to, you know, once the format and there was a thing that this week someone sent me about, um,

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

I've got something for X,

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Great. We'll talk we'll talk offline.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

sponsor.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

yes.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

On

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

That's you know, I'm really happy about that.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Scott Galloway is, and this is the phrase that I liked. He is, uh, walking his podcast around. This is what you're doing with the A to Z. He's the, the phrase was he's, he's taking pivot, which I, I'm a big fan of him and cara Swisher. It's a sort of business tech podcast. And. They are looking for new, a new home for this. And the numbers are astonishing in terms of the, the, uh, price they want. But I think that's what you do. I think you, you walk it around, you go and have meetings and you say, right, okay, the cushion and A to

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah. Well, I might do that. I mean, if anybody wants a meeting you know how to know how to reach me, uh, via Richard and we'll go from there, I guess.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right. As ever with the three, we've got plans for the three and we will reveal those in due time in 2025. One of the, one of the questions that people through the Christmas period, they've been asking, what about the three? Well, what are you going to do with it? What's, it was a part, it became a part of my Friday, my weekend listening. So we have plans afoot. We'll reveal those when it's appropriate, but until then, so happy Christmas to both of

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Oh, happy Christmas to you and happy Christmas to all the unofficial partner, listeners.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Yeah, happy holidays, one and all.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Happy holidays. Thank you very much and goodbye.

James Emmett, Leaders in Sport:

Cheers.

David Cushnan, Leaders in Sport:

Bye bye.