Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP517 The Mark Oliver Heatmap: Global sport's investment hotspots
Mark Oliver was the BBC's first head of strategy before creating Oliver and Ohlbaum in 1995, which remains one of the most influential media advisory boutiques in the market, with clients ranging from sports leagues and federations to media companies, tech platforms, venture capital firms and private equity groups.
In this episode, Mark identifies the rationale that sits behind some of sport's most high profile investment stories, from NBA Europe, R360 rugby and World Volleyball through to the opportunities, red flags and roadblocks that exist for investors in Olympic sport federations.
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Through exceptional creativity, deep sponsorship expertise, and flawless on-site delivery, they help brands, sponsors, and rightsholders unlock their full potential in sport - most recently picking up a Leaders Sports Award for their work with Lidl at UEFA EURO 2024.
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Hello, my name is Richard Gillis Samuel, welcome to Unofficial Partner, The Sports Business podcast. Today's guest is Mark Oliver, who was the BBC's first head of strategy before co-founding media consultancy firm Oliver and OBA Associates in 1995. Mark is always a joy to talk to. He's. Knowledge on not just the relationship between sport and media, but also its impact on finance and investment is, I think probably second to none. And this is a very wide ranging conversation. I think you'll enjoy it. This episode of the Unofficial Partner Podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is the fame making, creative and sponsorship agency for brands in sport through exceptional creativity. Deep sponsorship expertise and flawless onsite delivery. They help brands, sponsors, and rights holders unlock their full potential in sport. Most recently picking up a Leader's sports award for their work with Little at Uafa Euro 2024. Everything they do is driven by a culture of effectiveness because in sport performance matters not just on the pitch, but in the work too. So whether you wanna build Buzz, connect with audiences, or do something that actually cuts through Sidley Sport knows how. Visit sidley sport.com where brands become champions.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:the bit that we talk about, I talk about with you is sport and the sports rights market and all, and all the stuff we'll get into. But you talk about BBC or geo blocking or all of these things. I think, yeah, it's quite a big broad remit that you have how much of it is sport in terms of just the general day to day.
Mark Oliver:pure sport, less than half. bit of a crossover between sport and media, but at least half of what we do is nothing to do with sport. It's, um, media company strategy and commercial decisions and policy. And that's kind of where we differ from other sports advisors. We understand the strategies of media companies and the attitudes of regulators in media and sport is just one part of it. So we can see sporting perspective, which is not always easy to do, but um, so what's going on in the TV world, such as today's news that Sky might be talking to ITV, that kind of stuff. That's, that's our core work as well. Nothing to do with sport?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And have the clients changed over the years in terms of, what people want from you?
Mark Oliver:No. I think we've given them four things. Strategy, advice, commercial advice, investment advice and policy and regulation advice that hasn't really changed. The clients, of course, have changed. We didn't use to have tech clients back when I started. We now have tech clients, and obviously lots of the companies have merged and changed. So the, the, are different.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:If I am on the finance side, so one of the questions I've got for you in terms of what the money wants
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:and we, you know, you've got this narrative running through everything about a pool of money that is being gathered in various funds, in various shapes and sizes. And some of it is looking at sport and by sport is big, you know, everything under that banner. Responds to that incentive, if you see what I mean. And I, and it's trying to work out okay. It obviously wants different things, but we're starting to see some patterns emerge. we did a thing with EY last week about, what happens after Disrupt.
Mark Oliver:Yes.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And the sort of longer game.'cause I think Liv Golf is a really interesting case study because it's actually getting to the point of running into some of the problems it was created to try and solve, if you see what I mean. So do people then come to you and I are you reassuring them that the money is still gonna flow in, in large sums? So their business, their sort of investment rationale still holds up.
Mark Oliver:Well, the answer is it depends. I think you have to understand what's driving the investment rationale, and then you kind of conclude that some of it will remain and some of it may not remain. I think there's, there's a difference between investing in the commercial end of a sport, so the commercial activities, um, and investing in a sport. investing in a sport is, is more complicated and is often more political, both with a small p but sometimes with a big P. and that, that means it's a more complex, multifaceted kind of. And, and that's, that's the case if you're trying to establish a new event or sports event and an established sport. And it's probably also relevant if you're investing in an, in an existing asset. The sport itself cause the governance of that sport and it's. Ability or inability to change is pretty important. Um, and so it's, it's, it's a different kind of investment if you can cut, if, cut out the commercial activities as separate and just invest in the commercial bit, you're slightly protected from the politics, but you're not totally sealed from it.'cause clearly you investing in the commercial. Exploitation of a given asset. And if a sport decides to change the asset by changing the calendar, then that can a signif significant effect on the commercial revenues. so really the safest thing is to try and get a commercial activity from a sport that is. Either not gonna change much in terms of its asset, or it's got a clear path to how it's gonna change. as soon as there's no clear path to how it's gonna change, you've got a slight problem about you're not really in control of the product. And if you're not in control of the product, then no matter how good your commercial rights are, if the product changes, you don't really control it.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah. Just Pursuing that for a moment. So you get to the sort of the offensive defensive positions and you get to things like, you know, the moat of the incumbent,
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:which I think is underestimate.'cause quite often the, the superficial play out of the disruption story is a sort of, you know, clay Christensen thing where you are positioning. The, you know, PGA tour almost as sort of Kodak blockbuster, and then the money will come in and replace that. And what we've seen is that that is really hard to do. I'm trying to think of a, you know, down the years where actually that clean disruption story has actually worked.
Mark Oliver:it's always been complicated. Let's go back to the pack of Cricket
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:Uh, it kind of worked, it changed cricket forever, but established cricket responded, and therefore it kind of disappeared.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Hmm.
Mark Oliver:So it certainly fulfilled a function and, and
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:But not for the investor. I, that, that's what I always think about in terms of the pe, the money that goes into the pack, you know, whether it's packer or whatever.
Mark Oliver:it was a simpler choice then. I
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:Kerry Packard didn't get the rights, so he, he worked out, we could just buying the players. Would be no more expensive than the rights. And it wasn't the same thing as Liv, where they're trying to create a new asset with a kind of ROI and he just said, they're not gonna gimme the rights, so I'm gonna buy the players and sell my own competition. And it, and it delivered for that, um, for a while. And of course it split cricket. And then cricket adapted. And he wanted different kind of product. It was more appealing that pajama Cricket was born, et cetera. So, so, but he wasn't really trying to make money outta cricket in the sense of, as an investment, he was trying to get the rights to cricket. They wouldn't give it to him. So he started to buy the players instead. a kind of an alternative rights play, I think, rather than an investment play.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:But it's, it is interesting how. We go to Packer and we we might go to, I mean the IPL is probably one of the cleanest examples, but that's, that and the hundred, for example, are sort of from within, aren't they? They're, they're.
Mark Oliver:Yes, they're, they're reforming themselves, in order to meet new audiences and get more revenue streams in. And, and that's what each, every sport has to do. I think. Um, some sports need the stimulus from external threat to do so. Some move before that. I've always started off articles about cricket where a sort of sentence says, for that has reputation as being conservative, it's remarkably innovative. Over the last four started with innovative.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Yeah. And that's oddly been, I remember, I used to know Christopher Martin Jenkins, you know, not well, but quite well. But, and he used to talk about this a lot and he, remember he wrote a piece about. Just the level of the number he must listed, the innovations and the changes of the game over a period, both on the pitch, but also off it, and, you know, through the, through the whole thing. It's quite interesting how those things don't get celebrated as innovation. And, the image of the rights holder or the incumbent is always as the sort of local council, isn't it? You know, sort of uninnovative, very dull, sort of plotting.
Mark Oliver:Yep. There's probably one more left, which is the indoor arena, so I don't depend on the weather so much, but that will be debated a.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So where is the excitement, do you think, in that market? So just pursuing this in terms of looking at sport from that, from that side, from that, that fund side. And it's, Again, there are hundreds of new things from basketball to volleyball, to carp fishing, to whatever. So there's enormous number of li new things, but you're quite sort of marginal, but feel more like a venture capital investment. And then you've got these. Funds that are looking at minority partnerships in the NBA or an NFL franchise and you've got the, the sort of chaos and excitement of European football clubs, et cetera, and leagues. Where do you sense the real heat in the marketplace is?'cause there is something happening. Money is gathering and being deployed.
Mark Oliver:Yeah. I mean it's, yes, it's hard to give you one answer. There's, there's kind of heat spots, I guess, rather than, Yeah, gimme the Oliver Heat Map. well, I mean. If what you're looking at, I wouldn't say a safe rate for term, but reasonably low risk and reasonably high return, then you do look at the established large sports, and you do look at possible new ways of investing in them. so obviously it starts with the commercial rights subsidiary, which is obviously the CBC method, but actually it can also be if they're trying to set up. New competition and new league with franchises and its franchises in those, those big sports, um, especially if the economics of franchises are more, are more certain in the sense there's no promotion relegation, there's just fixed number of teams with some kind of cost control the US model. So if the US mortar is rolling out beyond the us uh, to sports which don't have political problems with it.'cause some sports do have physical problems with that approach. a large sport then that's interest. So, you know, the, the issue about basketball, which is a large sport, probably underdeveloped in Europe, more potential, albeit becoming an NBA kind of franchise European League. That's interesting. It's a big sport. It's got good demographics. the NB a's a great brand, it's previously been quite fractured in Europe as we know. and they're probably gonna go down a franchise model for big cities. So that's something that, that looks quite attractive. a lot to do in terms of building the sport and promoting it, but the structure of that looks quite attractive. And that's, that's, would be a, a tick. I think the, there's still attractions to kind of we call more passive investors long-term funds to the, the other model, which is commercial JVs across sports. as long as you've got a diversified portfolio of sports, that's an interesting kind of bet on the future growth and popularity of sport in general. And
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Be an example of that. Is that CVCs Fund?
Mark Oliver:CVC thing.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:it's better on one, that the Yeah. of sport. Interest in it isn't gonna change it's protection from ai'cause it's still based on a live event, which is always gonna be more interesting. Obviously there are AI offshoots and gamification, et cetera, but that's where additional, more leisure time, that kind of stuff. It's all positive in that sense, not that cyclical. It responded well to a sort of global financial crisis. It's only real downturn was COVID, which obviously had very special features. and it even got through that. So you could say that that's quite attractive, as long as you've got a diversified portfolio. and also there's probably scope for better commercialization because they've been run as sort of smaller activities, not benefited from some sort of scale. Efficiencies in commercial activities that that other industries have. So, so there's still interest in that as a kind of long-term play, from the people who look at long-term investments. and then the other end, I suppose, there is some interest in, in smaller sports, had a, a reasonable amount of interest and not totally niche. But where you can see a way of effectively having enough influence over the whole ecosystem to actually affect change rather than getting involved in a war between different bits, ecosystem,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Hmm.
Mark Oliver:they're much harder to find. and of course you think there might not be a war in the ecosystem, but soon as you try and do something, there is a war. so what's happening in volleyball? which is both a commercial investment from CVC, but also the, the US volleyball leagues, et cetera, where you can see there's a latent demand. you tap into the increased interests of women and volleyball's always been a sport where the Mm. ball's actually more popular, the men. and so you, you get sport that, and even something like lacrosse in America, which is not a sport in the uk. So there are some sports, I think where, because the incumbents, there isn't much of an incumbent in terms of the money it makes, et cetera. And'cause the ecosystem is quite easy to influence and control. There are interesting opportunities that's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So you've got this. Okay, so let's just sort of pursue that a stage. Then Let's pick on one of those. Volleyball I find really interesting because it's so not on my radar, but everyone mentions it. Do you know what I mean? As a, as a sort of hidden sleeping giant of, sports. So if we sort of pursue that for a second, so the CVC thesis would be, we are gathering a load of expertise centrally. That we can run and it doesn't matter what the sport is, we can do a job on it. And, and volleyball is, there is a sort of marketing deck somewhere that has said to them, yeah, this is for all the reasons, you know, the, the gender split, the latent demand in TV rights perhaps, or the popularity of, it's always very high on social media, sort of
Mark Oliver:Hmm.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:lead tables post sort of Olympics and things. So, which again, always a bit. I'm always a bit suspicious of but that's essentially the thesis that's running there. That,
Mark Oliver:Yeah, it's, it's so, so fundamental. It's very popular in, in a number of countries, not,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:yeah.
Mark Oliver:ours.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:So that's why we don't see much, but it is very popular in parts of Southern Europe and Southeast Europe
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:of Asia, et cetera. it has reasonable popularity in the states. Always a good tick. And South America in the States, it's mostly college, but it's reasonably popular for sporting. Yeah.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:so, so overall it's, it's got good popularity. you can argue the fact it's not that popular in some countries as both a problem or an opportunity. You can roll it out, obviously different countries.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:it has two formats. beach volleyball and indoor, it's also the, the ecosystem. Which may play in CBC's approach was that the Federation, the World Federation actually is quite powerful and controls quite strong assets. The world championships,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Right.
Mark Oliver:it's not always the case for Olympic sports. Often you find a federation doesn't really control much and doesn't have much income, but volleyball
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:So it's got a core business, which is already doing quite well. then you've gotta work your way through. How does that then relate to if volleyball grows around the world, what happens in each country? Do they establish their own club leagues? Who owns the rights to those and, and so on? So there's a kind of second wave for opportunity, which may not be CBCs, maybe someone else's, which is you are seeing at the moment. So it's got good fundamentals in terms of growth and appeal. possible upside in terms of breaking to new countries. And the structure of it, there is a way to invest in it where we have a partner that has quite a substantial proportion of the money is, and also quite a lot of influence about the way the sport runs. so it's a kind of good way in, but there's a, but there's another story yet to unfold, which is what happens to sort of club volleyball. Below that, as it professionalizes and what happens to the regional, international tournaments like the European Championship, et cetera.'cause that's, that's kind of, if a sport grows, they will grow as well. And that's, that's not part of the deal directly.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:But they're sort of creating a market. They won't own all of it, but they are,
Mark Oliver:They're
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:they have a bit of it.
Mark Oliver:it to be beneficial to them. Yeah. And, and given they're developing a kind of front shop for volleyball, which is the, the, you know, the OTT volleyball, uh, service, then. You know, could always start to buy the rights these other competitions, especially in areas where they don't have a broadcast deal. So it's kind of a right segregation play. Even if you're not actually investing in individual national leagues, et cetera, you do have a possibility you can actually
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So would, would that be a sort of FIFA plus for volleyball type of thing?
Mark Oliver:yes. Yeah. Yeah. Putting more live rights.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Right,
Mark Oliver:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:because there's less of a market for those, just generally. So it's a.
Mark Oliver:And it may, it may be, it may be a medium term thing. Maybe once the, the sport does develop, there's a proper market in primary outlets for the rights, and, in the meantime, to build a sport, you take on the rights and build the coverage.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So u using volleyball then as a proxy.'cause it's, it's the Olympic bit. I've just, uh, uh, this is front of mind'cause I've just read Michael Payne's book. Michael's coming on the podcast
Mark Oliver:Yes.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:and
Mark Oliver:Well, you know, he was involved in that,
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:yes. And so I, it's quite interesting reading. It is not about Michael, but the Olympics. There's a question here about how efficient the sports market is, I suppose is a question, and, and the role because Michael's career has been spent. Building the top program, building the sort of Olympic moat for these federations. And he's now sort of made a career, second career going around and sort of berating these federations for not,
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:being more innovative. Where actually he's, you know, his body of work, the top program has removed the incentive to be, you know, innovative. You could argue that actually it's quite a nice reverse ferret that he's. Sort of, uh, I saw him at the Art International Federation sort of, uh, thing the other week and or last week. And they're sitting there thinking, well, they're being drip fed Olympic money over the course of 30 years. Thank you very much. And now you want us to be, you know, all singing, dancing, and, and culturally completely different. But. The strength and particularly the, that Olympic world. So presumably the volleyball case study, you know, it's, it's an interesting one'cause it's live could apply to virtually all of those federations. Could it? Or are they,
Mark Oliver:it does. But, but they're all different. Some depend almost entirely on the handout from the. Some have their own championships are worth sign amount of money, and that's what it bought is the latter. So it has its own independence. It had its own critical
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:yeah.
Mark Oliver:this, I believe the plan, the whole plan was developed by and taken to investors rather than investors knocking on the door saying, I here you want some money. So it was more proactive and Michael a, had a role in that. so, you go down a list of federations, we've done quite a lot of analysis of the federations and they're a mix of revenue. there's definitely a hierarchy of the larger ones that have substantial commercial activities now. and ones that are much smaller that depend almost entirely on the OOC handout and have very little infrastructure. And that's partly, I remember the federation's only top of a pyramid. So
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:relationship between the federation and the rest of the national associations and the Various elements of sport. Some are quite weak in that system. Some are actually very strong. so, you know, and, and obviously a sport that has a, a big life outside of the Olympics, like tennis, you know, the ITF is not really the power broker, right? It is the, the Federation on the Olympics and it has, it's involved in the Olympic tennis. all the power and money is in the various tournaments underneath that. But even in sports that don't have big assets like tennis, you know, a lot of the commercial activity is not through the federation. It's, it's elsewhere. And so, getting your on the ecosystem and influencing how it operates can be very complicated. Depend. So be careful which federation you choose and not to put to a finer point in it. And I think Michael touched this book. Some of those federations work in rather obscure ways, let's put it that way. Some, some don't. Some do.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. And, and you know, that's, that's, that's quite a nice way of putting it. There's a, you know, the, and that's always been the case. It's really interesting, you know, the, the book,'cause again, that going back to almost the horse dassler days of, the manipulation of that world by a very smart operator. Sort of now we see it as a huge, you know, he's seen as this great sort of figure, and he is a great figure in the sports marketing history, but a lot of what he was doing was manipulation, placing people in the places that he needed them to be. get their um, commercial. Bit of it. It's quite interesting. It's so long ago. It's fif, what is it, 60 years ago now? 50 or years ago. So, and it's interesting that these are, these games are still being played and this generation of financiers are now essentially doing similar types of work.
Mark Oliver:Yes.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:the power from within a sport. I mean, it talks back to that sort of power of the incumbent. It's quite underrated, I think.
Mark Oliver:Yes, but you probably look for a federation, which has really kind of sorted out a bit. It's clearer how they decide things. And I mean, there was obviously the play that we, we get to a federation, which is a bit of a mess and we kind of play the system. But I think most investors, especially large investors, actually prefer a federation that's kind of sorted itself out already. Uh, would prefer to. And some of them are under quite a lot of. Scrutiny in terms of getting in, getting you in anywhere close to practices, you might be deemed to be a bit
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:um, and have their own rules about what they invest and what they don't. And some of them don't want to invest in something which might come up to embarrass them in the future. So the big investors prefer federation that sorted itself out. or has a plan to sort itself out, whether it's, a group of federations or associations, whatever it is has a plan to sort itself out. Um,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:is there, is there a market then mark of people who are sorting federations out before the money gets there? Is that a sort of cottage industry of, of advisors and consultants?
Mark Oliver:of, mean, it's not one Yeah. I mean particularly, partly'cause it's involves a lot of travel, a lot of
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:a small
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:lot of patients. and I guess Michael's in that market in a way'cause he's so well networked. But Yeah. But the standard thing of federation will do is if it's thinking about its governance and the way it's, it operates, it will get the standard consultancies like a Deloitte or PWC to do study on organization. governance and some of that is creating a separate commercial subsidiary, which might be ready for outside investment. What the rules are about the board on that and how being fenced it is from the sport itself. there's quite a few sports who have been starting to do that, which is a sensible thing to do. See what.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Yeah. And again, then there's the, the white space argument, which you sort of touched on. There are bits of the, the market and then you land on the women's sport question, which again, is too broad a category. but you've got some really interesting sort of needs in that marketplace. Do you buy the basic argument that there is a huge latent audience? For women's football, cricket, rugby, because I, we come, I've just come from, you know, we, we did the two circles, event.
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:And Gareth, as you know, is incredibly bullish on that line that's going up of audience for sport and it's predicated on people that don't look like you and me. And I get it and intellectually I can get there, but I just wonder if the money gets there and whether or not you actually think, okay. Okay. I'm gonna, that's a, a bet that I'm gonna take.
Mark Oliver:Yeah. Well the truth is, yeah, of things is there is increasing demand. Increasing interest, no doubt about that. It's not equal all across sports, but there is, there was a general
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Sure.
Mark Oliver:that was always the missing bit whenever people talked about young people watching sport less, I said, well, there's AF population that don't watch it very much. maybe that's, that's the answer.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:We used to talk about millennials, didn't we? We used to say,
Mark Oliver:that's
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:now they're, they're, you know, got more mortgages.
Mark Oliver:Yeah. But, but there's always a fact that women didn't engage as much as men watching sports, either male sports or female sports. So that, that has changed. And obviously it's the kind of participation interest kind of multiplier. so you, once it affects participation, you can see a long term shift, not just a short-term obesity shift. cause you're not all good news for all sports.'cause if you are a traditional women's sport, like something like hockey or netball, you are threatened by that'cause other people are after that market.
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:what sport is played by girls in schools is quite important. but, there is a general trend and that's true. But also, you know, be patient. It's, It may be a different kind of interest. it may be more general than tribal. and tribal interest is what generates real value for TV Compass, et cetera. To be honest, National Club. and if it's more general interest, then it has a different economic future because it's, it's going to be about wide reach and sponsorship and three, two air tv. It's not gonna be about large subscription prices'cause that's just not the way it's gonna go. you could argue over time there will be tribal elements too. To women's sport as they start to support clubs in certain sports or And so it becomes that much more passionate and about driving subscriptions, or choice of platform, whatever, whatever the big high value ticket item is that drives value. But, um, it doesn't have to be that. It can be a more, a different kind of interest. Which has a different monetary model. It may or may not be as profitable as large, but so the two things are true. There's gonna be substantial growth, but it may not be the same thing as men's sport. And one of the things I always counsel people in women's sport is, why do you always wanna copy the structures of men's male sport? Of course there is a reason for that. It's called equality. does European football really need to have 4 54 nations all with their own women's league? Um, because, because
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:it,
Mark Oliver:big structure to support,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:of, it is equality, but it's also brand, isn't it? I mean. Starting Liverpool Women is gonna be easier than starting a.
Mark Oliver:No, no, I understand that. No, I, the, the thing about using current club brands, I can see the sense of that, although you might argue that having a few. new brands actually is quite useful to saying it's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, yeah,
Mark Oliver:lioness is
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:yeah,
Mark Oliver:the Mill War team,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:yeah, yeah. London Line S or London City Line s.
Mark Oliver:and yeah. And um, so I think there's a bit of that, but yes, no, it's more about the league structure.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay.
Mark Oliver:It's a fact that it is, does women's football move almost automatically to a. pan-European competition led sport, than the 30 years of battles in men's sport of
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:a European competition on top with still disputes about substitution revenue, et cetera. Why don't you just jump, all that history and have fewer clubs, but playing a much higher profile tournament? that applies to all, sports. You know, why not have the best of in a European competition, really high profile, rather than trying to build from the bottom up? Now, I understand that link between that and participation is difficult.'cause business may often comes to the
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:But just think a bit more naturally about how you can get participation. But at the top level, don't wait for this. For 400 clubs to appear across Europe before you can, you can match them in. So you, you had the opportunity to, to basically tear up that history, which is often held back men's sport.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And that sort of an IPL for women's football in Europe. Best versus the best.
Mark Oliver:Yeah. And you know, the, the, the seven aside thing that they're trying, well actually is being tried outside the
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:the different format. Which, you know, traditional football, men's football doesn't have time in the cal to, to do that women's football does. uh, and also, you know, do you have to have all these national league? Could you have more regional league? Could you get, because could the women have a Dutch Belgium league, before the men? Well, why not? You know, they're not constrained By 70 years of having separate national leagues, god forbid, could the UK have Scottish teams playing against English teams?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:This is Bolshevism. the bit that I find one wrinkle is that team level, because I can see a sort of framing, again, if, if I'm looking at the, from the money side, I can see a framing at the appeal of creating the IPL for women's football. And we did a lot, we did a brainstorm at D Zone a couple of years ago with, with this as the premise. There wasn't a lot of love for it in the room. I'm going to sort of warn you. So I stood up and said, let's have an IPL for women's football and, you know, um, and then had an hour of people shouting at me. But it was really interesting sort of ex sort of experiment. But one of the challenges is the, is the team brands.
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:because you've got, again, this. Run of the running themes is the, the, the audience. And it's going towards the star player rather than the
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And you know, and I'm never completely sure how much to, you know, credence to give that. I know it's obvious and we are in a YouTube world and there's a creator world and all of those things, but it does mean that you've got, like, for example, the World Cup in 2020 Cricket World Cup women's event next year in over here. It's gonna be obviously a big moment. It's gonna be national tribes and it's gonna get attention and you're gonna get superstar players. Lauren Bell will be on every ad campaign around town. The problem is, what next? And that's, I mean, it's talking to your point about it needs something that doesn't necessarily have to be the county championship, which presumably is the hundred and the hundred franchises. And again, one of the, the happy things that happened is that the women's game, it created a, a, a sort of market for that.
Mark Oliver:Yes.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:But what do you think about teams as a if you were looking at it as a 15 year.
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Pumped rather than a, you know, a turnaround. What do you think about teams? What do, just in terms of the, the way in which they're viewed now as an investment vehicle, Teams will endure beyond the player career. The player career is a spike,
Mark Oliver:Yeah, I think, look, we're we're very influenced by football.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:face it. The team you follow in football is, as they say, you, you'll change all kinds of things, but not your team. Uh, even a religion, but never in a team. as somebody who tried to change the team as a young man and was press going back into
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:What were the teams.
Mark Oliver:I tried to go from Arsenal to Chelsea, but I wasn't. I wasn't spoken to by family for six months and my posters were torn down. so I had to get back into the fold. So, um, it was taken quite seriously. This,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Well, I just, the, I think that the, you know, the elephant in the room is why you avoided Tottenham on that journey from, from North London to West London.
Mark Oliver:I think if I try top them, I may not be alive. that's another story. Um, so, um, I think this, the role of football in European culture in particular and South American culture is enormous. And I think. That's where a lot of the value is, right. Teams. I think in other sports it's, it's less clear. Yes, there are people loyal to a county. I'm kind of loyal to middle sets because I saw them as a young man, but you know, I wouldn't go to the wire for them. Um, and um, and when you get to other sports, it's, it's just there are some sports that do. traditionally have big city teams, et cetera, that have loyalty, but it's, it's less, it's, it's less presence. And, and that's one of Rugby's problems, I think, is that yes, the teams in the Premiership, the prim, have loyal tribal followers, which is not big enough. Right. They're in the wrong place. Got two London teams. Yes. Harlequins is quite being in West London, but a lot of people grew up supporting other West London teams before Harlequins came along Samson's in North London. But Samson's was a very small team in London before pressurization. So a lot of people who used to follow clubs in London, in the amateur day who have no particular loyalty really to thousands because it's a, a new, it was one of the clubs emerged as a professional. So I think, I think it's diff the putting power team brands is different in different sports.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:so the, you know, the obvious question is the R 360 moment that we're in. Do you think that that's got a chance because of the, are you talking about the nature of the club brands that, is that what's missing? Is that where it could make a, an impact?
Mark Oliver:yeah, I mean it's not easy. you know, the gap between the following of national teams, which is sizable. Especially the World Cup and the regular following of clubs. It's a huge gap. probably the biggest gap is actually in England. It's a bit smaller in other countries and so there's an opportunity to try and close that gap. That's not to say that having sort of big city franchises et cetera isn't necessarily the answer, but probably also the case. It's just adding on two or three more local clubs. And the Premier is also not the answer. So, someone. Needs to find an answer, there is an opportunity there. Building a following from scratch, the city teams will be difficult too, but the idea that you can just go back to having 12 or 13 teams in the prim that will solve everything. Well we had that, it didn't solve very much. so something else has gotta change.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:The NBA Europe plan is that when I look at that, I think, what I get it, I think, you know, London, Paris, Rome is where American money wants to go, but the heat and the real value is in Southeast Europe and Turkey and, and you know, that's where they're properly tribal and I, I it's trying to match.
Mark Oliver:this is why football club brands may play a role
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:as well. Uh, you know, an accident of who the NBA went to see when they went around Europe is if you want to establish a pa, I mean, in some cities it's simple. If you wanna establish a Paris team, go to PSG and talk about having a, if you want to go, if you wanna go to Madrid, go to Real Madrid. London's more complicated.'cause as soon as you go to one of the clubs, the other three won't want to know. So London probably has to have a new but you can see the tapping into the football brands might be a useful way. I mean, one of the most complicated things about the NBA, they did establish a European. who gets to keep the best talent?'cause at the moment, MVPs in the NBA in the US have come from outside of the us. Uh, if there's a great play in the European NBA. Are the NBA teams in the US gonna say, oh, you can keep him, or are they gonna say he is one of ours?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:means you'll just become a talent feeder for the grownup NBA. So the terms of trade players between European NBA teams and US NBA teams is a pretty important thing to get right.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I remember talking to the guys at, uh, sport Co about this, and they were doing, they were, they were very bullish looking from the states about it, and they went to NBA's relationship with Africa, the NB, you know,, but essentially that's exactly what the framing is. You know, it's a talent. Stream and with some, you know, it's a very laudable project, but it's not the same as building a a, a league that isn't a feeder league. It's the NFL problem all over. You know, it's a sort of,
Mark Oliver:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:a London franchise question.
Mark Oliver:so when you're looking at this plan, is it, is it a feeder league and what's the economics? Or is it going to have stand its own two feet and keep the best turns and, and eventually almost be a rival conference?'cause the other way is making into a new conference. There were travel issues, but you could make it into a new conference. Let's face it, most US sports. Emerge from merging different conferences and that's a structure, very happy with the conference structure rather than the the big league structure. And you could eventually see NBA Europe becoming a third conference
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:and presumably the central power of the NBA. As opposed to European football, you know where the clubs have got got so that you could manipulate the market for talent in that way. You could stop the best European player coming over.
Mark Oliver:Interestingly in the US you can do that.'cause as you know, the US sports have an exemption from competition, policy and fairness, labor laws, et cetera. Whereas some Europeans
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:the NBA might need to think through what they could do to influence players in Europe under the European law versus what they do in the us. But as I said, the, while the overall. Potential of that seems to be quite good. it fits into the overall structure in the NBA say feeder league or rival conference. what The end point is quite important, to have a view of, cause they've been very different economic entities. They're just feeder teams than if they're actually a, become a, a rival conference with big cities. Because big cities could support teams that could compete. the revenue and probably have enough money to compete with teams in the US but that will be a threat to some of the US franchises.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. You need a brave and strategic CEO.
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Which the NBA has, presumably, you know, everyone's a big fan of Adam Silver, but you need a long te, you know, this is a long term play, isn't it? So, it needs to keep momentum going for a, for a period beyond the excitement of, oh, okay, we got a London franchise. I might go along.
Mark Oliver:and you can, you have to work out the incentives for the current NBA franchise holds in the
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:the rules about new franchises and compensation. So what are the terms of trade? If the NBA Europe does become bigger, how are they compensated for? Their joint ownership of the NBA brand. So the relationship between the two is the most important thing. I think people are thinking about the franchise and the European League. I think underestimated the player relationship and the future of what this league is Feed a League or new conference. What the, those are two very important things. What is the narrative coming out to the NBA is quite important.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And whether or not the narrative could be one thing and then change to another.
Mark Oliver:Well there, what's your, what's your contractual protections against the narrative changing? Yes. Which is which? Which applies to all sports.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I'm gonna end on this, but just the global fan. Again, which is something is we talk about it endlessly. Do you think, do you believe in that as a concept? Or is sport inherently local?
Mark Oliver:yeah, let's say two things. One is the way fans are defined in measures is a
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:yeah.
Mark Oliver:It's, it's subject to a huge
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:pressure as everybody tries to exaggerate. Number of fans they've got to, that sponsors in particular. Uh, there's no common currency. And that needs to be sorted out. necessarily in the interest of any one player to sort it out, but some there needs to be a common currency. secondly, you have to recognize that fans are different, not only in a level of passion and support, also how easy they are to monetize or lot. we know that certain investments in Premier League clubs were based upon global fan numbers divided into revenue and saying, well, sure you can improve on that, but. The Nu, the amount of money you can get out. Fans who live within 30 miles of a stadium and the amount of money you can get in a fan in Thailand, et cetera, is very different. And The problem is they use US numbers, which is mostly about fans just in the US where each fan is more, less equal in terms of monetization potential. you go global, they're not, and then of course their loyalty is different. We, we talked about. Fans, overseas fans may be following players
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Mm.
Mark Oliver:grown up with a team, et cetera. So, so, so the cost of keeping them and the churn rate is higher. once you've factor that in, there's, there needs to be a kind of weighted fan adjustment mechanism. Once you've defined what a fan is and what the level of passion is and how easy it to monetize it, there needs to be some rule that says, okay, we've done a weighted fan valuation. And this is actually the value of the fan base, than just taking the large number and multiplying it by another
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:That's a fantastic idea. Does such a thing exist? So are TV viewers, is there anything, has anyone had a crack at that in other realms?
Mark Oliver:is always a bad guide to fashion because it's, it's a low cost
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:just especially free to air TV viewing. no, you have to, you have to get inside, inside motivation and. Loyalty factors. Um, of course it gives you an understanding of what is a large sport and what is a small sport and what is a large club and a a small
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:But if you look at the difference between TV viewing of a, a, a match between two minor Premier league player, uh, teams, and two top ones, yes, they're very different, but they're nowhere near as different as the value difference, so audiences are not a good proxy when you want to get something that's accurate. They're a good proxy for broad macro view, but not for accuracy.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So when Man United say they've got 800 million or whatever the number is. Okay. And we can all, you know, smirk and say, we know it's big, but we don't believe that number. But, okay, we'll let you, we. We'll let it go. And every club is playing the same game. You know, you and I are both Man United fans, we're both Liverpool fans. We're both, you know, on these just we, we are captured in some clever way by the research industry. That's fine. And we all raise an eyebrow when it gets to the evaluation of a football club. So, man United for example, is, you know, just using that as just a proxy. When you value Man United and when you put that against the value of Pinterest or TikTok or whatever in terms of what you are getting at, feels like you are getting to a closer to a follower in that sense, in a tech sense, rather than a fan sense. And I don't know which is more valuable now, I've said it.
Mark Oliver:Well,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Because the valuation of Pinterest and TikTok are massive, you know, multiples of Man United. So
Mark Oliver:yes.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:it's not a five, 10 billion quid thing, it's a hundred billion quid thing.
Mark Oliver:Yeah, it's true. I mean, yes. The, the between you. Yeah. If you try and talk about similarity to the reach of tech platforms and their value, could say that, but as a follower. But then the monetization model, their monetization model for, for followers is intrinsic in the platform. The platform is built to monetize.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's it. That's day one.
Mark Oliver:Yeah, there's no equivalent for football club. They don't have that platform, they don't have that reach, uh, they don't have that clout in the advertising market, right. So, um, they don't have to scale. So, so I think that's, that's also a misleading, uh, because they can monetize scale, whereas football clubs, it's a different thing. They don't have a, they don't have a global platform.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:But is the, is the sort of walled garden of man United fans argument. An attempt to get there? Is that, is that what's happening? So in terms of, okay, we're gonna have an OTT channel, MUTV, we're gonna have, we're gonna have a sort of, uh, fanatics type environment around our Manu United fans. We're not gonna let that leak out.
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Is that something, is that something that is gonna work? Or are we saying No, that's just not gonna work
Mark Oliver:no it doesn't because especially we try and you try and then use analogy of a platform because a platform is generic, it's giving loads of content. It's, it's fulfilling loads of passions of an individual. As a follower. If you then try and develop something which is only fulfilling one passion, it's better to develop it at the high end of fandom, the really passionate fans around the world, which might only be seven or 8 million rather than 400 million, you go in that direction. If you then go into the kinda, let's get to 800 million you and use. Benchmarks and platforms that are providing lots of things to their, to those people. not a direct analogy, right?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:It's not, but again, it's a fun thought experiment because if you said, right, okay, let's take it above a club level and go to a FIFA Plus,
Mark Oliver:Yes.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:if FIFA Plus was something different,
Mark Oliver:Mm-hmm.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:is, is it answering that question? If, They said, right, okay. We are not gonna play this YouTube meta game anymore. We are not gonna leak everything on, they, we are not gonna buy their, arguments. We are gonna capture everything just as a, as an experiment. Is that
Mark Oliver:Yeah, but people tried that. That's, that's the Dugout,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Mark Oliver:Dugout plan really. which is now,
richard_1_11-07-2025_120049:One football.
Mark Oliver:the football year. again, it is a place to go and see football. It is one place. It, it should be attracted to lots of football fans around the world. But when you compare its revenue per user to to Facebook, it's nowhere near because Facebook is, is a platform for everything and advertisers like that'cause they like to target people within the platform that's providing everything.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:one of the very large constituencies of content on Facebook is football. Is is sport.
Mark Oliver:Yeah.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Which has been just given away. So is the next iteration. Let's not make, let's not let Zuckerberg make another billion from football. Let's capture it within football. That again, is the Dugout argument blown up, isn't it?
Mark Oliver:Yes. And, and that didn't work because Facebook is a, is a system designed to optimize advertising, um, and access monetization model. And it works on the fact that people use it a lot, almost addictively. A lot of the time come back. A lot of the time has its role'cause it's a sticky content. So it, it has a role as a part of the Facebook value, but it's not the Facebook proposition or TikTok proposition. TikTok proposition is you can find loads of things on this system and advertisers can follow you around and know what your interests are and target you.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Do you think, we'll look back on this period because I, I go on TikTok, I go on YouTube and I can't believe I'm watching the football, the level of football that I'm watching for free. Do you think we'll look back at this period and think, what the fuck were we doing?
Mark Oliver:Uh, possibly. I mean, there's one thing to say that football can't create its own, its own Facebook or TikTok. It's another thing to say is football getting fair value from Facebook and TikTok? it's a different question. that's more to do with the power of those platforms and their ability to effectively pay very little for content. A kind of competition policy
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which goes back to, and we talked about in Brad Lava in some depth, as I remember with, uh, Thomas Grace of, um, of YouTube. But listen, mark, we could go on forever and I've got, I'm very conscious you're a very busy man as we established at the beginning, but, um, thanks a lot for coming on. I'd, I'd love it. Come back regularly and, uh, thanks a lot for your time.