Unofficial Partner Podcast

UP522 Signed by Messi: What's the most valuable shirt in world football?

• Richard Gillis

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Today's guest is Dan Jamieson, who is chief executive and co-owner of ICONS, the world's biggest signed football memorabilia company. 

ICONS was founded in 1999, originally starting as an editorial website for footballers to connect directly with fans. The business successfully pivoted to focus on signed memorabilia, a niche subset of the broader merchandise market, valued at hundreds of millions annually within football. 
ICONS focuses on exclusive partnerships with superstars, holding the worldwide exclusive contract for Leo Messi’s signed memorabilia, which they combine with licenses from rights holders like FIFA and the Champions League. This strategy capitalizes on the trend of fandom increasingly shifting toward individual players. Authenticity is maintained through a "triple lock" system, which time-codes, geolocates, and video-records every signing session, linking the unique digital evidence to the physical product via an NFC chip. Their customer base includes retail buyers (often purchasing gifts) and B2B partners such as clubs and sponsors like Heineken, who use the items for promotions. 

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Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

basically it's the most Diego thing you could ever imagine.

That was the voice of Dan Jameson, who is chief executive and co-owner of Icons, which is the world's biggest signed football memorabilia company. He was tells a great story about Diego Maradona, as you'll hear later in the, uh, podcast so we are into the area of sports memorabilia, and it's a really interesting, fun conversation about where the heat is in that marketplace. They Have exclusive worldwide deal with Leonor Messi. So we ask what does that mean in a World Cup year next year and the American market. We talk about golf, we talk about tennis, Carlos Alcaraz, and what happened and what would the, what's the legacy of the NFT blockchain moment? How can I trust that it is Leon Messi's signature on that shirt that I've just paid quite a lot of money for? So interesting conversation Hope you enjoy it. My name's Richard Gillis and you're listening to Unofficial Partner.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So whenever the merchandise market, is that how you define it? Merchandise market?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Uh, we're a subset, so merchandise for us is everything from baseball caps to t-shirts to all that. That's like a, that's the really big

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

What we are is signed memorabilia, which is a sort of niche of

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay, so memorabilia is the word I was searching for. So whenever I think about this, I've got like a, sketchy idea and probably a very romanticized idea about what happens and what people are buying. I find it, I personally find it really interesting, but I'm not a, a buyer of stuff.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Happy to collector or

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I'm not, I'm not, I dunno why actually are, are you a collector?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I collect things generally, but I don't collect sign memorabilia, for example. So it's like, yeah, I, I, well, one of my things I was gonna talk about is that I, I collected panini stickers

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah,

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

and now I collect footballers. So it's, it's kind of

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

yeah, yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

And, uh, I've got a, I've got a story about panini as well. I can tell you.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I used to love panini, but it was so exciting.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

T. I love that stuff.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So just frame for me icons.'cause again, I remember icons and I think, but it's a memory from a, it's been, it's a long while ago and by a long time ago. I think probably 20 odd years ago was the first time I came across it.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Okay. Sounds about

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So just gimme a bit of background to the company and then there's a bit of what do you do all day?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Okay. well we actually started in 1999, so we have been going for 20, whatever that is, 26 years nearly. and we always say we started about four months after Google in a.com boom. So, uh, we are still around, we started as the, sort of editorial website of footballers who could talk directly to their fans.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yes.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

That was a good idea, but it was about, I dunno, a couple of decades too early. And,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So who was in charge? Who was, who was the person founded the business?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

so,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I've got Ed. Is it Ed Friedman?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Freeman is, yeah, he founded it and he is still here, so he is the

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yes,

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So, uh, he is, uh, yeah, he's a passionate, uh, creator of these things. But he was, so he was the, uh, merchandising director

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

that's right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

And all the expansion of the sort of mega stores and uh, dog bowls and bedspreads and all that kind of merchandising stuff. He was the kind of guru of it. on away trips, he would been to America and he came back and he is like, Eric Canton, do you just wanna sign these shirts for cash on the bus, on the way to away games? Because I think people will buy it in the shop. And that's how he created memorabilia for Man United to start with. And and then afterwards he thought that'd be a really good idea to combine it with the websites of footballers. And, uh, that was the kind of genesis of the company in 1999. But, um, I came along in 2009

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

as a strategist for the parent company it was like the websites of footballers talking to their fans is a nice idea, but it doesn't work

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

the footballers don't pick up their phones and they don't really see anything controversial. And the interesting thing is the website on the side, which is an e-commerce shop, which sells signed memorabilia from the world's best players. So I was like, this is the thing to focus on. that direct to consumers and then build a brand out of it. And then, 16 years later, this is where

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

It's not interesting'cause that sort of trend, we talk about it a lot now in the creator economy and, but the basic nugget, the insight was that fandom is moving towards the player and the star and as much as it is about teams. And I remember that being the sort of thread and that is still the thread, isn't it? That's still we are seeing it sort of, if you, if you think of the initial. Idea of web, you know, direct relationships with footballers. That's still the bit that we're dancing around, isn't it? A lot of bets are still being made on that model.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Well, it's, yeah, it's totally fascinating because it's, I, I, I'm a, I'm a football fan, Liverpool fan. It's like I know that, that, that's what I've grown up. And then you, we ask people who have bought icons products, who, who are you a fan of? And they'll say, Christiana an elder. And they will move wherever Christiano goes. So interestingly, I was in Hong Kong in the summer and people were like, oh, so you're here for the game? And I'm like, no, no, I'm on holiday. And they're like, oh. But Christiano is playing tomorrow night in the Saudi Pro League Cup semi-final. And like, that's interesting. So I took my, my wife and my kids to this game and it was entirely full of Ronaldo fans in thousands of different, I know everything from Portugal shirts to United to Rail Madrid to NTUs, and they were still hit there for

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

It was, it was amazing a kind of phenomena. But, yeah, people love, I know people love heroes. The reason I do what I do is I love, I love the greatest players and that's what excites me.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay. So transpose that then to. The, memorabilia market because

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

there feels like there's a sort of easy bridge into that. You've just explain the messy relationship'cause you've got something exclusive with him. Just let unpick that.'cause I think again, that encapsulates a bit of what we're talking about.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah, so we are his worldwide exclusive signed memorabilia partner. he only signs for us. We create a range of sign shirts, boots, photos on bands, all kinds of good things that Leo will sign. We sign a, a strict amount, and then we. Package them up and sell'em around the world, either under Leo's brand under licenses that we have. So we have the World Cup, the Champions League, Barcelona. We did have PSG, we worked with the rights holders of in of, into Miami. added the ballon door recently, so you can sell Leo's stuff all signed under all of those different ranges, and the rights holders give us the rights to sell it under their brand, and then we, we push that out on the internet and sell it all over the

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So so are those secondary licenses that you have to then go and collect. So you've got messy as the central bit of ip. And then you've then gotta make other relationships wherever he goes. That covers the base of not treading on toes, I suppose, of, of getting into other people's IP in terms of what they've sold. I.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Exactly. So we are IP rights people, so we do everything the right way. We will always work with the rights holders and we, we sort of have a,'cause we have such a long relationship with Leo, literally as he moves, it's part of the negotiation. How are we gonna do the memorabilia? And, it's great because he got such a long working relationship with his team that it, it, it's literally part of the negotiation as he moves clubs.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Talk to me then about how you create, do you just go to him with, with ideas for things and, and what, what is in that sort of category of stuff that he's. Happy with. And what's part, I mean, what's, what do people want from Messi in your market?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

it, it's been, it's been relatively tightly controlled. So for us it's jerseys shirts, that's the thing people

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

we do AIDAS boots and world cup balls and club stuff and photos. We're always thinking of new ideas. To, to add to the collections, one of my favorite things is, a 10-year-old son who, loves Lego, as do

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

and, uh, I dunno if you've ever seen licensed Barcelona Lego sets where you can build the new camp.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Brilliant.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So me, uh, so me and Jack built the new camp. Took it down to our photographic studio, and in the middle there's actually a one flat piece of Lego, is the pitch. So basically we took the pitch to Leo. Leo signs it, and then you embed it back into the stadium and you sell it as a collection, which is like a Leo Messi signed new Camp Stadium.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Wow.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So it ticks all my boxes. It's sort of, it's fun. 10 year olds like it. I like it. It's good to do. And then you add, you add sort of ch and everyone else who's played onto other bricks,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

how do I know it's him signing it? Always the, again, I'm a, I just treat me as a, an idiot in this conversation.'cause I, I don't trade in it and I've, if we went back three, three years, we'd be having an NFT sort of conversation. But always the question was, what, I don't quite know, there's an element of trust here that, that he is at the other end of this relationship, I'm not being done over the classic sort of, you know, memorabilia question.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Uh, I mean, it, it is literally every minute of every day we're thinking about authenticity and, We, we have to sort of, there's two ways of a kind of, almost a left brain and a right way and brain way of thinking about it. We can shout facts at people. It's like we are his contracted partner. We have the FIFA license, we work with Barcelona, and there's sort of a fact side of the ledger, which we continue to push and press, but there's also a sort of emotional narrative story. Level. It's like, look,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Hmm.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

on my Instagram. I know icons ceo. You see me with Leo over 20 years. we're not making it up. We are in the room with him. We, we videotape it. We have, uh, photographers and videographers and contracts and, we are transparent with what we get signed and how we sign it. And we've just introduced a next level of authenticity, which is called, we're calling triple lock, which is sort of three different levels of authenticity now. So for the first time ever, we. Time codes, geolocate and video. Every single moment of assigning. Uh, we have fixed cameras over Leo signing

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So every time it goes through the kind of conveyor belt, is individually annotated and marked and cut up and edited and turned into a unique moment. So I think for the first time in the market, you can see the exact moment your thing is signed. You can then use an NFC, so a near field communication chip. So you ping that with your phone, it goes up and you see all the evidence that we have. For the signing. So the moment it's signed, the contractor was under the place, it was where we were dates, all that kind of stuff. And that's linked to our digital record of the, product. So we tried to kind of create a triangle between the product, the digital, and the session, and make an undeniable link that this thing is entirely

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

You don't have to worry. It's it, it

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

And how much fake stuff is there out there? Is it, you know, is it enormous in getting bigger or is it a con, you know, it's a sort of version of the TV piracy conversation, I guess.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

it is big. There's no denying it. We try and we do everything we can from our end to try and make everything as, uh, authentic and of undeniable as, as humanly possible. Is a vast amount of it because essentially you just need a

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah,

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

It's hard to stop. So what we would say is just go with brands that you

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

and have a reputation. So we've been doing it for 26 years. We're the world's most followed, uh, football memorabilia company on Instagram. It's like there are a million people who follow us. There's a reason for that. We've been doing it a long, long time. And uh, yes, you can buy dodgy things on eBay, but that's kind of the same for everything. Uh, yeah, global marketplaces are quite tricky.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay. What's the most valuable shirt out there?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

so just to slightly explain two different markets. So we are signed memorabilia. you buy a shirt on sports direct. Get the player to sign it. It's, it's a, like, it's a repeatable commodity, so it has a price. I mean, we're always trying to innovate and do new, new exciting things, but fundamentally, it's a replica shirt signed by a superstar. Uh, match warn items, which are the things they played with in, in the game are the sort of things dealt with by Sotheby's and sort of high-end auctions, like buds and so on. So we're not in that game. We're in

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

of. regularized and repeatable section. I mean, we wouldn't mind some match one stuff That's great. We, we've sold some, but there is also a wild west of match one stuff as well, so I don't want to, that's pretty tricky to, uh, even identify

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Uh, the most valuable shirt for us is therefore the most popular player and then the best version of what he, what he

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So, uh, as it is, we can repeat Leo products'cause we see him every three months and that we have a contract. But, uh, if you can see

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

my, you see my Diego Maradona

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So that's, more special and, more unique.'cause it, it's, uh, my first ever signing was, uh, my first ever international signing was with Diego in Buenos Aires. uh, we flew out there and we were told that we weren't supposed to see him, and it was like we could have a night off and it'd be all right. So we went out and got a bit drunk. then at about one in the morning you get phone calls saying, Diego will see you now, but you've got to go to his mom's house. So you zoom in around when Azar is with kit and photos and things and you turn up in this sort of house and uh, yeah, Diego's just finished his tele novella with his mom and you start signing things on a table. And I've got, so I've got a dedication, which is, I know in Spanish, but thanks to Dan and, uh, good luck with everything. So for me that's the, that's the most special'cause it's kind of unrepeatable now.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So that I remember I had a, a mentioned this before on the podcast, but I had a book idea where I would go and find, there's a sort of hunt for the England shirts of 66, isn't there? And you know the worn ones. And they had two, I think they were given two each. And Bobby Moores. Is lost. So somewhere. So Tina Moore is sort of it it, no one that quite knows where it is. And occasionally the story pops back into the news agenda where people have sort of making claims that they found it. But that bit. So the Messy shirt, the World Cup final winning signed messy shirt is presumably one of the most valuable artifacts in sports memorabilia.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I assume it's the holy grail of things. though interestingly you wouldn't sign it'cause that would ruin, its, its, uh, kind of cache. It needs, it needs to be clean and be the right, the actual thingy wore. uh, yeah, I mean, I, I I believe there's, there's, uh, if you could get all of them from every round of the World Cup, that's, that's the ultimate collection, and you'd build a museum around it. If you had those.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay. Where is the, the sort of the heat in the market, do you think? So we've, there's messy, and then there's also, there's other, you know, areas and I, and so has every sports major, sports rights holder got a sort of official. Memorabilia partner? Is that how it works? This is a license that they sell. So we've got a World Cup coming next year. How is that gonna play out? Just talk to me about the sort of economics of that.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Well, it's interesting. It's basically you just, you, you follow how the Americans do it. I mean, it's, this kind of market is sort of an Americanized thing, and actually the places we sell best are these sort of. American viewing areas. So Japan loves baseball, so they also love memorabilia. And the Middle East really respect it, and that's what they want. a World Cup in America where memorabilia is also a kind of bedrock of what they do. It's a, it's like, it's kind of perfect, uh, perfect moment to, really. really expose the game over there, but also then us and what we do. So we're FIFA's partners, so we're the World Cup partner and have been since, uh, the South Africa World Cup. So this is World Cup number five, I

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So, for us, the heat's, uh, the world's biggest sport in the world's biggest market at the world's biggest time with Leo. So we've got a lot of stuff going on over there. And actually what we've just done is opened a US operation. So it's interesting, uh, that how open to business our American cousins are. Literally, we flew in, met a lawyer, the paperwork, sorted everything out in 48 hours. So now we have customer service, website, uh, I know tax advice or, framing. Uh, and then we can do everything inside America'cause kind of. Interestingly, we're sort of doing what our, uh, what Donald Trump wants you to do so we can create memorabilia of. Uh, with Leo shirts. So you'd buy the shirts from Fanatics in Florida, you take them to Leo in Fort Lauderdale, you send them to our operation in Illinois and it gets framed and sent out overnight. So it's made in the USA, so we are bringing manufacturing jobs to the heartland of America. But it's good, it's good for us because it's not just a World Cup. There's so much more beyond that. I mean, we're, we're in America and it's gonna be a great.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

so you mentioned fanatics, and again, my mind went to fanatics and I thought, I don't quite know what your relationship with them is, whether they are ffo, frenemy, they're a, are they a service supplier or you a, explain that relationship.'cause again, they get mentioned a lot on the podcast because of they appear to, you know, in various different parts of the market. But just give me a sense of your relationship with fanatics. Uh.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I mean, we worked with'em for many years. We're, we're, uh, uh, they're, they're one of our biggest customers. uh, for example, of course we have the contract with Leo and they have into Miami. They would drop. shirts to us, we would get them signed, authenticated, and then drop'em back at their office, and then they can sell them on the, on all their channels. So they're, they're a great partner to work with. they memorabilia I think is maybe 10 to 15% of their kind of sport

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So it's sort of bolted on the bottom. do it in Europe and they do it in soccer and football, for example. But it's kind of. Uh, it's under exploited. They haven't, they haven't really gone for it. They have a kind of exclusive deal with Harry Kane, which is good idea. And then they sort of buy and work with us on a wider range of players.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So just take me through the sort of market then. What's the size of the market that you are operating in? Give, give, give us a, a sense of the sort of universe.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Well, it's kind of how all the sort of subsets, interlink, so sort of merchandise, which is baseball caps and shirts and everything to do is massive. I mean, that's billions and billions and billions. Then memorabilia itself, if you include trading cards, think is usually quantified at about two to 4 billion. annually. cause,'cause the American market's so big and there's so much going on, sort of football signed memorabilia is a couple of rungs down on that, so it's not hundred, it's hundreds of millions I'd say. But, there's so much headroom to go with. I mean, for football is the world's biggest sport and you've got the most amazing players and lots of markets to conquer. So, um, growth is there to be attained, I

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

And what is the, where, what is the customer, the end customer, what do we know about them? Because this feels like, I mean, you mentioned American market. That's it, it, that's a baseball card type thing. And I can imagine a sort of, you know, got a photo of the odd couple film behind me and that was, you know, that's all about trading and, and baseball fan fanaticism. But these are old men now. So just gimme a sense of what the market looks like now.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Well, it's kind of, let's think of different, different elements. So if we say 60% of our stuff is retail through our websites,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

so that's the kind of first audience, and I would say 50% of those people are present buyers. So often women buying something special for someone in their life. So we have to be mindful that they're not experts, they're not gonna know everything, can be men and can be women of course. Uh, so you have to be able to talk them through their kind of purchase and reassure them and do all the things that we do. You've then got about 40% who are buying for themselves, let's say, uh, the most. Sort of let, that's sorry. The, the person who sells the most, so if you're talking Manchester United person who sells the most is Eric

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

It's like that is the sweet spot of a sort of man's.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Love of their

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

and Canton Art outsells all the current stars, five to one at least he's the icon of,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

that generation. then we've got about 5% small, a small amount who are collectors who just love the latest thing or want to add to their ranges or are looking for something special. Or, somebody's won another trophy, so they want to add another one to their list. So that's the kind of retail angle. On the other side is a kind of B2B audience. So we work with the clubs. So we sell to the clubs to then sell on, we sell to FIFA partners and partners, so with the Champions League licensee. So that allows us to work with MasterCard and Heineken and various other people who are. Sponsors or licensees who take our stuff to create sort of promotions and incentives and giveaways and products. And that's brilliant for us'cause they, it's a combination of a champions league licensee, they're a sponsor. Let's, let's put it all together for something special. And then, and then we're in. And then we have other partners and collaborators around the world. from classic football shirts to, shops in the far east to Chinese resellers in that market too. So we sell to about 140 countries now, I think. we are super worldwide and one of Britain's greatest exporters.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

if you just, let's keep the flow of Eric Cantonal shirt. Then he signs a shirt. What's the price differential between a signed and unsigned shirt and that, you know, a plain man united shirt with a or a Cantonal signed shirt?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

it depends what the price of a plane man is. These days they've taken their retros in-house. I'd say it's probably five times what a standard shell

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

is.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So you're taking a model, turning it from, it's actually an interesting right. If you buy a shirt off the high

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yep.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

then you're buying a, piece of sports, uh, equipment, as

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yep.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

What we're doing is we're changing its category and adding value,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

so it moves from being. Sports equipment to being akin to art. It's, it's a different category. It's now sign memorabilia. It's not for wearing and playing with it. And you can see the value chain as you add a signature on top and add branding and packaging and

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

And that's a different legal categorization than just a football.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah. That, that's the way we argue it. Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

And the, so you follow that chain, you say, right, okay, I've got now something of value. It could be a canine shirt or it could be someone from, you know, the England team this summer and, okay, I want, I've got Coca-Cola. They want, well, what do they want, what do Coca-Cola want? They want to, or, or, you know, using them as a proxy for a FIFA partner. What do they want?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

one of the best things we've ever done actually is to, so Heineken sponsor the Champions League.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

And they obviously have, I think, maybe one of eight of the, advertising

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

get rotated. So what we wanted to do is to create. Wait for a moment when Ronaldo or Messi, so we have both of them, uh, signing for us, scored a memorable goal in front of a Heineken, billboard basically. And then as soon as they did it, we could then get it signed. You then put it into a branded Champions League product with a Heineken logo, and then they bought them all and used them. To put on the walls of, bars and other places that they, uh, they distributed to. Because to a punter, it just looks like icon has scored a great goal. But to the Heineken marketing Department, they are. That's what we're spending our money on. It's that billboard, that moment, the excitement, the Champions League, it's like that's everything encapsulated in a frame photo. So you, we are, would like to, we're pitching to, if you're a sponsor of a major sporting event. We can, and we have a license with Getty. So anything that

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

we can use, that all together into the most memorable moment the games or the finals or whatever sport it is, and get the, get the person who created that moment to sign it. It's a, it's the ultimate gift present, product, incentive prize, whatever you wanna do.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So we mentioned NFTs and, and the blockchain. Question because at at that point, we were all dancing around the, is it art question, the valuation of it? What is it I'm buying here? And I've got a feeling that we probably, you know, as these things go in and out of sort of fashion fashion's the wrong word, just as in the, the sort of hype around it subsided. Actually what you are saying, it feels like there's an easy jump there back into digital collectibles. So has that market gone away completely? Was it just a, a bubble that's just dissipated completely? Or is there something that you think is gonna revisit or are there elements of that moment that will be revisited So I'm a physical product yet?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Like I want to tangibly see that shit on my wall. It means something, it has a memory and that there's a reason behind it. So I've always, NFTs are not something we've got into or thought about because it's sort of, that's a digital version of it, which for me is

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

you didn't go anywhere near that?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

No, but I had conversations with people about NFTs, which was. Something where the digital is locked to the physical makes sense to me. So for example, we we had a worldwide contract for exclusive memorabilia with Diego Marna. It was during COVID, so he still had to supply him products. So he sent them all to, uh, his house. and he sent him all the money and he sort of, and, um, everything got sent back. But they had, as we were unpacking everything, one the shirts with a massive burn hole in it. And you're like.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

mind. Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Oh no, it's, it's ruined. And then they sent us the signing videos basically it's the most Diego thing you could ever imagine. It's Diego in a massive armchair, drinking cocktails whilst listening to aggressive reggaeton and smoking enormous cigars, doing it very slowly. So effectively, he'd burnt one of our shirts with his massive cigar. So we have the video. And we have the shirt. Diego had his own brand of cigars. You could probably get those. So someone was saying right, you could create a sort of NFT physical product, unique hybrid,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

which is the shirt the video with a digital version of it and it comes together. And then for me, that's the kind of combo of things it, I mean, it didn't quite work. We still have the shirt, but

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

See that's a shirt. I think that's more valuable than the, the run of the mill sign shirts.'cause that's, that's a shirt with a story on it.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

at one point we were gonna throw it away'cause it was useless. And then someone said, that's the most valuable shirt that we've

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

that story, the uniqueness, the thing behind it, the video, it's like, put all that together. Blockchain, the ownership of it. You can't then buy digital version of it. You have to buy the whole

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Because when I, I mean, we had, I had someone on and he had just done, you know, he'd sold something at Sotheby's. It was a piece of digital, it was a monkey inevitably, or some sort of a, it made tens of millions, you know, and, uh, that was at the absolute peak. Of, of the sort of, you know, and everyone was talking about, okay, we need to get into Web3, we need to be on the metaverse, we need to all of those, you know, what it was like, and the, the bit that made sense to me was exactly what you've just articulated, that there is some way that we live, you know, we live in a digital realm most of our lives, and in some way there is value there. And of course linking it to a va, you know, a physical product. I can see why you'd wanna do that,'cause that's the game you're in. But I could, I could just glimpse that. Okay. Yeah. I, okay. I can sort of. It took a long time to get there, but I sort of understood it. Now, the composite, the heat has gone out and we're all talking about ai, but I do sometimes think actually there was something in that I,

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Like, like all

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

the Gartner Hype Cycle, we'll, we'll, we'll get mentioned in a minute.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

like, like all innovations. There's a sort of, there's success and failures and people don't quite get it right, and you don't know which way to go and your practice. I mean, we created a blockchain version of what I've just described about authentication seven years ago. We had an, uh, minimum viable product that was available and we could, we won awards for it, but what we couldn't do was transfer ownership. That was the thing that, that was the next level that would make it sort of commercial and viable and sort of. The blockchain element is an interesting way of, of, uh, locking it. It's called bloc. It's a very good

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

but, um, you can still fake things that go into the blockchain.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So it's not, I, it's still a, it's not a foolproof thing. It doesn't, someone said, oh yes, the blockchain will prove it's real. It's not. It's whatever you put in and whatever you get out it, that still has humans involved. So it's not, not, it's not total lock on everything. So actually our triple lock we're doing now isn't blockchain. It doesn't quite need to be. It's about connecting a digital record to a physical product a unique, Unique codes that only show one thing for that product.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Sometimes I'm gonna run another sort of the, a part of a conversation that I have elsewhere. I'm gonna run it because I think it feels relevant to this,

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

this conversation, which is to do with what? How, the football associations, football teams and leagues and governing bodies see themselves because that's shifting over time. And one of the questions that we bump into a lot in lots of different realms, you know, maybe media or, or. Kit sales is where they start and stop where they, they want to get involved. So in hospitality, they're saying, well, okay, maybe we should encroach more and let they see, service providers as a leak to that. Why are we, you know, let's own that bit of the business and do it ourselves. We take it in-house. Where are they, do you think, in your bit of the world? And is it just. Niche enough for them to say, right, okay, you we're better off just signing a license and letting you know, Dan do his thing and we'll take a license fee from it. But that, that trend is quite an interesting one.'cause the line differs, depend from sector to sector. And i's wondering where, what the conversation on the sort of fifa, the fa, the man united to this world are saying, well, okay, well maybe we should be doing more in this sector.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah. I mean, owning the means of production is kind of always a good idea. I would. So certain clubs do it in-house Arsenal, do it in-house very well, and they are, they get their players to sign things and create arsenal merchandise and it's, it's great. It's fair enough, we have worked with a number of clubs, lots of them. So Liverpool and Man City and AC Milan and PSG, but we had a license, didn't quite work. now we're with Manu United and Barcelona and through a partner Chelsea and Spurs, who are more open to what we do. Uh, you can always get more value if you produce it, I think having a third party expert do it, manage it and use the, bring their expertise to it is the, is the way you grow a, you grow the pie. So,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

are sort of saying, so again, this is not to put words in your mouth, but there is a, I think it's an interesting dynamic at play where some people would define what you are doing as a leak to their income, whereas others would say, actually you are a marketing arm of them. You are creating a different market or a new market that they wouldn't have reached with their brand.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Uh, yes. There's always gonna be a tension between the two, I think. Uh, there's a reason the world's biggest clubs and federations work with us as experts because we know what we, we've been doing it for many years. Yes, you can kind of try and do it, but a club trying to create their own credit card

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

their own, I don't know, whatever the thousand products they have on their website. Yes, you can produce your own balls. That's not that hard. But they're not gonna do Highend products that have an expert who can do them better.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So it's specialism, specialization.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I mean, that's what I would argue.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay. Let's go. Sort of take me into the near future then. Where is this market going to evolve?'cause again, there's a bit of me that wants to be a collector of something and I dunno whether that's, you get to a certain and. But it, is it, how, how relevant is the collector in this? Or is it, is there actually a third party marketplace that's happening here that they're buying from you and then they're trading in the way that, you know, the baseball card market is a, is again, my, i, my romanticized idea of the baseball card market.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah, uh, the base, I mean, they're trading cards,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yes.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

built to trade, so that that's not something we do. We kind of collaborate with people, but it's not our thing, so we say. Buy one of our things because you love it. We're not saying buy it, wait five years and then trade it. cause at the moment, if you then trade it, you're going off into a marketplace and then the, the chain of provenance has been broken, so that's untrustworthy. I wouldn't want to do that. So buy it from us. Enjoy it. Give it as a present. That's the critical thing. what. The market, I think is mainly growable by reassurance, both technical and by brands, this is a safe place to be.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Hmm.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

If. If If internet is entirely full of dodgy stuff and it's a plague on all your houses, then it's just a category you'll shy away from. you are in, we used to be in Herod's, if you are in the FIFA story or in Sax fifth Avenue, you are on, football club websites and the Champions League, and you're being given away on Sky

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

That's okay. Right? I can trust this category. We can expand it. Uh. Is where it goes. There's also a kind of value chain of. You can have something in the middle, which is a signed shirt, but what can you add that's really exciting. So unique signed shirts or personal dedications or videos, video signings of your exact, uh, dedication versus a lower level, which is collectibles and. boxes and uh, sort of unsigned memorabilia that still is made up of that came from the Champions League or Manchester United. So asset memorabilia is another category we're interested in. So all the stuff that's in the locker from all clubs and tournaments and stadiums and players, that is all memorable stuff and uh, people would love to

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I do like an auction. Don't you like an auction? It's there. There's a, I I'm going into one of is it Buds? Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

We're.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah. I remember doing a thing just sitting in the room at, at Sotheby's and it's, it is really interesting and I love'cause all, they're so full of stories that, you know, the, just the, the, the pamphlet you get and it's just full of, full of stuff. What, other than football, where is again. What's you interesting from your perspective? What other sports?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

so we, love icons of the game of all games and we love global games. So, we took a punt on a, a tennis player called Carlos Alcaraz,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

out to be quite good. So, uh, worldwide license with Carlos. Amazing guy, lovely, uh, people who work with him and we've tried to sort of do a messy for Carlos. With high-end products that we create and with our kind of sensibility, and it's an international sport all year around, people are passionate about it and they have some money and it's, it's just not football, let's say, in terms of revenues and making it work. But, uh, it's a fantastic example of trying to pick the right kind of people because he's obviously the right guy. He is

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

And how many, how many sort of car losses did you have to do deals with before one popped?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

We only did

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Oh, wow. Well done.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah, we went in, we went in at the top. and it's brilliant being associated with him,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

I.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I want to try and do that. So it's a Abso absolute debate what happened in the company, which is trying to choose one icon

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

and then you've got a massive gamble. Versus working with rights

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

who already have an audience in the ip. And I think that's where, that's why today's is, is interesting. So we were sort of sitting around thinking, what, where could you go? What could you do? And it's like you could, uh, go and sponsor Arberg in golf. Like he's

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

he's

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

He's, he's a football fan. Uh, you could grab him and he could be your guy, but that's quite a gamble. Whereas what we were thinking was actually be much better to take our sensibility we've got with working with the Champions League and then working with the Rider

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

because there's a moment when all the eyeballs are on the WA Rider Cup. could bring our expertise to exploiting the assets, signing with the players, distributing it, creating a 365 a year moment that then carries on for into the

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

so that just, let's talk, let's push that through then. So you've got, so it's messy or FIFA or, uh. Rory or the PGA tour or the European tour, or whoever the rights holder would be. The Rider Cup I know is a really odd shaped

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Yeah,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

rights holder in its own way. So, and that from your point of view, I'm just trying to think through. So that means that's a sort of risk reward thing, and so it'd be a higher input price. The initial deal would be more expensive presumably. But you would be more, you would, you would get a longer run with it.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I don't think it, well, I don't think it'd be more expensive.'cause trying to buy a tennis player at the height of the market is expensive. I think if it's, at the moment you're not doing anything and everything we bring you will be upside, uh, then it's a conversation where sides that sort of have a risk and reward involved.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So if I, if I'm Rory or Rory's agent and who's got my. So if I say right, okay, yeah, I'll, I'll do a deal with Dan and icons.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Hmm.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Will I also do one with a PGA tour and also with the Ryder Cup and or so my name, I'm getting paid several times, or would you want exclusivity? Is there any value in exclusivity in that sense?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

uh, Rory has a deal with Upper deck,

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

he does his stuff with them. therefore, you, you're back to what you started on, which is it's the individual versus the areas in which they play and who has the most power. So Rory commands top dollar for everything

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah,

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I would say that, for example, when you're on, I mean, I haven't negotiated with the Ryder Cup. I haven't talked to them, but this

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

yeah, yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

It's like when they're on the

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Guy. Guy Innings is a keen listener, by the way. You know, so you know.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

The idea is it's, it's the European tour hosting it in Europe. on European tour time, and they need to grow the European tour's brand and awareness. So Rory puts his hat down and then comes into the changing room as a European player and the Rider Cup, you are playing for the glory of the European tour, and therefore you sign, Flags and pins and golf clubs, and it gets sold under a banner of the Ryder Cup, and more people love the event. It gets wider, uh, it gets wider traction, and a winner.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So it's just trying to work out from the player's point of view, they're seeing the opportunity here cause they obviously want to just maximize their, their own value and I. Where they sign what? I'm just trying to put myself in the shoes of a big tennis player or a ride cut player who isn't Rory McElroy. What I would do, so my, would my rights be bundled into the European tour deal in that sense?

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

I, I think it's like you're playing for you. You're in the Ryder Cup team. Congratulations. These are the terms and conditions, and your job is to promote the Ryder Cup at press conferences and on TV and help us monetize the event so we can keep doing

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

years.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

So I'm signing my shirt goes out the door and that's it. I'm not getting, again, the rider cup's an odd one'cause they, the, the money around the rider cup is a, is a sort of contentious issue in terms of the how that's worked. But that's essentially what you're saying. So the player would then sign that and the, the, the value would go to the rights holder to.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

The rights hold would, would get it. I mean, there are different models, but you, you could, that's one way of doing it. So we've talked to the people who do the Tour de France, for

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Yeah.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

and they're like, well, we've got no control over the teams. Whoever wins. You'd have to then do a negotiation with them. Whereas, uh, we have partners in Australia called SE Products who are brilliant at what they do. So they get a, a league-wide deal. So imagine it's the, uh, a FL, the Aussie rules. So they don't care who wins because inside the deal is if you win, you immediately go into a signing session for them. And then we sell the winners

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Right.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

So all they care about is whether it's a big market team or a small market team, and they win every, every which way. And it's, uh, it's a great

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Is it,'cause people quite often moan about doing like, this is American companies coming over here, service providers who say, right, I just wanna go to the Premier League and do all of the teams and it in the, is it the same dynamic at play? So, you know, and they say, oh well we, we now have to knock on 20 doors rather than going into the Premier League office.'cause the Premier League can't sell Everton man, United Spurs.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

No, the, the beauty of the Premier League is that 20 different owners make it impossible to come in and do deals with the whole league. So play. That's just the, that's the way we do it. So Americans would struggle to come in and say, can, I wanna do a deal with every, uh, every club. Whereas in reverse, not looking to jump into the American market and start taking the best basketball players and the best American football players. It's, it's, that's what they do well. Uh, we, we work within football and work with the clubs

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Okay.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

and.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Brilliant. Okay, well listen, I, I'll, I'm gonna look out for some memorabilia. I might even buy some, I might dip my toe in the uh, memorabilia marketplace.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

There's a gap on the left side of your wall, so.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

There I had a, I had a, Arnold Palmer signed thing and I thought, oh, now I never quite know what to do it. And I gave it away to someone. I quite regret it now, but he, it was a flag of his, you know, one of those sort of, uh, and I thought, well, I dunno how many, and I assumed it was, but he signed it in front of me. I, so I've got authentic, you know, it was authentic or whatever. It was. Triple lock. I didn't have a triple lock.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Shoulda stamped it.

Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:

Should have filmed it. Well, listen, Dan, good luck with it and, uh, really enjoyed the conversation. Great. Thank you very much for your time.

Dan Jamieson, ICONS:

Enjoyed.