UP394 Athletics CEO: 'The Olympics are in far more trouble than most people realise'

Jack Buckner is the former two Olympic Games athlete and 5000 metre European Champion who is now CEO of UK Athletics, the governing body for track and field in Britain. Buckner has held the same position at British Triathlon and more recently British Swimming. This followed a career in sports marketing at Adidas, in the UK, Germany and the US.

The impetus for our conversation was a recent announcement that UKA was entering a three way partnership with London Marathon Events and the Great North Run, to create a new group, called Athletic Ventures. 

This new organisation is set against the backdrop of the governing body reporting a record annual loss of £3.7m in 2023. Most of that deficit was due to the staging of major events. UKA was awarded up to £150,000 by UK Sport to help stage the Diamond League meeting last year, after it approached the funding agency for help. Despite it being a sellout, UKA is reported to have lost between £100,000 and £500,000 from the flagship event.

In this interview, Buckner talks candidly about the future of track and field, World Athletics recent decision to pay athletes at this summer’s Olympic Games and his aspiration to create the Glastonbury of Track and Field. 

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Transcript

Richard Gillis UP: 0:00

Hello, welcome to Unofficial Partner, the sports business podcast. I'm Richard Gillis. Jack Butner is the former two time Olympic games athlete, and 5,000 meter European champion, who is now chief executive of UK athletics. The governing body for track and field in Britain. Buttner's held the same position at British triathlon and more recently, British swimming is followed a career in sports marketing and Addie DAS in the UK, Germany and the U S. And the impetus for our conversation was a recent announcement that UK had entered. A three-way partnership with London marathon events and the great north run to create a new group called athletic ventures. the launch of this new organization is set against the backdrop of the governing body reporting. Uh, record annual loss of 3.7 million pounds in 2023. Most of that deficit was due to the staging of major events. UK was awarded up to 150,000 pounds while UK sport to help. Stage the diamond league meeting last year after the approach, the funding agency for help. Despite you being a sellout UK is reported to have lost. Between a hundred thousand and 500,000. On that flag ship event. So we talked to Jack about what's going on. We talk about money for Olympic medals. We talk about innovation in athletics generally. And the future of the Olympic games model.

Jack Buckner: 1:16

I think the Olympic movement is in far more trouble than most of the people who I've meet with realize. The Commonwealth games was a massive like alarm bell flashing about relevance, size, scope. And things, the Olympic movement, I think probably needs to change a lot more than most of the people involved in it realize, and governing bodies do, I think it's going to be painful and I think a lot are going to go by the wall and some sports are going to go under and, It's going to be a time when if you don't change, you're not going to survive.

UP: 1:48

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Richard Gillis UP: 2:11

There's some obvious questions that I want to talk to you about. First of all, I just want to get a sense of what the job is, because I know what the job title is, what's it like what do you do?

Jack Buckner: 2:20

Yeah. Okay. Um, Thanks Richard. Yeah. I mean, usually governing body, chief exec, sorry, I'll probably go on a bit here. There's probably about three or four things you need to do. One is you need to be on top of performance. So, you know, you need to be on top of performance. What you might call the elite, elite bit. So, you know, that, that's a performance agenda. There's then, there's a big marketing and commercial agenda. Then there's often a big development sport agenda. And then increasingly there's this huge developing kind of governance agenda. And what I try and do is what's happening, and I think it's affecting a lot of folks. People and sports is the kind of governance agendas creep is getting bigger and bigger in the job. So, the reason I always end with governance is because for me, just governance just gets you to the start line. It's the other stuff, the performance, the marketing of the sport, the development of the sport that you really want to do. And so I'm quite tough that I force that governance agenda. literally to take less than 25 percent of my time. So, and what I see happening increasingly is the governance agenda takes over and takes over. And then you don't get enough time to to get to grips with performance, particularly then the marketing of the sport and the commercialization and all of that, and then the development of the sport. So, you know, that's, that's how I, try and do it.

Richard Gillis UP: 3:49

And I suppose, I mean, this is a business, sports business podcast. So the audience is people who are working on the brand side or on agencies or, you know, increasingly the money, private equity type people. And the governance bit is the bit that no one else wants to do really. There's lots of people have got lots of opinions about how to market athletics and how to win medals. And the performance thing is its whole cottage industry. And likewise participation, there's a sort of bit of the conversation there that people talk about in terms of the role of the governing body. And then they get to private, public. part run type conversations. But the governance bit, it's incredibly important, but no one else. It's got to be your job, isn't it? There's

Jack Buckner: 4:34

Absolutely. Well, you know, Uh, you know, it absolutely has to be, and it's interesting because I've You know, obviously I know, obviously we're doing a great run partnership and I'm good friends with Brendan Foster and he always said, well, the clues in the job title, you're the national governing body of sport. So, so governance is important and the governance agenda has just got so vast in so many different ways that it, it's really important. But it. It can kill you, you know, I mean, it's a kill. Sorry, that's probably too strong a word. I don't mean it that way, but it can take over your agenda to such an extent that everything else becomes impossible. And, I'm absolutely. all over safeguarding you know, absolutely about clean sport and I really want our sport and any sport to be a healthy and positive place for people to go. But that area becomes so expansive and so emotive I've seen it break quite a lot of chief execs, particularly in the last five years. And if you spoke to them, they would say, this is what really gets them down. And it could be an individual thing, a particular issue, but it just kind of gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And then before you know where you are, it's just really challenging. And the emotion attached to it, which you kind of understand is vast, you know, so it is really challenging to manage.

Richard Gillis UP: 5:56

is there a reason why it's multiplied? I'm thinking safeguarding and drugs and those are the two things that go

Jack Buckner: 6:02

Yeah, I think it's happening everywhere. And I really feel, you know, I mean, I've been a volunteer coach and, you know, I was with a load of clubs last night. And, you know, if you whoever you are in any setting and the volunteer life and the community life, you just have to be so aware. The support for that in sport, particularly Olympic and Paralympic sport isn't, you know, if you were a teacher or you're in a hospital environment, there'd be lots of people there, but there isn't really. And, also, you know, we could, you could quite quickly pontificate on all sorts of issues that you could get caught out by, whether that's, you know, all sorts of masses of issue. You're just the thing which is always alive. topic and I'm very careful the management of your body and body type and that and how do you communicate what you say and who do you know I really feel for coaches and volunteers in all sorts of areas of sport and life who are really committed it's just tricky to navigate your way through isn't it and it's and expectations are a lot higher and social media and everything so it is not You know, it's just a massive area and I really feel for all of us in it, in that space.

Richard Gillis UP: 7:07

yeah, no, absolutely. That's very well put. I mean, part of the thing that prompted me to get in touch and have the conversation was a different bit of the job, which is the events bit. And the, you know, the story that you, you know, around the relationships that you've built with, you mentioned Brendan Foster there, and you've got the Great North Run and London Marathon. Can we just unpick let's get into that for a bit. What does that mean? What's happened? What's different?

Jack Buckner: 7:30

Yeah, I think it's, I mean, the reasons for doing it are, again, governing bodies have struggled to commercialize effectively and events are high risk and, Obviously, there's a bit of an impetus to our financial position, but for me, this was the right thing to do, you know, I've got this thing at the moment you either have to be big, or you have to be community and things that are caught in the middle struggle, whether that's events or retailers or whatever. So, you know, if you look at all the things going on in the sporting landscape, the things that really resonate are the Big, powerful things that cut through and, you know, it's just this massive change has happened. And a lot of the kind of products and services we provide is kind of caught in the middle. So for me athletics, we need to align ourselves with who are the big partners in the space who are really good at it. And running has done that in the last 40, 40 years. You know, arguably led by London Marathon Events and Great Run and Parkrun and others. They have transformed the space, innovated, been creative, while track and field athletics, if we're really honest, hasn't moved at the same pace, it hasn't evolved. So to me, they are, they've done the job right, they understand consumer marketing, they've got great resource and there's a strategic link there because of athletics and running. And nobody's really. managed that partnership. So for me, they are the natural strategic partners. And also, I don't think athletics and running has punched in the same way for advocacy as say, swimming and aquatics has, or even cycling has. So for me, I could go on for hours about the benefits of running and athletics and accessibility and the diversity. And we haven't spoken with an advocacy voice. We haven't aligned our marketing and events. So. It's totally the right thing to do. And you tap into expertise too, because we can't develop an internal events department at the size and scale. you move more towards an agency model. And then there's a whole other debate about the way major events are run, which have become very top heavy and cumbersome around LOCs with Quite bureaucratic structures. They're not fleet of foot and often, you know, being honest that the staff are employed by them, the time you want them to be fully focused, they're looking for the next job. Whereas if you move to a lighter agency model, which, you know, you'll be familiar from advertising and I'm familiar from a time at Adidas, it's just better, delivers better, tap into expertise and specialism and hopefully you market the sport more effectively.

Richard Gillis UP: 10:09

Which is sort of, we're probably going back. Well, not that far, but that was how things were done on. I thought you had fast track as was, and you know, what became CSM, but they were, that relationship with athletics was very tight. They did a lot of the commercialization of it. And they, a lot, I don't know if they did the event management of it. I don't know about that, but that was what it was. And then running into, I think it was world championships, 2017, you know, UKA took it in house. I wonder, I guess these things are cyclical and people say, right, okay, well, let's bring it in house. We'll keep all the money and do it ourselves. And we're expert enough. And then it's now gone back out. Effectively, you've devolved it back out. Is that just a signal that. that wasn't the right decision.

Jack Buckner: 10:53

No, I think You know, in any business, you need to constantly sort of stress test. Do you do things in house? Do you do you bring things out of house? So I think it was a, at that point in time, I totally understand the decision and you know, you always think we can do it in house ourselves. You know, we can reduce the commissions, we can develop our staff and it becomes a core competence. And so I think that was, you know, I can see exactly why that decision was made and I don't make any criticism of Dugout. Decision at that point in time, it's just the world move has moved on a lot, particularly in the last five years and in a few things have happened in the last five years. One is the broadcast market has changed fundamentally. So there isn't the sort of fees and money in broadcasts that there was back then. So that's changed. The probably the events landscape and the ticketing landscape has changed. Then we had the pandemic. And then the risk profile of events and everything you have to do around events. So the cost base has changed. Probably the last thing that's changed is the IFs, the International Federations, and they've started to almost control more of the event rights and the supply chain. So all those factors have happened. In the last five years, and they've all made it increasingly difficult to manage events in different ways. So, I think, you know, it is a very different environment now than it was five years ago,

Richard Gillis UP: 12:18

it's interesting that, I mean, I personally am all over the map on this question because I, you know, and it's, it is very specific, you see it more generally, you can sense this is beyond far beyond athletics, but people are saying the water companies or the train company, let's bring them back in control and ownership, build it, you know, and then it's, we've been through the privatization wave and we know all of the arguments one way or the other, I guess it is just a timing thing.

Jack Buckner: 12:45

It's a fascinating debate across all sectors and, you know, I was an NHS non exec director, you know, for eight years. And that was really interesting in the foundation trust space when the first uh, ICTs came in and they, you know, and so, uh, effectively, You know, that was a commercial model for your hips and your knees and orthopedics and that had a lot of those dynamics, you know, and I think all those things are still absolutely relevant. You know, how do you get the right balance between public ownership and private ownership? How do you deregulate and move at pace? versus, I suppose societal aspirations, and what's the right model. And I think you know, we're all probably wrestling with that in across all sectors. And there's advantages and disadvantages, aren't there, both ways, you know. So I guess a lot of my career has been spent across those. intersections, you know, in the charity sector, in sport and in the commercial sector. So I suppose my rules are I think to be successful today, you have to collaborate. And for me, I would say collaboration is a contact sport. It's a nice word to use, but you've got to do it and it's tough. And there's probably three, I have three basic rules of collaboration. One is a level of strategic alignment. Two is the money has to feel fair. And three is the most important, which is trust. And, you know, on this partnership, you could spend forever negotiating over it and then the legal and all the rest of it, but you're going to face scenarios where you're going to have to look at each other in the eyes and you're going to have to trust each other. And I've done a number of partnerships when I was at Sport England with Dugout. National Trust. And that was a really interesting partnership. And you have to trust is so, so important. And everyone's got their own infrastructure to manage. And I, you know, London Marathon events and Great Run need me to trust, need to trust me to manage my infrastructure and I need to trust them to manage theirs. Otherwise, what, when you start getting dragged into that, there's It just gets really messy, you almost get a sense of when a partnership is going to work fairly early on, because it's a trust not there. It's probably not going to go very far.

Richard Gillis UP: 14:56

I can see in that list of three things, strategic alignment. I can see, yes, massive tick. I can see trust between you and the people running those open eye London marathon and the great North run. The money question is really, is the interesting bit in terms of there's a, there's always a risk reward. Element to this and the cliche around public and private relationships, which is sort of, this is a quasi, you know, version of that is that the public takes the risk and the private takes the reward. How does it work out? I can see from your partner's perspective. There's a lot to like about this. I'm just trying to work out from your PO point of view, the money bit,

Jack Buckner: 15:36

So we're not doing badly. I mean, we sat around the table and gone a third, a third, a third, you know, so, so we're going a third, you know, and that's kind of how we operate or tap into each other's expertise. It's literally a third, a third, a third. And, you know, there's, it's interesting because I've done this a few times with governing bodies. There's like, There are rights in there and some of those rights, I could argue, well, maybe I should get, it should be 70 percent mine and let, you know, but often if you've got a load of assets in the sort of space we have, you know, you're going to try and talk to brands and all the rest of it and they're going to want to, you know, They're going to want something bespoke anyway. So if you start with the principle of third, and then you sit down with the brands and work it out, you know, in, in former roles, I've done these kind of arrangements and we spent probably 18 months on, you know, evaluating the profit split and how it's going to work. And. Nobody's come along quite wanting it that way. So, so I think we're going into it with very much a third, a third, a third. And, And you know, that's our thinking and we're going to try and be fair around the staffing models, and yeah, so, so, uh, we're trying to keep it simple too.

Richard Gillis UP: 16:50

and when you're looking at partners, it's particularly true of athletics. You've got the stars, you've got that dynamic, you know, it's in every sport, obviously, but in athletics and we're coming into an Olympics and you've got the famous names at the top and then you've got the pyramid or people who are great athletes, but they're not commercially as valuable. What does UKA own? So if I'm, if I'm a sponsor, I'm coming in saying, right, okay, do I align with, I like this story and there's going to be an event sponsorship offer here and I'm, you know, I'm going to go in and I'm going to, you know, Pay whatever the number is, or I'll pick off a couple of the athletes. I can tell similar stories. And from a consumer perspective, I might get through this an Olympic year and a world championship, and they might, you know, the results will come back in and people think, Oh, actually, I thought they were sponsoring athletics.

Jack Buckner: 17:42

Yeah, no, I think, I think it's always a debate in particularly Olympic and Paralympic sport is, you know, what does, what rights of the government. So, I mean, our rights are around events and they're around the team. And you know, we package those up around the events and the team. So there are core rights. And now of course we work with London Marathon. So they've got rights that we can package together. I mean, then that's the debate, isn't it? What's your, how much you want to align yourself to an individual or a hero and. What are the risks around that? What, you know, reputation you know, do they fit the right image? Is it sustainable? How do you get visible presence? So, so I think it's I mean, to me, the best, well, I think I probably would say this, but the best deals are when it's kind of all encompassing and we've got really good relationships with the athletes and the agents and you can sort of package that up a bit. And, you know, I've done that a few times in my career. You know, and I think what we can offer. So if I gave an example at Triathlon we did a really nice partnership with Whole Earth, uh, and they wanted brand and events and things like that. And this is going back a few years. They wanted some ambassadors and they actually had a couple of the power athletes cause, you know, so you can package things up according to what brands. So I think it just depends on where the brand is. I mean, as you say, you can go direct to an athlete, but there's, there can be risk around that too, you know, depending upon a whole bunch of things. And uh, and we'll have seen, you'll have seen some high profile, you know, uh, athlete endorsements of a lot of value. That, you know, might be a bit more challenging now. So, and there are things, there's things you can trip up quite easily around that. So hopefully, if the federation is run well, in the right way, with some decent events and some good value, and you can link in the athletes, I think that hopefully provides good brand value.

Richard Gillis UP: 19:31

at the beginning, you were talking about your one, two, three, and you've got that, again, always the live thing is the participation base and winning medals, those two things. And sometimes I think they're very linked. And sometimes I don't think they're linked at all and it's quite, you know, it's quite tricky to, you know, that again, it's a circular argument that you go, you know, you go around all over the place. are you a envisaging, uh, so the UK is a sort of flag waving, there's a community aspect to this, getting people moving the Sport England message or, and, It's high performance or it's elite.

Jack Buckner: 20:07

So I'm firmly both, you know, so I'm firm, which is why, you know, again, we've got London Marathon and Great Run. We've got things with our nation. So I get, I mean, I get dewey eyed over all of it, so I love, you know, I, I spent time as Wayne and I love The inspiration of sport, you know, and it just blows your mind, doesn't it? That, you know, London Marathon this year is gone from 550, 000 to 850, 000 people applied for it, part runs, all of it. I love all, I mean, I personally love all of it, sport, culture, community, that intersection which we've seen and I think, you know, I've been very fortunate to be part of a lot of it just, you know, it's great. So I love all of that and how it can change people's lives at that very community level. I love that. But interestingly, you know, my background originally is an elite athlete. So, uh, I do I'd almost sort of walked away from elite sport for quite a bit of my career, you know, so I've worked at Adidas and was very much into the, most of, you know, inevitably fashion and all those kind of things in sports fashion. So I went through a whole trajectory of that. And then I was at Sport England. So I was really happy. And then when I got back to British Triathlon, I almost hadn't thought about it. But the big bit of the agenda was elite sport. And I sort of, I really like that too. You know, I mean, there's just the dynamics around elite sport. You know, you're constantly on the edge, you know, the difficulty of decision making. So I do, it's strange in a funny sort of way, because I sort of went from an elite sport background, got really into the whole participation, inspiration agenda. Yeah. And actually now I do with the experiences I've had, I do really. Enjoy performance sport and decision making and the pressure around that. So, I quite like that too.

Richard Gillis UP: 21:56

Well, I guess the job, as you said, right at the beginning, you've got these two jobs. There's no dodging it. So, you know, that's, it comes with it. I guess there's a what do you think about events and major events again, we all went through London 2012 and loved it, and now look, you look back at it and it, I mean, firstly, it feels like another world, you know, looking at the, you know, just in terms of the sense of what it was to be British, but we'll park that for a minute, but there's, uh, anything you wish had happened differently since London 2012?

Jack Buckner: 22:30

I think so. I mean, it was a high point and there's no two ways of getting around it. It was a high point for us as a nation and confidence and lots of stuff, you know, played out since in all sorts of different ways. So it felt, I mean, I think, and just the way we all came together, which is what the Olympics is about. So again I'm excited about the Olympics. I'm also, I mean, if you look as well, so I go back there a lot. And if you go to that, you know, that's, you know, the pride themselves on the biggest regeneration project. And if you go there and you see the energy around it and obviously I know the aquatic center well, and, you know, Tom Daley diving there, and then you can go and pay, have a much you pay to go and swim in the pool and Tom. So, a lot of the promise of London, in some respects, has been realized. And probably the other bit of London, which I think often gets overlooked, is I think it fundamentally changed our country's view on disability. So, you know, and I think that's a real important legacy. You know, I don't, I believe, you know, the Paralympics in 2012 and everything that's played out since I do think it's changed our perception on ability and disability in that. So I think they're two, for me, massive, legacies. And I also think there's been a performance legacy. So, you know, so definitely inspired that. I think it possibly could have done more in some areas. I think there were some big misses. You know, we should have been far quicker out of the blocks with, you know, the 20, 2012 database, what happened to that? You know, all these millions of people who were interested, we didn't, you know, that kind of fell apart, So I don't think we capitalized on everything. I think there were some misses in there. But I think for me overall, there was some. and I think I'd love to be part of doing it again. I think a lot's played out since then, we've seen these issues around the Commonwealth Games. So I any future events of that scale need to offer value for money, uh, need to be sustainable, the world and the whole, climate change and everything like that's happened since then. So, I think the model definitely would need to change for a bunch of reasons. But I think there were I still think there were some huge wins there. And probably some misses as well, but overall I think it's, there is sufficient legacy to justify it.

Richard Gillis UP: 24:45

Quite often legacy. I, you know, again, I say this now and then, you know, the sort of physical like Stratford that's easier in some ways. Politicians like physical legacy. They like to, you know, that's point at that. It's real. It's tangible. It's the other bit that is really hard, isn't it? It's the, you know, and again, my, one of my sort of thoughts on it. Yeah. is that to get an Olympic games or to get a, you know, a big world event, the bidding has to really over promise to get it. And everyone then projects onto that their own agenda. And then afterwards, the sort of disappointment is built in almost

Jack Buckner: 25:25

Hmm.

Richard Gillis UP: 25:26

I didn't get my bit of the legacy.

Jack Buckner: 25:29

It's going to be really interesting because obviously now we've got, the athletic ventures, we're going to be working with partners to deliver that. European Championships in 26 and we've been quite open about the fact we love to do a world championships. Again if we could definitely the kind of the DNA of London Marathon events is based on charity and then also great run companies. They're gonna I hope, looking forward, hold our feet to the fire on all that stuff, you know, so really hope we can, any, we do future major events, we can do them in a way that captures all these, you know, Agendas, you know, so, uh, yeah. So I agree with what you're saying. And I think particularly the state of the world today and all the challenges we've got, you know, you just need to be really offering a lot for lots of agendas, you know, we need that.

Richard Gillis UP: 26:18

I always find part run interesting because I think it's more about what it says about national governing bodies in terms of whether or not it could have emerged from a national governing body, where there is something cultural, you've worked at Adidas, you've worked, you know, the cultures are important. And the cliche is, that it's not an innovation culture within, you know, and we could talk about, you know, UKA, but it's also, it's true of other national governing bodies. And I've, we've had Mark Bullingham on here and we talked about the FA and its relationship with Six Aside, you know, it's almost trying to sort of stop things because They've got a definition of what they want the sport to be. And sometimes I think, there is a crowding out of innovation. If you've got a governing body at the center of the thing, which is being paid by, the Olympics and various other bits of it, what do you think about that? Cause coming from your, I'm really interested in your background, because as you say, you've had a career as a sports marketer at Adidas, and that's a different view in the world. It's a much more hardline commercial view.

Jack Buckner: 27:19

say this to anyone, Dublin bodies haven't innovated. going right back, one of the nice things about London Marathon Great Run partnership is you know, at that time when, Chris Brescia and Brendan Foster set up those things. The governing body tried to ban it, and so, generally innovation has not come out of governing bodies. And, I think all the time about the Olympic movement and, The inherent conservatism in the link Olympic movement. I mean, it's really interesting when you think, modern pentathlon could have morphed into triathlon. If the leadership in modern pentathlon had been farsighted, they just said, we'll grab the multisport space and we'll be triathlon. But of course they didn't, did they, you know, and they were stuck with a traditional format. And to some extent, we're still guilty of that in athletics. And that's absolutely no criticism of. Any individual or any individual event, but we just find it really hard, don't we? Because there's going to be someone who's passionate about their bit of the sport and they're going to have a role and a function and they're going to defend it. So, you know, our sport and the format of our sport in athletics is antiquated. It's based on a model, that's been going forever, and, Turn up to an athletics meet. It's pretty much the same as when I was running,

Richard Gillis UP: 28:35

And how much leeway have you got? You know, obviously you've got world athletics at one level, and then you're feeding into a global system that everyone else is doing the same thing. How much leeway have you got to innovate? I'm, I don't, at what level does the innovation have to take place?

Jack Buckner: 28:50

well, I think I actually hope we can partly through this, you know, and I also think, you know, you should talk to World Athletics. I do think, you know, if you listen to Seker or John Ridge, they've, you know, they've got the sport in decent shape now. You know, in terms, I say decent shape, you know, they dealt with a lot of the integrity issues, set up the integrity unit. They're doing it. Their key mantra now is innovation and they are pushing innovation as you probably know, and I think that's absolutely the right thing to do. You're going to have to challenge a lot more, push innovation and drive a lot more change because the, you know, and I think that's true across the Olympic movement. Absolutely. I was, did a thing with some school kids recently and the Olympics just isn't relevant to them, you know, because, they might like the flags and the medals, but it's absolutely, you know, you look at all, all the things you've talked about and all these new sports emerging, which probably most of them I'm not particularly interested in, given my background, but they're far more consumer driven. They use heroes better. I think the Olympic movement is in far more trouble than most of the people who I've meet with realize. The Commonwealth games was a massive like alarm bell flashing about relevance, size, scope. And things, the Olympic movement, I think probably needs to change a lot more than most of the people involved in it realize, you know, including myself and governing bodies do, and it's, I think it's going to be painful and I think a lot are going to go by the wall and some sports are going to go under and, It's going to be a time when if you don't change, you're not going to survive.

Richard Gillis UP: 30:23

I'm sort of, I've become slightly obsessed with Triathlon, not as a participant, you'll be shocked to hear, but I did a thing with SuperTri, we did an evening, a launch event for their thing. And then you've got PTO. as well happening. There's a lot of money, you know, a lot of serious money going into that, which I've always thought was a sort of quite it's niche marginal sort of thing. But there is a lot of, new thinking going in there. Why do you think that's happening?

Jack Buckner: 30:50

Well, I think triathlon is a young sport, always has been a young sport. So the history in it is quite short. And it's really interesting when I was chief exec for triathlon for three years, it was really interesting because it was about the first sport where It was an adult sport that didn't have a children's pathway. So, which you think most sports, you know, under six, under seven, you know, whereas triathlon didn't. So, it's got that opportunity for invention. And there's probably also because it's not as classical, you can, you know, even when I was at triathlon, if they said, look, it's going to make a really nice you know, shot to run around that tree, you know, run around that tree or do that. So there's been an openness to innovation and creativity just naturally from where it's come from. Whereas, you know, the ability to innovate in a 5, 000 meter race, you can't, you know, run around the tree, you know, it's what it is, you know, so, you know, So I think the format lends itself to creativity and innovation. I think if you get it right in the right spaces, it's visually appealing. You know, so I think there's things like that in there and probably just the people involved in it. They're not, you know, because it's younger and newer, they're not necessarily is, they're not immediately going, well, that's the, you know, we've been doing that for 150 years or whatever, you know, so, so I think that's, there's a number of factors in there, probably in some ways the barriers to entry are quite low if you find a good location. With a group of athletes, it can look good. I mean, the challenge for triathlon is if you want to do it in the big city center locations is, you know, the cost of the infrastructure, and then also the economics of, you know, you can get. 50, 000 people running a marathon, you can maybe get four or five thousand doing a triathlon. So the economic equation is different from, uh, so the cost base and the actual cost of participation is a lot higher.

Richard Gillis UP: 32:35

And is it, I sometimes get the impression that the event holders or the event promoters are essentially doing the work of Ironman. So Ironman is sitting there making all the money and the event promoters are almost like marketing Ironman because that's where they'll go. It's a bit like CrossFit in that way, CrossFit events. And then they sit at the middle, taking the cash.

Jack Buckner: 32:58

I think there's some truth in that Armond's done a great job in establishing itself as a, you know, like the marathon as an aspirational, iconic thing to do, you know, so, you know, and I think they've also managed the age group thing. And I mean, I actually think. I think athletics and running is probably going to take a leaf out of that and I think it's happening now. My analysis is triathlon and Ironman was quicker out of the blocks with age groups. I think athletics and running is catching up with that fast and I actually think that is going to impact on triathlon because I think if athletics and running gets the age group model right, like triathlon does, I think a lot of people are going to be quite happy running, particularly with the new shoes when they can run faster. So I think, I actually think running is going to pick up a lot of that in the next few years. Yeah,

Richard Gillis UP: 33:45

look across, you know, mentioned new sports, whether it's live golf, you know, as a new sports property, I find that interesting because. It's not about, you know, in itself, it's just in terms of the direction and you see the hundred and you see there are teams, there is a mixed element to it, not in live golf, which I think is a big miss, but I'm just, there is a sort of almost, I call it sport by McKinsey, you know, you've got people, they've looked at sport and they've said, right, here are the vulnerabilities of the status quo of the governing body. And we will attack it here and here. It's very sort of methodical. Whether it works or not is a completely separate question. I don't think LiveGolf is working either, you know, for what it's worth, but you can sort of see that's the now the template. If you were to switch jobs and have a go at attacking UK athletics or world athletics. You can sort of see where they would go. what do you think? Is that something that you think about much? Are you under pressure from disruptors?

Jack Buckner: 34:50

All the time. And I think it's exactly right. That's how it should be. Absolutely. You know, and I think you can make a strong argument. Athletics and most of Olympic sport, which I think is, as I've said, is vulnerable. Hasn't developed, been contemporary in the right way. I mean, I think about this a lot. Yeah. And it was when I was at Adidas, I spent a lot of time. This is going back 20, 30 years on the originals, you know, and the originals and the three strike, which was a really interesting time. And what I learned was There's nothing like authenticity, but authenticity has to be relevant. And Olympic sports has authenticity in spades, but the bit it's lost is relevance. And the trick is finding out what's what within authenticity Can you make relevant? Because you need to, if you go too far away from what you are, it's not credible. You might have some examples of doing that, but the ones that have been successful have managed to understand where the basis for authenticity is. And then modify their product to make it relevant, which I suppose is the first chunk of my career was spent doing a lot of that in sports footwear and sports footwear understands that, you know, so that, you know, the Nike Pegasus it's still the Nike Pegasus and people would say that's the Pegasus or, but it's been evolved in a way that the product development understands the authentic elements, but it knows how to make it relevant with technology and all the rest of it. Now, I would argue that Olympic sport has failed to do that. It's failed And that's why a lot of it is failing because it's still phenomenally authentic, but it hasn't evolved its product in an understandable way and it's not relevant anymore. So the clock's ticking on that and, you know, we, athletics absolutely needs to do that.

Richard Gillis UP: 36:42

There's a sort of line, isn't there? The sport and entertainment, Sort of continuum, isn't it? I always think of it as WWE at one end and Olympic wrestling at the other. And, you know, a lot of what passes for sports marketing strategy is trying to get from one end to towards either towards the middle or try that it's trying to test. I mean, I think it's not just, I mean, we can blame lots of different reasons for this, but actually I think the audience is quite conservative as well, isn't it? People quite often don't want their thing. mucked around with that they've been watching for a while.

Jack Buckner: 37:16

I think there's a lot of truth in that. That's a really good point. Actually. There is that, you know, there is that within it. Well the court, there's a, yeah. Each four and each league has a core audience, you know, which is probably a conservative and probably a lot of them are the volunteers and they love it and they breathe it and they keep the thing ticking over. So you've just got to be massively respectful of that. The bit they challenge is when the thing they love. does start to change, you know, and, uh, you're right, but I guess it comes back to what's the size of that audience. And if people may love it, but if it's only, You know, a few hundred thousand people love it. I'm afraid in the world today, you're not going to get the facilities you want. You're not going to get the sponsors you want, you know, so you just have to be realistic, which is why I come back to, you know, if you're stuck in the middle, you know, you might as well go back to being a cottage industry, you know, in the very community way. It's just people. And that's where a lot of sports are, and a lot of sports events are, and they're getting, they're struggling, yeah, because, you know, whether it's a local authority, whether it's you know, are we getting value for money from, you know, our investment or a sponsor, you know, people want scale and reach and dynamism. So yeah, I think you're right. And constantly, again, it does mirror my early career because, you know, sport and fashion and sports shoes and fashion and all of that, it's a constant, uh, you know, fluctuation between them. And those are the right, uh, that's the right line to be working your way along.

Richard Gillis UP: 38:44

Well, it's quite sometimes when, again, you have people who come on this podcast, who are running sports. And I think it's a red flag when they mentioned grandstand. And I'll explain what I mean. There is a sort of tendency to say, and it references your. era of athletics. And so it's that golden era and it's, this is a British perspective when we had these fantastic athletes and everyone was watching it on BBC, and, uh, let's try and get back to that. And that's a world that is sepia now, you know, it's a, it's. It just doesn't exist in the same way. I'm interested in what you think about how I see a lot of athletics, but I don't pay for any of it. It's on my Tik Tok feed or it's on my Instagram feed. And you know, I, it's a, it's an odd thing that I'm, I see, I feel quite connected to it, but I have no idea how the economics of it are going to pan out. I don't think any, you know, it's a hard question, but if the BBC ain't paying your rights fee,

Jack Buckner: 39:44

That's right.

Richard Gillis UP: 39:46

how does it work?

Jack Buckner: 39:47

Yeah, it is. No, it does. And broadcast, you know, I mean, I've come back to the, you know, probably when I'm talking about being a chief exec, you know, there's not, there's nowhere on my job description or tenure as a chief exec has been, you need to be able to understand broadcast. And to be quite frank, I haven't got a clue what's going on in broadcast. You know, I don't, you know, I'm sorry. I'm sure there's some, you can spend a lot of money with some, with with some amazing consultants or tell you what's going on. I don't believe anyone's got a clue what's going on with broadcast at the moment. You know, it just seems that rights are, Disaggregating. It's really messy. You know, uh, it feels to me like a mess, you know, the whole thing, you know, I mean, people are spending phenomenal amounts of money on sports documentaries that only a handful of people are watching. What's going on there? You know, I just, I can't see that model going on either. I mean, where's anyone making any money out of it? And obviously the, I guess the rights and um, you know, uh, the Champions League and things like that. But it feels to me a really, really messy. And it is hard. I'm honestly, I'm not totally sure. What I do know is that, And it's already happened a couple of times this year. When we get it right in athletics, it cuts through. So we got it right for the world indoors in February, March time. The TV audience was amazing. Uh, Josh Kerr and Molly Corddry. And so when we have a big moment we can cut through and it happened with Budapest as well, you know, so, Budapest cut through, the World Indoors cut through. We're hoping we can make the Diamond League cut through and we've got some announcements on that with the right athletes at the right time. in the right location, I think it can cut through, but that's what that then means for the economic. So, it does have the propensity to do that. So I think if you can create a few big moments, this is the one Olympic and Paralympic sport that can really cut through with scale and reach. And I think there are examples of that, and I hope there'll be more of that. But I think what that means for the rest of your product offer and how you make the championships work you've got to look at it I think being really honest for more of a community engagement and taking some of the thinkings of the park runs and I think festivals and, you know, I think there's probably a way of doing things which we haven't got to yet, which is why I call Glastonbury athletics, you know, so I think there's a, if you could create three or four big moments. And then the rest of it feels like Glastonbury, you kind of go along for a long time, there's loads of stuff going on and some golden moments. So I think there's, I think there's a sifting of the product offer that I don't think we've got to, I'd love to get to uh, and maybe we will in the next few years, you know. But it's not, it's going to be very, it's very hard to see you know, a football model or anything like that.

Richard Gillis UP: 42:35

Yeah, there's a, we had um, so a guy called Will Page and he was the chief economist for Spotify. And so we were talking about. You know, media and the application and music thing. And he said something interesting that sort of resonated with me, which, which tallies with what you were saying. And he was talking about the festival and he, you know, the festival bundle. And he said, well, if you look at Glastonbury, music probably isn't in the top three, you know, it's, it's sex, drugs, rock and roll. Probably in that order in terms of why you go to a festival. So

Jack Buckner: 43:09

yeah,

Richard Gillis UP: 43:09

I'm not looking for a direct linear application to an athletics bid, but you can sort of see the bundle as an idea, I think has a lot of merit in terms of the, or from an event perspective.

Jack Buckner: 43:21

I agree totally. But just to be clear, those three descriptors have no place in my life or my sport, so. So, so yeah, no, I think you're I think you're right. And again, I thought a lot about this in part run. So, I mean, if you said, What would you like? I'd like to have a national championships, which is, you know, feels like Astonbury. There's loads of stuff going on. People think I've got to be around for that three or four days. Loads of people compete. You have a golden hour, you know, when the big things happen, but then you have all this other stuff going on and interviews with Daley Thompson and fun runs with Paula Radcliffe. So actually the whole experience is, if you love this sport you need to be there. And. You know, I think, you know, I mean, the thing with that kind of thing, and you look at things like the running show, you know, so I mean, there's some great examples of that. I mean, I don't understand the running show, you know, but hundreds of thousands of people do, and they love it. And yet on the over here, you've got this elite thing that not we can't get that level of engagement. So there has to be something in there. And I agree completely about, uh, community and community experiences and, you know, the way you add value to things. And I think if you can weave it in the right way, there, there is something in there. You've just got to have, I think with anything these days, you've got to, uh, You've got to give yourself between three to five years because, you know, you're going to be some bumps in the road. You've got to commit to something. And when you do, I mean, again, just come back to my shoe day, you don't expect the new product to be a hit out the blocks. You've got to evolve it and move it on. So, so yeah, I think there are, I think there are some great things we could do in athletics and the stuff we could do indoors wise and things like that. I guess it's about time and resource and expectation of return and things like that. So, Yeah.

Richard Gillis UP: 45:17

Do you think, I mean, going back to Adidas, the Adidas and Nike's of this world, I'm not asking you to, Make it specific, but are they as interested in athletics as they used to be?

Jack Buckner: 45:26

Yeah, I think they really are. I actually think, you know, we're in a athletics and running is on the crest of a new wave, and I think that's happening in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of ways. I think the new shoes and new technology is amazing. And, you know, if you're an older runner, you can run a lot quicker, which is brilliant and get injured less. So I think that's a factor. I think part runs linked into that. Yeah. I think and social running and new running clubs. And I also think the road scene continues to grow, you know, the five Ks, 10 Ks, short races, fast times, all of that new thing. So I actually think athletic and running in particular is in a really healthy place. And I think it's going to, you know, we're on a new wave of. Another wave of the running revolution, you know, and the fact that, you know, 850, 000 people a few weeks ago up from roughly 500 applied to London Marathon that's a, you know, that shows you the appetite for running, you know, and the great runs doing really well with their events this summer. So if you can get the right events iconic, I think it is. So I'm actually really positive about the future.

Richard Gillis UP: 46:36

I mean, the question there of that juxtaposition, that description with financial picture of UK athletics. And, you know, that's, that it's quite hard to reconcile those two things. Cause I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I, you know, it's obvious. We look out, the people are running and there's stuff going on. Yeah. And yet there's sort of money being lost at the event level. So I, again, I'm, whether it's to do with, are these two separate

Jack Buckner: 47:03

I guess we've got the right partners to help us with that now, so, you know, so, so we've got the experts in the house and they're our partners now, so they're going to help us on that journey. So I guess we'll know. in the next five to 10 years, you know, because we're going to be working with them and we're delivering, you know, we, you know, we are actually delivering, you know, the European Athletics Championship, which is as pure as it gets as an event with London Marathon and Great Run. So, you know, it's going to be really interesting, isn't it? See how that goes, you know, and hopefully That energy will come into it, you know, in the right way, you know, so, you know, it's going to be a fascinating journey, isn't it?

Richard Gillis UP: 47:40

It is. And I've got one final question. I can't let you go without the prize money at the Olympics question. Is it, you know, you've probably been asked it a hundred times since it was announced. What's your

Jack Buckner: 47:51

No, I'm fully in favor. I mean, I think for lots of reasons, I think of all, I think more you just can't argue with the fact that more money ends up with the athletes. I mean, that's one factor in there. Probably another thing is, I think we've got to be compelling and money is compelling for young people to do the sport and the athletics in particular, you know, act. You know, you go to a lot of track and field meetings. There's coaches from basketball, NFL. So, you know, if you're a kid, you know, and you've been, you so it needs a pathway that needs to financial reward. And it was really funny actually. Cause I remember one time long time ago now when I was driving my kids to school, I was, you know, just a few years ago and they said to me, Oh, dad, you were in the Olympics. Weren't you? I said, yeah, I was in the Olympics. I said how much money did you get? I said, I got nothing. And then there was this pause and my tenure on that said, well, why did you bother? You know, which I'd almost pulled the car over and crashed at that point because it just was just such a thing. But you know, we've got to offer prize money and we've got to find a way of doing it because everything we talked about in this has been relevant and contemporary and all the rest of it. I mean, all these new things you talk about offer prize money. So. It's anachronistic not to and, you know, I'm sorry, but, you know, and the sponsors, why do sponsors come into the sport? They come into sport for heroes and they come into sport for that. They don't come into sport to fund sports bureaucracy. You know, that's why they're doing it. So, you know, we need as a movement to be, you know, lighter on bureaucracy, better on fan engagement. More money to athletes. And I think all those things are really important.

Richard Gillis UP: 49:29

To answer your question your child's question. So, or to extend it, what you know, why did you did, why did you do it? Is that gonna change the game for the next generation? That there's gonna be 50 grand at play for a gold medal? Do you think?

Jack Buckner: 49:44

Well, I think it's part of that journey. It's not necessarily going to change the whole thing. It's part of that journey. And the other part I should say about athletics, between 60 to 80 athletic nations and athletes will win medals, you know, so it's the broadest reach, and there's a whole chunk of people in there. Who haven't got the opportunities and people will get injured and that will be it. So that 50 grand for a lot of people from a lot of places in the world goes a very long way. And this is not middle class. Elite sport. This is sport where time and time again, you can turn up an athletics track and you can get somewhere and that's happening around the world, you know, and you look at the recent relays, you know, the countries, the nations, the, this is the global sport alongside football and it has to have those rewards. So it's compelling across the world.

Richard Gillis UP: 50:36

So you are expecting that to become the way things work? I mean, I'm just wondering what stopped it so far. Is it the ego of the IOC that thinks that? Doesn't need prize money.

Jack Buckner: 50:47

I think you're probably better off talking to others about that than me, you know, so, I mean, my view is absolutely and I, you know, I look at, you know, we spent a lot of time you know, and I'm obviously I've spent the last 10 years of my life in, you know, Governing Body World, and I'm really grateful for that, but the theme of this discussion is sports need to change, they need to innovate, the Olympic movement needs to innovate. I think it needs to change more quickly. Athletes need to be rewarded better. So, I mean, for me, there's a whole set of messages here about change in the Olympic movement, and the prize money isn't going The answer to everything, but it's one of a series of things, the movement and traditional sport needs to change, you know, the formats need to change the way we engage. We need to be a bit less bureaucratic, a bit more creative and marketing wise, bit better at welcoming and outside partnerships and pay the competitors a bit more. I mean, they're all, you know, things we would, we should try and do. And so I don't think it's any one. I think there's a overhaul of, uh, a traditional sport that needs to happen, and we're at a time when if we don't overhaul, we'll be, we're being left behind, we're being left behind already.

Richard Gillis UP: 52:03

Well, listen, Jack, it's a, uh, thanks very much for your time. I really enjoyed it. And good luck obviously for the summer and it's, uh, you've got an Olympic year, which I'm not telling you cause you don't know that obviously.

Jack Buckner: 52:15

I've worked, it's never quite the same in Olympic year, so I mean, you know, Olympic and Paralympic, it's an Olympic and a Paralympic year, so, so it always feels a bit different and yeah, we're, we'll I mean, it feels like we've been a bit negative, but actually I'm massively positive. I'm really excited about. Our athletes. I'm really excited about a European Olympics in Paris. And, you know, it's the first sort of, you know, Olympic games we've had since London, you know, there and the fans and the engagement. So, I mean, yeah I feel I've been a bit negative about something which I'm passionate

Richard Gillis UP: 52:49

you've you haven't been negative at all. You haven't been negative at all. I've been asking questions and as I say, it'd be, uh, it'd be fascinating to see how it evolves.

Jack Buckner: 52:56

very much, Richard.