Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. Our guests are a who's who of the international sports industry talking about the big issues.
Episodes
426 episodes
UP246 The 3: The Who Looks Good in Arsenal Streetwear Episode
Three stories, three opinions, ten minutes (50minutes)What's in a name? FIFA's Club World Cup stadia naming snafuWhat is streetwear? The deeper meaning of Arsenal's style collabHow old is too old? Sportfive and Tendulkar launch ...
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50:57
UP425 The Bundle Live - The StreamAMG Direct-to-Fan Playbook Event @ Amazon
This is a live episode recorded at StreamAMG's excellent Direct-to-Fan Playbook event, held at Amazon's Liverpool Street headquarters in London. A big thank you goes to the team at StreamAMG for inviting us along, we learnt loads.<...
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56:33
UP424 Expected Goals - Introducing the brand new podcast on the business of women's football
Today, we're launching a brand new show called Expected Goals, hosted by Matt Cutler and Maggie Murphy. Together Matt and Maggie will explore the business of women's football.
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52:09
UP423 Wedge Issues Live @ The BMW PGA Championship
Wedge Issues is Unofficial Partner's business of golf series, where we take some of the big trends from across sport and apply them to golf.This is a special live episode recorded in the boardroom of the DP World Tour's headquarters at T...
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1:06:50
UP422 The 3 - The Stephen Hawking Episode
The 3 stories are:1. The race for the IOC big job - aka Bach’s overtures (this doesn’t make any sense but makes me sound like I kno...
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28:09
UP421 Conversations About Women's Health That Men Avoid Having
Earlier this year, The Football Association has became the first national governing body to mandate training on female health, with Women’s Super League and Championship clubs benefitting from a new league-wide support plan covering pregnancy, ...
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45:02
UP420 The 3: The Big Swinging Dick Episode
The journey to creating a ten minute podcast is not a linear one. That's fancy talk for saying that rather than cut last week's half hour episode, this one went one for 45 minutes. Three stories:James Emmett reports from IMG's brea...
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44:04
UP419 Warming Up: The Planet Can't Afford Sport's Big Event Growth Plan
Madeleine Orr is a leading sport ecologist and professor at the University of Toronto. A Forbes 30 under 30 inductee, she is the founder and co-director of The Sport Ecology Group, who consult on international climate issues for sports organiza...
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43:47
UP418 Introducing The 3: The Difficult First Episode
We tried to make a short form ten minute podcast and failed. It's supposed to be three stories in ten minutes. Think of this as a work-in-progress. UP's Richard Gillis is joined by James Emmett and David Cushnan from ...
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32:41
UP417 Wedge Issues - Rick Shiels Exclusive
For millions of people, Rick Shiels' YouTube channel is how we watch golf in 2024.Shiels is our very special guest today. He started by uploading golf tips to YouTube 12 years ago to attract people to the Trafford Golf Centre in Manches...
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57:01
UP416 Other People's Money: Minority Stakes, Gary Neville and American v Arab Investor Cliches
Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment, with regular co-host Matt Rogan, co-founder of Two Circles. Our guests today are Jonathan Lenson and Sam Johnson, CEO and head of sport respectively at Milltown Partners,...
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1:04:11
UP415 The Bundle - Do you know your ENPs from your LMRs?
NBA v TNT – Exclusive Negotiating Periods and Last Matching Rights are central to the big row over NBA rights. But how they work and why does everyone hate them?Click here to re...
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1:07:21
UP414 Wedge Issues: Callaway boss on Xander, YouTubers and why the LIV split dilutes golf’s product
Ben Sharpe, one of the most influential people in the golf business, as Managing Director & President of Callaway Golf across Europe, Middle East and Asia. Callaway is the largest manufacturer of golf equipment in the world and as such is a...
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47:58
UP413 Paris 2024 Digital Debrief - Which brands popped, and why?
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are over, the medals have been won and lost.And now the sports business conversation shifts to who won the other game, played between some of the biggest companies in the world, each seeking to stand out in the ...
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39:34
UP412 Racists, riots and sport's Twitter exodus
“As soon as the Southport murders happened, the way Muslims specifically were targeted has made you question again whether we do belong, whether deep down in the end, we're always having to justify our existence,” says Azeem Rafiq, the former p...
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49:51
UP411 UP US: The North American Sports Business in 3 Stories
We go deep in to the North American market today with Daniel Kaplan, one of the very best reporters covering the US sports business beat. I’ve known Daniel for over twenty years, first when he covered tennis and the NFL for SportsBusiness Journ...
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45:28
UP410 Ed Smith: 'The Olympics are a civilising force'
We’re in the middle of the Olympic Games in Paris so it’s a good time to ask some bigger questions as to the future of the Olympics and mega sports events more generally, with regular contributor Ed Smith, founder of the Institute of Sports Hum...
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50:16
UP409 Last Orders: Is Football's Love Affair with the Pub Over?
A documentary special - UP Productions' Matt Cutler explores the changing relationship between two cultural institutions in the UK: football and the pub.The pub has an important place in both professional and grassroots foo...
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1:30:31
UP408 What Just Happened? How the opening up of the US betting market explains the NBA's $75billion rights bonanza
Why has the value of the NBA's media rights tripled, from $25billion to $75billion this week?"Purely because of gambling,' says Sam Sadi, CEO of LiveScore Group, the media and gambling platform, referencing the opening up of the US gamb...
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1:01:30
UP407 What We Talk About When We Talk About Gareth Southgate
Leadership is one of the most important and yet misunderstood topics in sport. This summer, it has dominated the headlines. Performances of the England football team have mainly been analysed via the lens of its manager. So wh...
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46:48
UP406 The Buy Side: What Does PepsiCo Want?
The Buy Side is our regular series talking with brand side marketers about sport and sponsorship. This week’s guest is Mark Kirkham, the SVP & Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo, one of the biggest spenders in the sports industr...
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47:11
UP405 Wedge Issues: The Creation of Brand Bryson, and What It Means for Golf
Bryson Dechambeau heads to next week’s Open Championship at Troon as the reigning US Open champion, having beaten Rory McIlroy down the straight at Winged Foot in New York three weeks ago, confirming the American’s position as one of the very b...
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48:34
UP404 What is FIFA+? Netflix for Football or Infantino's White Elephant?
FIFA+ is the global football governing bodies own media platform, created in 2020 and launched two years later. It’s one of sports biggest and most ambitious and expensive direct-to-consumer projects, and so brings together many of the threads ...
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52:21
UP403 The Bundle: The Sports Media and Streaming Market
Welcome to The Bundle, our deep dive in to the sports media rights economy with regular co-hosts Murray Barnett and Yannick Ramcke. Today’s list of topics include trying to decipher FIFA’s media strategy around FIFA+ and the Club Wo...
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1:09:14
UP402 Next Level Storytelling: How biometric data changed the game
Performance data has long played a role in the way sport is presented on television. From football to formula one, we’re familiar with commentators referencing statistics to help explain what we’re watching. But increasingly, the m...
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50:41