Unofficial Partner Podcast

Other People's Money is our regular series on sports investment, with Matt Rogan, co-founder of Two Circles.

The Women’s Rugby World Cup kicks off in August, hosted in here in England. The tournament is a critical moment in the game's development. 

But what is the financial state of women’s professional club rugby in this country. 

We talk to Genevieve Shore, herself a former England World Cup winner in 1994, who is now the Executive Chair of Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR), the league that is part owned by the RFU.

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.

Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery, and a culture of marketing effectiveness. 

We’ve really enjoyed getting to know their team over the last couple of months. They’re an impressive bunch, who believe that sports marketing can and should be done better.

They have a creative philosophy of producing famous campaigns and activations that build buzz and conversation in a category that too often looks and sounds the same.

And they're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing, using econometrics and attribution models to go beyond traditional media ROI.

So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, get in touch with the team at Sid Lee Sport, where brands become champions.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

This is the first episode in a new series in which we take the Unofficial Partner sports business conversation and point it at cricket. 

Richard is joined by co-host Mike Jakeman, who writes about sport for The Economist and worked within The Economist Intelligence Unit, and has written for titles such as The New York Times, Wired magazine and the Times Literary Supplement, and wrote a very good book on the future of cricket, called Saving the Test. 

You can keep in touch with Inside Edge via the Unofficial Partner Substack newsletter that goes out to tens of thousands of subscribers from across the global sports industry every Thursday. 

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.

Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery, and a culture of marketing effectiveness. 

We’ve really enjoyed getting to know their team over the last couple of months. They’re an impressive bunch, who believe that sports marketing can and should be done better.

They have a creative philosophy of producing famous campaigns and activations that build buzz and conversation in a category that too often looks and sounds the same.

And they're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing, using econometrics and attribution models to go beyond traditional media ROI.

So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, get in touch with the team at Sid Lee Sport, where brands become champions.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

 Today's guest is Miguel Delaney, Chief Football Writer for The Independent who talks about his book States of Play: How Sports Washing Took Over Football.  

It's described as a scorching account of how football's very popularity threatens to destroy it, a brave forensic and utterly gripping book' by Tom Holland (The Rest Is History host, not Spider Man). 

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport; a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery and a culture of marketing effectiveness.

The team at Sid Lee Sport is driven by the belief that sports marketing can and should be done better, and are determined to push things forward.

They're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing, going far beyond media ROI, using econometric and attribution modelling to demonstrate the impact of their work on their clients' bottom line. And it's that focus on effectiveness that informs their creative philosophy of creating famous campaigns and experiences for rights holders, sponsors and sports brands - because they know famous campaigns outperform others on all business metrics.

You can see this through Sid Lee Sport’s  groundbreaking work with global clients, including UEFA, Visa, Lidl, Tommy Hilfiger, Descente and Oppo–to name just a few of their biggest signings.

So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, head to sidleesport.com

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Sonny Vaccaro was the pivotal figure behind Michael Jordan's groundbreaking deal with Nike, which remains one of the most storied contracts in sports business history. So good they made a movie about it, "Air", in which Vaccaro was played by Matt Damon, with Ben Affleck in the Phil Knight role. 

Vaccaro's book Legends & Soles: Business, Creativity and Basketball – A Memoir of an Improbable Life  is the long-awaited memoir from one of the great American sports business insiders, telling the reality behind the film and shining a light in to the culture of Nike then and now.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

The commercial growth of women’s sport is dependent on the audience question: Who is watching? 

To help frame the answer, we been given an exclusive preview of major new research in to women's sport fandom by Sky Sports which is due to be published in the coming weeks.

Sky’s rights portfolio of women’s only sport is unmatched in the media industry, running across football, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis, netball and more. 

And as you'll hear in the conversation, the new findings run against some of the received narratives that have grown around the audience for women's sport across the sports and marketing industries.

Our guests are Jo Osborne, Head of Women's Sport at Sky Sports and Claire Kelly, Managing Director of Gemba Europe and Middle East, the strategy and fan insight agency commissioned to carry out the research.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.