Held at the Kaseya Center, we brought together a small group of operators, investors, founders and rights-holders for an afternoon of conversations around innovation, venture, and where the sports industry is heading.

For me, it was a fun excuse to blur the lines between Sports Pundit and my day job at The Players Fund, something I try to keep somewhat separate.

I kicked things off on stage with Matthew Jafarian (EVP, Business Strategy at Miami HEAT), diving into how sports organisations can become more entrepreneurial, drawing on his experience co-founding 601 Analytics.

It’s a conversation that’s aged pretty well since he first joined the podcast 11 months ago, so I thought I’d revisit it in today’s newsletter.

Enjoy!

BIG IDEA

Lesson 601: How the Miami HEAT Empowered Entrepreneurship from Within 🔥🏀

601 Analytics wasn’t part of the master plan.

It was, however, the result of an organisation with an entrepreneurially-inspired leadership willing to back its people and their intuition.

When the Miami HEAT brought in Matthew Jafarian in 2015, the brief was simple: help lead the organisation’s digital transformation. Paper tickets were being phased out. Mobile access and data-driven experiences were the future. The team needed someone who could build products, not just implement tools.

Jafarian, who had previously co-founded and sold a mobile app startup, wasn’t convinced.

“I said no,” he recalls, speaking on the Sports Pundit Podcast, his first podcast appearance. “I didn’t want to go from a tech company to an organisation where we’d just be the IT guys in the corner.”

That changed after a playoff game visit and a behind-the-scenes tour of the HEAT operation.

“The brand of the Miami HEAT and Kaseya Center is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. That’s not always the case.”

That is important context. While many teams talk about innovation, Jafarian saw that the HEAT actually backed it and nurtured it. From ownership to senior leadership, the support was there. From that foundation, he set about solving real problems inside the organisation.

“We created a product that helped the HEAT immensely,” says Jafarian, now EVP of Business Strategy and Co-Founder of the resulting spinout, 601 Analytics. “It helped us understand at any point in time what’s happening in our business. It’s like having an app for your business.”

It was only a few years into the journey that he realised other organisations were facing the same issues. Starting with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020, what began as an internal tool was spun out as 601 Analytics.

“We were building something for us to meet our needs,” he says. “But our needs are not that different from every other sports team.”

Fast forward to today, and the data platform is now used by 20 percent of NBA teams, as well as clubs in the NFL, NHL, MLB, NWSL, and soon MLS.

This ability to recognise shared problems and act on them is what made the Miami HEAT uniquely well-positioned to build. But the same opportunity exists for all sports teams. They sit on troves of underused data. They operate physical venues. They have built-in audiences, powerful brand affinity, and pain points that external vendors often don’t know as intimately. In short, they have all the ingredients most startups wish they had.

And it’s not just data this applies to. The HEAT has also created Court Culture, an in-house fashion label that emerged from a simple insight: fans didn’t always want traditional licensed merch. Sometimes they wanted something that felt more Miami.

“A lot of the stuff we sell and make a ton of money on doesn’t even say HEAT on it,” Jafarian explains. “It just says Miami on it.”

Again, the idea came from within. People close to the team and fanbase saw the opportunity and were backed to build it. The team even became an NBA licensee to make it happen.

That mindset has brought wider benefits.

“That’s exactly how we frame it… we turned a cost centre into a revenue centre,” Jafarian says. “But it also made our core business a lot stronger. We were able to retain the best people in the business. And we kept them busy. Smart people want to keep solving the next problem.”

That same support from leadership now extends into venture investing. Jafarian leads the HEAT’s strategic investment efforts, helping identify startups that align with the team’s operational priorities.

“If we’re bringing on a vendor into the HEAT, we’re creating an instant showcase for them,” he says. “We’re improving their enterprise value. There could be an equity component as well.”

What the HEAT has built goes far beyond two business lines. It’s a model for what modern sports organisations can become. Not only licensees. Not just partners. But product builders, brand creators, and market accelerators.

When you consider how many industries sports touches (think: media, fashion, food, ticketing, travel), it’s hard not to wonder why more teams don’t take this approach.

They already have what most startups lack: users, distribution, trust, data, and access to capital. What they do need is the mindset to build, the curiosity to solve the problems right in front of them, and perhaps most importantly, the empowerment from ownership.

SPORTS PUNDIT PODCAST

Matthew Jafarian [#57]: How the Miami HEAT Empowered Entrepreneurship from Within 🏀🔥

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Matthew Jafarian, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy at the Miami HEAT.

Over the past eight years, Matthew has led one of the most ambitious digital transformations in American sports, overseeing the HEAT’s approach to data, technology, and strategy. But what really sets him apart is the fact that he hasn’t just transformed his own organisation, he’s also helping to reshape the entire industry.

Matthew is also the co-founder of 601 Analytics, a data and analytics platform born inside the HEAT that’s now used by over 20% of the NBA, the league office, and teams across the NFL, NHL, NWSL, MLB, and (soon) MLS. From fan insights to ticketing to food and beverage optimisation, it’s become the operating system behind some of the smartest front offices in sport.

In this conversation, we dig into how the role of data is evolving in sport, why teams need to start acting like the billion-dollar businesses they are, and what it means to build a company within a world-famous organisation.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube 🎧

About The Host

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

This newsletter explores ideas discussed on The Pitch podcast, where Drew and I bring a theme, provocation or emerging idea from across the sports industry and pitch it to one another.

This week, as the club cricket pre-season gets underway, we're looking at an idea born out of my own experience playing the game: a grassroots sponsorship fund that would let national team sponsors extend their partnerships down to the amateur club level. It's a model that could give volunteer-run clubs a ready-made commercial framework, and give brands a level of local affinity that's almost impossible to buy any other way.

We also have a case study from our sponsors at FANZO, which saw their tech solve specific problems for travelling fans, as well as UEFA EURO 2024’s official beer sponsor and their venue customers.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

THE PITCH

The English cricket season is now (somehow) upon us, and beneath the professional game sits one of the largest and most under-commercialised audiences in UK sport.

The ECB’s Play-Cricket platform is incredible. It covers more than 6,000 clubs, over 160,000 matches and more than 100,000 registered users. Every Saturday through the summer, tens of thousands of players take the field in whites, across thousands of club grounds, in front of teammates, families and opposition sides that collectively represent one of the most engaged audiences the sport has to offer.

Few advertising environments command more sustained, focused attention than a player staring at an opponent’s shirt for six hours on a Saturday afternoon. It is a setting with none of the noise of a typical digital impression, and a level of engagement that most brands pay significant sums to approximate elsewhere.

As explained on The Pitch Podcast, the idea for this piece came from a moment of accidental alignment when playing against a team in Northampton that happened to be sponsored by Cinch, who at the time were the front of shirt partner of the England test cricket team as well.

The visual overlap was striking. An amateur side in a regional league wearing, to the casual eye, something close to an England kit. And, as I pondered down at fine leg, it got me thinking that when a grassroots club wears the same brand as the national team, it has the potential to create a shared identity between the top of the pyramid and the base. That is rare, and almost entirely untapped, real estate.

The inefficiency sits on both sides of the market.

Grassroots clubs are run almost entirely by volunteers, who rarely have sponsorship expertise, no benchmark for what their inventory is worth, and limited means to commercialise. National sponsors, meanwhile, invest significant sums at the professional level but have no efficient way to extend that presence into the communities where the sport is actually played. Both sides want connection. Neither has the infrastructure to create it at scale.

That said, there are useful precedents to build on.

NatWest’s long-standing partnership with the ECB has included grassroots-facing activations such as CricketForce, which mobilises volunteers and provides infrastructure support at club level. And the Metro Bank Girls in Cricket Fund, co-created and co-funded with the ECB, is explicitly designed to triple the number of girls’ cricket teams by supporting volunteers and coaches in the women’s and girls’ game.

These programmes do genuinely valuable work and demonstrate real appetite from national brands to show up at the grassroots. However, where these brands have shown up to-date is usually within very specific applications and typically more tied towards CSR, rather than a viewing it through the lens of visibility, fan engagement, or brand awareness.

So what if a national sponsor designed a grassroots fund as a deliberate extension of their headline deal in a more awareness-driven capacity?

Take a brand like Toyota, now the front-of-shirt partner of the England men’s and women’s team.

Alongside that headline deal, the sponsor creates a dedicated grassroots sponsorship fund. Clubs apply via a straightforward process, assessed against verifiable criteria drawn from Play-Cricket data: registered membership, number of teams fielded across men’s, women’s and junior sections, and ECB-accredited status. Approved clubs receive a set amount of funding in exchange for the sponsor’s logo appearing on their match kit. The programme is fully opt-in, so clubs who prefer to source their own sponsorship still can.

The mechanic does three things at once. It rewards a commercial practice clubs are already trying to pursue. It establishes a much-needed market benchmark for what grassroots front-of-shirt is actually worth. And it sets up something more valuable than a single sponsorship tier.

No other sponsorship structure in UK sport can deliver meaningful presence across all three of the following layers in a single deal:

Top-layer visibility on the England kit during Tests, ODIs and T20s, reaching domestic and global broadcast audiences. Local physical visibility on the match kits of thousands of club sides every weekend, in front of the most engaged audience in the sport. And digital visibility through Play-Cricket’s thousands of club pages, match listings, and live-updating league tables.

When you consider this alongside the growing trend of clubs live-streaming their own matches to YouTube and social channels throughout the season, that visibility is only becoming greater.

@cricketdistrictABSOLUTE SCENES @Stony Stratford Cricket Club 🤯💥🔥 #cricket #sport

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Cricket, more than most sports, is uniquely placed to deliver this.

UK governance is vertically connected. The ECB links the professional, county and grassroots game under one umbrella, and affiliation is a requirement to play competitively. That structure creates a clean, auditable pipeline for a sponsor to engage with. Play-Cricket itself is not just a scoring app, but a verified, data-rich platform covering essentially the entire formal grassroots game. Few sports anywhere in the world can offer an equivalent.

A similar logic could apply to FA-affiliated grassroots football, where governance also connects the professional and amateur game under a single governing body. The structure looks very different in US sport, where grassroots leagues are fragmented across private operators, making a top-to-bottom national play significantly harder to execute.

Most sponsorship conversations focus on extracting more value from the top of the pyramid. The real untapped inventory sits across every layer of it and cricket, with its connected governance, rich participation data, and growing digital footprint, is the ideal place to prove the model.

SPONSORED BY FANZO

Case Study: Turning An Uncoordinated Ecosystem Into A Brand New UEFA Sponsorship Asset ⚽️

How FANZO’s tech solved specific problems for travelling fans, the tournament’s official beer sponsor, and their venue customers. And created a brand new sponsorship asset at UEFA EURO 2024 in the process.

Learn More

THE PITCH

On this episode of The Pitch, Andy and Drew reimagine the team social media playbook, exploring what would happen if clubs blew up their internal social departments and handed the keys to a rotating cast of fans or creators.

The conversation then shifts into the rapidly evolving world of AI content creation, from AI-generated podcast host avatars that can scale ad reads, to AI twins of athletes that could transform how clubs produce commercial content.

The duo unpack the surprising upside for players, the sponsor inventory opportunities hiding inside club archives, and the creative potential of remastering iconic footage or even simulating matchups between historic teams.

Finally, Andy pitches an idea born from his own cricket experience: a grassroots sponsorship fund that would let national brands extend their partnerships down to the amateur club level, giving volunteer-run clubs a ready-made commercial model and giving sponsors unmatched local affinity.

Timestamps

• 1:00 - Creator Takeover Social Strategy

• 4:00 - Inside a Team Social Department

• 8:00 - Algorithm Volume and Club Creator Labs

• 14:00 - AI Tools, Editing, and Podcast Host Avatars

• 18:00 - AI Twins for Players and Commercial Shoots

• 24:00 - Unlocking Archive Footage as Sponsor Inventory

• 28:00 - Remastering History and Dream Team Matchups

• 31:00 - Grassroots Sponsorship Fund Pitch

• 36:00 - Exploring Feasibility in the UK vs USA

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube 🎧

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston and Drew Rauso.

It’s a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what’s really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

Drew Rauso is a versatile media operator with a proven track record of building and scaling sports media ventures at the intersection of content, commerce, and creator strategy. He currently leads Brand, Strategy, and Operations at Playmaker HQ, a leading sports podcast network owned by Better Collective, home to shows featuring Shaquille O’Neal, Angel Reese, and Marshawn Lynch. Previously at The Players’ Tribune, Drew has been instrumental in shaping athlete-driven media, overseeing partnerships, production, and growth initiatives that connect fans and talent in meaningful ways.

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

Produced by OH SIX

The Sports Pundit Podcast is proudly produced by OH SIX, a content marketing agency specialising in producing digital and social-first content that connects. Trusted by Premier League clubs, F1 teams, and top brands, OH SIX deliver premium content end-to-end, from ideation, working with talent during production and platform specific content to reach audiences on screen.

This newsletter explores ideas discussed on The Pitch podcast, where Drew Jo and I bring a theme, provocation or emerging idea from across the sports industry and pitch it to one another.

This week, we’re looking at the concept of shared universes in entertainment, taking inspiration from Celebrity Traitors and Netflix’s Perfect Match, and asking whether sport should be doing a lot more to tap into them.

We also have a case study from our sponsors at FANZO, which saw their tech solve specific problems for travelling fans, as well as UEFA EURO 2024’s official beer sponsor and their venue customers.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

THE PITCH

Joe Marler recently announced he wants to become an actor in the footsteps of Vinnie Jones. Coming off the back of Celebrity Traitors, he’s grabbing the opportunities with both hands.

There are plenty more people that know Vinnie Jones as a hardman actor than for his football career. Marler, one of England’s most-capped props, is heading the same way, already better known to a significant chunk of the British public for being entertaining in a Scottish castle than for anything he did at a scrum.

His success on the rugby pitch did get him on Celebrity Traitors, but the show created an entirely new kind of fame that rugby alone never could have delivered, amplifying his personality in a way you rarely see in a sports broadcast. And crucially, it did so in front of an audience that wasn’t looking for rugby content.

For most sports, the challenge was never the quality of the product on the pitch. Getting new audiences emotionally invested enough to tune in is where things break down. The traditional playbook of documentaries, social clips and branded content reaches people who already have some affinity with the sport. You end up fishing in the same pond.

The entertainment industry has been doing something smarter. Celebrity Traitors taps into multiple universes simultaneously. Marler collides with musicians like Cat Burns, comedians like Joe Wilkinson and Nick Mohammed, and YouTuber Niko Omilana from Beta Squad.

Netflix’s Perfect Match works the same way, dropping familiar faces from Love is Blind, The Circle and Too Hot to Handle into one environment. Viewers arrive already invested. The familiarity is the product, and it’s a model sport hasn’t seriously explored.

So, here’s my pitch.

When a sport negotiates a broadcast rights deal, particularly a free-to-air one where the financial return is modest, part of the agreement should include athlete access to the broadcaster’s entertainment slate. Not as a goodwill gesture, but as a deliberate strategic lever for reaching audiences that would never actively seek the sport out.

This could apply broadly. A triathlete on MasterChef. A Formula E driver on The Circle. A darts player on Race Across The World. Perhaps we stop short of putting anyone forward for Married at First Sight.

The sport and show matter less than the underlying logic: an athlete competing in a format millions already watch creates a familiarity no targeted marketing budget can replicate. The sport becomes almost incidental, which is precisely the point.

Women’s rugby and the PWR is where this feels most immediately actionable. The Women’s Six Nations has a relationship with the BBC and like most free-to-air deals, it is primarily transactional. Rights in exchange for airtime. But the BBC is home to some of the most-watched entertainment formats in the country, and largely, sports organisations aren’t asking how to access them.

Celebrity Traitors was the BBC’s biggest title of 2025, drawing over 15 million viewers to its finale, 3.1 million of whom were aged 16 to 34, precisely the demographic sports organisations spend significant budget trying to reach through conventional channels.

If a PWR player had appeared in the most recent series, filming over the summer and airing in January, the Women’s Six Nations in late March would have landed in front of an entirely different audience. One that spent weeks watching that player navigate alliances, show personality and compete under pressure, and now has a reason to find out what she does on a rugby pitch. Women’s rugby already has the clearest proof of this dynamic with Ilona Maher, and the infrastructure to replicate it domestically sits within the BBC relationship.

The Henry Pollock debate is instructive here, too. Criticism that a player is doing too much off the pitch tends to come from people projecting their own era’s norms onto a different cultural moment. For a younger generation of athletes, showing personality across platforms isn’t a distraction. It’s how new fans find their way to the sport. And it needs to be a current player. A retired athlete is a curiosity. A current one creates a direct bridge, watched on a Tuesday night and found on a pitch the following weekend.

Media rights deals are still largely a one-directional exchange. Sport gives content, broadcaster gives distribution. But broadcasters are sitting on enormous entertainment IP, and with it, access to audiences marketing budgets would struggle to reach. And largely, they aren’t asking.

The next rights negotiation is a good place to start. The logistical objections around athlete availability, club sign-off and organisational silos are real, but large broadcasters like the BBC are already under pressure to cross-pollinate output and retain audiences. That incentive exists. Sport just hasn’t found a way to make the ask.

Rugby stumbled into this almost by accident with Joe Marler. At some point, a broadcaster is going to connect these dots deliberately. The question is whether sport, and which sport, will be ready to meet them there.

SPONSORED BY FANZO

Case Study: Turning An Uncoordinated Ecosystem Into A Brand New UEFA Sponsorship Asset ⚽️

How FANZO’s tech solved specific problems for travelling fans, the tournament’s official beer sponsor, and their venue customers. And created a brand new sponsorship asset at UEFA EURO 2024 in the process.

Learn More

THE PITCH

On today’s episode of The Pitch, Andy is joined by Jo Redfern (stepping in for Drew) to trade sports media ideas sparked by Roblox, Netflix-style “shared universes,” and the BBC’s Celebrity Traitors.

Jo opens with a pitch for DropHoop, a new hybrid sport incubated on Roblox first (parkour x tag x basketball), designed to scale through gameplay, UGC distribution, and monetisation before ever being commissioned IRL.

The pair unpack why Roblox is effectively a Petri dish for sports formats, how brands could “own” emerging sports rather than sponsor existing ones, and what milestones would need to be hit before moving from a digital game to a live, ticketed experience.

Andy flips the lens to traditional broadcast and proposes a new kind of rights add-on: sports should negotiate entertainment crossover as part of the deal, giving athletes access to audition for (or appear in) major reality formats to reach audiences who’d never click a sports doc.

From The Traitors to Netflix’s Perfect Match flywheel, they explore how “character as referral” could become a repeatable growth lever for tier-two sports, without needing fans to already care about the sport in the first place.

Timestamps

• 02:00 - Jo’s Pitch: Roblox as a signal engine for the next generation of sports formats

• 06:30 - DropHoop explained

• 26:00 - The economics + milestones

• 30:00 - Andy’s Pitch: Reality TV as a rights negotiation lever for athlete-driven

  discovery

• 40:00 – Influencer-led fandom and why “character is the referral engine”

• 45:00 – Why this is under-leveraged?

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube 🎧

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston and Drew Rauso.

It’s a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what’s really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

Jo Redfern is a digital and youth media specialist who has spent the last five years at the forefront of platforms such as YouTube, Roblox, and TikTok. With a background in traditional broadcast and kids media, Jo is known for turning generational media behaviours into commercial opportunities. Through her consultancy firm, Futrhood, she helps IP owners and rights holders scale engagement and monetisation by leveraging content, platforms, community, and emerging tech.

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

Produced by OH SIX

The Sports Pundit Podcast is proudly produced by OH SIX, a content marketing agency specialising in producing digital and social-first content that connects. Trusted by Premier League clubs, F1 teams, and top brands, OH SIX deliver premium content end-to-end, from ideation, working with talent during production and platform specific content to reach audiences on screen.

Today’s newsletter expands on The Pitch podcast which dropped on Monday. There was no Drew this time so Jo Redfern stepped in to join me. She brought a fascinating pitch derived from a platform where she spends a lot of her time and energy… Roblox.

Over the course of the episode, Jo pitches how the platform could be effectively a Petri dish for testing new sports formats. She even invented one herself and talks through what milestones would need to be hit before moving from a thriving digital game to a live, IRL, ticketed experience.

I dive into it in more depth below. Do let me know what you think!

And thanks to Fanzo, who continue to support this series, as well as our social events in London, Manchester, and around the globe!

Volleyball Legends, a volleyball game built inside Roblox, has reportedly sold for $30 million.

The game has accumulated 2.85 billion visits. Over the past few weeks it has averaged roughly 61,000 concurrent players. Sessions run at around 11 minutes, likely longer in practice given how Roblox matchmaking works.

According to BloxzMedia, Double Black Capital facilitated the deal, and if confirmed, it would rank among the largest sales in Roblox history, with Welcome to Bloxburg at $100 million as the clearest public benchmark.

A $30 million cheque for a volleyball game is a clear illustration that platform-native IP is now being considered as a serious asset class by institutional capital.

And on that basis, it raises a broader question, and idea, which Jo Redfern and I happened to discuss on the most recent episode of The Pitch Podcast.

If digital-native competitive environments can command such business valuations, could the next billion dollar sport actually start inside a platform like Roblox?

For decades, new sports have followed a familiar script. A group identifies a gap in the market, which usually this goes something like “this format is too long” or “the audience too old.” And then, on this realisation, capital is raised, venues are secured, athletes signed, production teams hired, and distribution negotiated. Only then does the market reveal whether the demand actually does exist.

However, that has it’s issues. First and foremost, going through that sequencing is expensive. Venue hire, staffing, security, broadcast crews, and marketing spend all create a fixed cost base before behavioural proof is visible. Iteration is then constrained by contracts and infrastructure commitments. Furthermore, the idea of adjusting the format mid-season or repositioning the product after launch becomes much more difficult.

This is where Roblox has the opportunity to flip the order.

Instead of building infrastructure first, you build mechanics, design rules, observe behaviour, and track retention curves. You can measure concurrency, session length and clip velocity, and see whether moments spill onto TikTok and YouTube. You can even wait and see if creators begin to build identity around the sport/ format. In other words, you validate culture before you commit (significant) capital.

Software companies have operated this way for years, operating under the thesis of ship early, iterate continuously, and scale what demonstrates traction.

The same is happening with mobile apps on TikTok, too. I recently listened to a podcast about Pushscroll, an app that forces users to do push-ups to unlock social media. It was only developed by Alejandro Sanchez and Mario Ortiz Manero after they had posted a fake demo video to validate demand.

A serious Roblox game can be built and operated for a fraction of what even a modest physical challenger league requires. For under six figures, you can run a meaningful year-long experiment. Compare that with the multi-million commitments required to stage live events at scale and you’re looking at an entirely different risk profile.

Distribution changes, too. Roblox already offers embedded global reach with gameplay moments organically migrating to social platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Some of these moments accumulate millions of views. In that sense, you are testing two variables at once.

1. Are the mechanics engaging? and

2. Are the moments inherently shareable?

That’s not say that Jo’s idea of ‘Drophoop’ (think: basketball x tag x parkour) is entirely a slam dunk (pun intended).

It’s important to recognise that there are still constraints. Retention inside Roblox requires constant updates and community management. This is a multi-year build. Platform economics sit within Roblox’s ecosystem, creating concentration risk and digital traction does not automatically convert into physical fandom. If a format moves offline, the bridge must be designed deliberately.

Yet the broader signal around using a digital environment as a validation layer remains. Instead of building an arena and hoping an audience materialises, perhaps the more rational sequence is to build the audience first and allow them to demand the arena.

When institutional capital is willing to pay $30 million for a sports game born inside a digital platform, it suggests that competitive environments native to those platforms are being valued as standalone assets. This would only compound further if the digital asset has been purposefully designed in a way to scale into a physical environment down the line.

Roblox may never replace traditional sport and that is not the point, either. The question is whether it could become the laboratory where the next formats are rehearsed, refined and validated before they ever touch a physical space.

If that is true, the more interesting question is who in sport is prepared to treat platforms like Roblox as a proving ground rather than a marketing channel.

SPONSORED BY FANZO

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What do UEFA, World Rugby, Canal+, TNT Sports, Guinness, Carlsberg and Asahi have in common?

They all use FANZO to reach and engage the 99% of sports fans that aren’t watching live in the stadium.

Click to learn more about how FANZO market-leading tech solves problems for global brands, rights holders and broadcasters looking to engage sports fans in pubs, bars and fan zones around the world.

Learn More

THE PITCH

On today’s episode of The Pitch, Andy is joined by Jo Redfern (stepping in for Drew) to trade sports media ideas sparked by Roblox, Netflix-style “shared universes,” and the BBC’s Celebrity Traitors.

Jo opens with a pitch for DropHoop, a new hybrid sport incubated on Roblox first (parkour x tag x basketball), designed to scale through gameplay, UGC distribution, and monetisation before ever being commissioned IRL.

The pair unpack why Roblox is effectively a Petri dish for sports formats, how brands could “own” emerging sports rather than sponsor existing ones, and what milestones would need to be hit before moving from a digital game to a live, ticketed experience.

Andy flips the lens to traditional broadcast and proposes a new kind of rights add-on: sports should negotiate entertainment crossover as part of the deal, giving athletes access to audition for (or appear in) major reality formats to reach audiences who’d never click a sports doc.

From The Traitors to Netflix’s Perfect Match flywheel, they explore how “character as referral” could become a repeatable growth lever for tier-two sports, without needing fans to already care about the sport in the first place.

Timestamps

• 02:00 - Jo's Pitch: Roblox as a signal engine for the next generation of sports formats

• 06:30 - DropHoop explained

• 26:00 - The economics + milestones

• 30:00 - Andy’s Pitch: Reality TV as a rights negotiation lever for athlete-driven

  discovery

• 40:00 – Influencer-led fandom and why “character is the referral engine”

• 45:00 – Why this is under-leveraged?

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube 🎧

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston and Drew Rauso.

It’s a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what’s really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

Jo Redfern is a digital and youth media specialist who has spent the last five years at the forefront of platforms such as YouTube, Roblox, and TikTok. With a background in traditional broadcast and kids media, Jo is known for turning generational media behaviours into commercial opportunities. Through her consultancy firm, Futrhood, she helps IP owners and rights holders scale engagement and monetisation by leveraging content, platforms, community, and emerging tech.

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

Produced by OH SIX

The Sports Pundit Podcast is proudly produced by OH SIX, a content marketing agency specialising in producing digital and social-first content that connects. Trusted by Premier League clubs, F1 teams, and top brands, OH SIX deliver premium content end-to-end, from ideation, working with talent during production and platform specific content to reach audiences on screen.

This newsletter explores ideas discussed on The Pitch podcast, where Drew and I bring a theme, provocation or emerging idea from across the sports industry and pitch it to one another.

Today, we take a closer look at the idea of implementing a touring model with the WSL, tapping into the popularity of international women’s football, tearing up the rule book on home and away fixtures, and solving for the challenge surrounding stadia.

We also share a relevant case study from our sponsors, FANZO. It explores how to turn broadcast rights into measurable revenue for venues, looking specifically at TNT Sports coverage of European football as a driver of footfall in the UK.

Enjoy! And do let me know what you think of the idea!

Sonia Bompastor recently said that Chelsea are in talks to stage more matches away from Kingsmeadow in a bid to boost attendance.

On the surface, a manager acknowledging that a 4,850-capacity ground might be limiting what her team can become feels fairly obvious. But it actually captures something much bigger about where the WSL currently finds itself.

Bompastor, like most people involved in the league, is probably glancing across London at Arsenal with a mixture of admiration and frustration. Arsenal now play all of their league matches at the Emirates. They average 36,450 supporters per game, and their highest attendance this season reached 56,537 for the visit of, yes, Chelsea.

Chelsea, by contrast, average 6,397. Their highest crowd this season was 11,137 against Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in the Champions League.

Across the first 12 gameweeks of the season, total WSL attendance sits at 480,711, meaning an average of 6,799 per match. Remove Arsenal from the equation and that figure drops to around 4,000. At the lower end of the scale, some fixtures sit between 1,100 and 1,700.

That range defines this phase of the league’s growth. Operating with a ceiling of almost 60,000 and a floor just above 1,000 is volatile. Arguably, stadia is the greatest structural challenge currently facing the league.

Arsenal have shown that when the environment feels significant and fixtures are positioned as major events, fans turn up. So yes, we could conclude that what the WSL needs is more Arsenals (as much as it pains me to say that as a Spurs fan).

The difficulty is that it is far easier to say than to execute.

Hosting matches at a club’s main stadium is expensive. Staffing, stewarding, utilities and security costs increase quickly in a larger capacity arena. Arsenal filled the Emirates for that aforementioned match vs Chelsea with tickets starting at £16.50 for adults, while the men’s equivalent started at £78. While that pricing creates accessibility and scale, it also compresses margins and raises operating costs for the club.

For many clubs, committing to that model every other week represents a significant financial risk. Capping supply in a smaller venue protects costs and provides predictability (but damages the product quality, especially for broadcasters). Scaling up repeatedly requires belief, budget and a tolerance for short-term losses.

Which brings us to a broader question.

If scale is uneven, costs are high and fandom patterns are still developing, could a different format deliver consistency across the league while distributing risk more evenly?

Home and away fixtures feel fundamental to football and are therefore rarely questioned. However, the WSL is still early enough in its lifecycle to reconsider whether inherited structures truly serve the current reality.

When people talk about innovation in sport, the conversation often drifts towards rule changes or format tweaks within the ninety minutes. I think the more interesting question sits above that. What if the league structure itself is where innovation should occur?

One option worth serious exploration is a touring festival model.

The season would run across 17 matchweeks. In the first phase, each team plays every other team once, either home or away, creating 11 matches. After that, the league splits into two groups: the top six and the bottom six. Each group then plays a further five matches against one another, determining the title, European places and relegation positions.

Each weekend, all 12 teams would travel to a single host city. Six matches would be played across three days: one on Friday night, three on Saturday and two on Sunday.

Every club would host one designated home weekend during the first phase of the season. The remaining host venues, including the five split-phase weekends, would be selected by the league based on geography, infrastructure and demand. Cities such as Sheffield, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Portsmouth, Plymouth and Dublin could bid to host, alongside the possibility of an international weekend.

Instead of six separate stadiums operating independently each weekend, the league concentrates production into one high-quality venue. Rather than oscillating between 1,500 and 36,000, demand is pooled. A 20,000 to 50,000-capacity stadium can feel vibrant across an entire weekend. Broadcast imagery becomes consistent. Sponsors engage with a multi-day platform rather than a single ninety-minute window.

From a financial perspective, each club absorbs the cost of a major stadium event once per season, rather than repeatedly throughout the calendar. Ticketing revenue and host city fees would be distributed across the league, with a larger share allocated to the club hosting its home weekend.

Travel is a consideration, although it already exists in every professional league and the UK is geographically compact. In most cases, the commitment would be a weekend away, followed by a return to a permanent training base. The league could centralise travel planning to reduce friction.

Clubs would remain rooted in their local communities. Academies, training grounds and community programmes stay in place. Official watch parties and fan events in home cities help maintain identity. Multi-match regional passes could replace traditional season tickets, allowing fans to access several weekends based on geography. Core supporters could be rewarded through loyalty schemes and discounted travel for their club’s home event.

Yes, some ritual changes would occur for the most committed attendees. But in exchange, the league gains scale, consistency and the ability to introduce the sport to far larger audiences.

There is also a fandom dynamic that supports this shift.

Many of the 16.22 million who watched the EURO final, and the 48 million who engaged with women’s sport last year, feel connected primarily to players and national narratives. A touring model leans into that reality as the proposition becomes access to multiple “Lionesses” across a single weekend, rather than allegiance to one fixture in isolation.

Open training sessions, youth clinics, athlete panels and city-wide activations turn each stop into a celebration of women’s football. The atmosphere begins to resemble a music festival, a rugby sevens circuit or even an international tournament. The league itself becomes the event.

This concept is about recognising that copying a structure that worked a century ago (home and away) may not be optimal for a league operating in a different stage of development and building fandom in a new era.

The WSL has great visibility and proven demand at the top end. But it also has a clear structural gulf between its largest and smallest matchdays, driven by infrastructure and cost realities.

Brighton’s solution may be to build a purpose-built facility, Everton’s may be to hand the women Goodison Park, but a touring model offers an alternative route that sidesteps some of those constraints (as not every team has a stadium to give away/ capacity to build).

The next phase of growth for the WSL will be defined by consistency at scale and format is central to that conversation. Innovation in sport doesn’t always mean changing the rules of the game. Sometimes, like in this case, it could simply mean changing how the game is organised.

P.S. This is not a concept confined to women’s football. A similar structural rethink could be appropriate for British basketball, which faces arguably even greater infrastructure challenges. The broader point and takeaway here is that emerging leagues should design around their present realities, rather than defaulting to tradition.

SPONSORED BY FANZO

Case Study: How TNT Sports Set The Gold Standard For Broadcaster Value-Add 🤔 📺

Did you know that TNT Sports’ coverage of European football drives more incremental footfall into UK pubs than any other live sport?

That data point, combined with a simple customer insight that most pubs and bars don’t have the time, tools or headspace to consistently promote their live sport offering online, sparked a bigger idea.

How do you turn broadcast rights into measurable revenue for venues?

Discover how TNT Sports partnered with FANZO to help venues convert content into footfall, increase matchday trade, and make operators’ lives easier in the process.

Read Case Study

THE PITCH

On this episode of The Pitch, Andy and Drew unpack the rise of alternate broadcasts and explore how the Women’s Super League (WSL) could pioneer a fresh, fan-first scheduling model.

They explore how personality-driven storytelling is reshaping sports coverage and debate whether niche creators can drive deeper engagement than major influencers like Mark Goldbridge. The conversation also questions how sports media can strike the right balance between personalised content and the shared “watercooler” moments that unite fans.

The duo also brainstorms bold ideas for the WSL, suggesting it moves to a tour-based competition model with festival-style activations, tapping into the momentum around international women’s football and the Lionesses while tackling challenges around attendance, infrastructure, and visibility of women’s club football.

Timestamps

• 01:00 – The rise of alternate broadcasts and why fans crave choice

• 10:00 – The fight between personalised feeds and collective moments

• 19:30 – A tour-based model for the WSL: what it could look like

• 30:00 – Building identities around players, not postcodes

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube 🎧

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston and Drew Rauso.

It’s a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what’s really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

Drew Rauso is a versatile media operator with a proven track record of building and scaling sports media ventures at the intersection of content, commerce, and creator strategy. He currently leads Brand, Strategy, and Operations at Playmaker HQ, a leading sports podcast network owned by Better Collective, home to shows featuring Shaquille O’Neal, Angel Reese, and Marshawn Lynch. Previously at The Players’ Tribune, Drew has been instrumental in shaping athlete-driven media, overseeing partnerships, production, and growth initiatives that connect fans and talent in meaningful ways.

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 and Juventus to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.

Produced by OH SIX

The Sports Pundit Podcast is proudly produced by OH SIX, a content marketing agency specialising in producing digital and social-first content that connects. Trusted by Premier League clubs, F1 teams, and top brands, OH SIX deliver premium content end-to-end, from ideation, working with talent during production and platform specific content to reach audiences on screen.

This newsletter explores ideas discussed on The Pitch podcast, where Drew and I bring a theme, provocation or emerging idea from across the sports industry and pitch it to one another.

Today, we take a closer look at the idea of a Premier League museum in central London, and what it could unlock for fans, partners and the league itself.

We also share a relevant case study from our sponsors, FANZO. It explores best-in-class examples of how Guinness has executed their sponsorship of the Premier League in thousands of pubs and bars around the world.

Over the next year, FANZO will also be supporting our sports industry get-togethers in pubs across the UK, US and Australia.

Enjoy! And do let me know what you think of the idea!

The Premier League stands as one of the UK’s biggest sporting competitions and one of the country’s most powerful cultural exports. International research consistently shows that football ranks as the number one sporting draw for overseas visitors to Britain, with watching live football remaining a significant motivator for inbound travel.

In 2019, 1.5 million visits to the UK included attending a live football match, with those visitors spending £1.4 billion during their trips, well above the average international tourist spend.

That dynamic highlights something important. The Premier League contributes not only to sporting culture, but also to tangible economic value through tourism. Yet for all the league’s reach and global appeal, a single, central place in London where fans, domestic or international, can experience the Premier League as a collective story does not exist.

For a league that captivates billions around the world, that feels like a natural conversation to have.

For many international visitors, experiencing the Premier League in the UK proves harder than it looks. Not all of the most supported clubs operate from London, even though the vast majority of tourists stay there. Stadium tours tend to be club-specific, capacity-limited and frequently booked out well in advance. Match tickets carry high prices, remain difficult to secure, and rely heavily on timing. When trips do not align with fixtures, opportunities disappear altogether.

So what if there were a permanent, central London location?

Picture a Premier League Museum in the heart of the city. A place where fans engage with three decades of history, celebrate iconic moments, learn about global players and clubs, and interact with immersive storytelling regardless of match schedules.

Live football would remain the pinnacle of the experience. A museum would instead sit alongside it as a complementary layer, acting as a cultural hub that captures the league’s energy and broad appeal.

Useful precedents show that this concept carries real weight…

Formula 1’s London Exhibition demonstrated clear appetite for sport beyond the live event. The F1 Exhibition attracted more than 340,000 visitors during its London run, with loyal fans and curious tourists buying tickets to experience the sport’s history, cars and interactive elements without attending a single Grand Prix.

Beyond sport, the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Covent Garden, a new flagship visitor experience from one of the world’s most iconic brands, shows how immersive, brand-driven spaces can quickly become cultural destinations. Its Dublin counterpart, the Guinness Storehouse at St James’s Gate, holds the position of Ireland’s most visited tourist attraction, drawing millions of visitors who come to experience the brand’s story rather than sample the product alone.

These examples illustrate how purpose-built, storytelling environments create meaningful engagement and sustainable revenue streams, particularly in cities that already attract millions of culture-seeking visitors each year.

A central Premier League experience would address several of the practical realities facing international fans, too.

Many visitors base themselves in London and have limited time, meaning travel to multiple cities is often unrealistic, even when the clubs they follow are based elsewhere. A single, accessible location in the capital would allow those fans to engage with the Premier League during their trip, regardless of fixture timing or geography.

It would also reflect how fandom continues to evolve. Increasingly, supporters follow the Premier League as a league first rather than a single club, shaped in part by its global player base, with players from 128 countries having represented the competition.

While the Premier League Hall of Fame exists today, it largely lives through announcements and social posts. A physical space could give it greater presence and ritual, closer to the cultural role halls of fame play in the United States, and create a more tangible point of connection for fans.

One other often overlooked factor in this discussion relates to photography.

Football stadiums, despite their atmosphere, offer limited photo opportunities, whether for match attendance or stadium tours. Sightlines remain restricted, access controlled, and moments that appear iconic on television rarely translate into memorable personal images.

A purpose-built Premier League museum could change that dynamic.

Clear, intentional photo moments with the trophy, alongside legendary players, inside club-themed environments or within Hall of Fame installations match exactly what tourists want and choose to share. Each shared image becomes organic amplification of the Premier League brand, carried into new markets through personal social networks rather than paid media.

This approach also creates additional value for rights holders and sponsors. Partners gain the ability to activate visually rich, experiential zones rather than relying solely on broadcast and digital inventory, similar to how fan zones delivered by Williams Racing have successfully brought sponsors and audiences together in accessible public spaces.

The goal here does not involve replacing or competing with club’s matchday economics. Instead, the opportunity sits in creating an additional entry point for fans who already feel emotionally invested, but for whom attending a game remains out of reach.

A flagship London space could develop into a cultural and commercial asset that expands how the Premier League is experienced and shared at scale.

SPONSORED BY FANZO

Case Study: How Guinness Brought Their Premier League Sponsorship to Life in Pubs and Bars Around the World 🤔 🍻

In June 2024, Guinness signed a four-year Premier League sponsorship deal. One problem: kick-off was 100 days away and there was barely a slide, let alone a coherent plan to activate the partnership.

Working with longtime sports activation partner FANZO, Guinness quickly turned on fan engagement programmes across more than 10,000 bars in multiple continents. The result? Half a million extra fans driven into pubs and bars, increased brand association with the Premier League, and double digit sales uplift for Guinness, all in year one.

To learn more about how FANZO helps brands and rights holders convert sponsorship into footfall and revenue, check out the full case study.

Read Case Study

THE PITCH

On today’s episode of The Pitch, Andy and Drew trade bold fan engagement ideas, spanning physical experiences, creator-led storytelling, and new ways to reward participation beyond the professional game.

Andy opens with a pitch for a Premier League Museum and Hall of Fame, exploring how a permanent or touring flagship experience could monetise global fandom, capture tourist demand in London, and turn the league’s history, players, and sponsors into a physical, social-first destination. From photo-ready moments to sponsor activations and legends events, the conversation examines why the Premier League’s Hall of Fame feels under-leveraged compared to US sports and global brands like Formula 1 and Guinness.

Drew then flips the lens to participation, proposing a creator-driven model that connects grassroots and intramural sport to professional leagues. They explore how documenting amateur leagues, rewarding cultural impact over scale, and spotlighting everyday players could deepen fandom, unlock new creator pipelines, and give casual participants a meaningful stake in the ecosystem, without distorting competition.

Timestamps

• 02:00 - Why a Premier League Museum could unlock a new tourist revenue stream

• 05:00 - Learning from the Guinness Storehouse

• 9:00 - The Opportunity for Expanding the Premier League’s “Hall of Fame”

• 15:00 - Connecting youth and intramural participation with Pro Sports Fandom

• 22:30 - A Grassroots Content Creator Competition Series

• 31:00 - Blending Technology with Physical Participation

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube 🎧

The Pitch is the conversational show from the Sports Pundit Podcast Network, hosted by Andy Marston and Drew Rauso.

It’s a play on words, with each host bringing an idea, theme, or provocation that they pitch to the other. Together they react, debate, and explore what’s really happening across the sports industry, from shifting media models to the next wave of innovation.

Each episode mixes perspective with practicality, with occasional appearances from other Sports Pundit hosts from across the Network.

About The Hosts

Drew Rauso is a versatile media operator with a proven track record of building and scaling sports media ventures at the intersection of content, commerce, and creator strategy. He currently leads Brand, Strategy, and Operations at Playmaker HQ, a leading sports podcast network owned by Better Collective, home to shows featuring Shaquille O’Neal, Angel Reese, and Marshawn Lynch. Previously at The Players’ Tribune, Drew has been instrumental in shaping athlete-driven media, overseeing partnerships, production, and growth initiatives that connect fans and talent in meaningful ways. Connect on LinkedIn

Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives. Connect on LinkedIn

Good afternoon!

Continuing where I left off last week (not literally, as this time last week was sent from an airport terminal, but you get the idea), I wanted to continue to explore the themes that matter most to me in 2026.

Last week’s note explored shifts around loyalty, physical experiences, player IP and evolving media models.

This edition builds on that, but focusing more heavily on infrastructure, ownership, and venture, as well as adding some further thoughts on the changing shape of rights and distribution, from a few more friends of SP.

For those of you working within teams, leagues, agencies or brands, I’d again be genuinely interested to hear whether these themes reflect what you are prioritising internally, or if there are areas that feel more urgent or commercially relevant in your world.

Stadium investment evolves into full “sports cities”

There are already a significant number of stadium development projects underway and we’re seeing the scale expand wider into sports and entertainment anchored districts.

One example that has been in the works for a while is Cádiz CF’s “Sportstech City,” a €371m development transforming the former Estadio Nuevo Mirandilla area into a year-round sports, technology, and business hub.

Atlético Madrid’s long term development plans, backed by funding from Apollo Global Management, underlines the growing role of private equity in these projects.

For PE firms holding substantial deployable capital (“dry powder”), these developments offer a compelling mix of hard assets, long duration returns, diversified revenue streams, and a credible regeneration narrative that supports large scale deployment.

This dynamic was previously explored on the Sports Pundit Finance Podcast, where Tim Katt joined Vansa Chatikavanij to discuss how sport has matured into a serious real estate asset class. Katt drew a clear distinction between stadiums and the opportunity that exists around them, arguing that venues work best when treated as catalysts rather than destinations in isolation. A stadium can anchor development, yet an over focus on the venue itself risks creating poor experiences for fans and local residents alike.

It’s important to note that while the shift from single purpose venues to broader mixed use ecosystems is real, execution depends heavily on political context, planning frameworks, and access to long term capital.

In many European markets, governance complexity and municipal processes slow progress, pushing clubs and developers toward phased or modular approaches rather than fully realised masterplans.

This means that for now, success will remain concentrated among clubs/ leagues able to align political will, capital partners, and year round demand at scale.

7. Creators become networks (via Barrick Prince and Michael Cohen)

The future is moving away from creators as influencers and toward creators as networks, according to Barrick Prince and Michael Cohen, co-founders of the Creator Sports Network.

“Where there was once one ESPN, there will be a million equivalents: global personalities, niche communities, even hyper-local viewing experiences.

The monoculture of sports viewing is over. The smartest rights holders won’t resist this shift, they’ll design for it.”

In a recent interview with Endeavor CEO Ari Emmanuel on Invest Like the Best, he discussed the idea of influencers (like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) becoming channels. In this reality, “taste” and curation become essential.

We got a glimpse of this with Cristiano Ronaldo streaming the Premier Padel event in Riyadh, as well as of course the often cited CazeTV example, which was discussed on my podcast with Rob Pilgrim, the most listened to episode of 2025.

The Bundesliga’s formal partnerships with Mark Goldbridge and Goalhanger support this direction of travel. The later of which also has established a deal with LALIGA, too.

8. Venture becomes a real revenue and strategic lever

More rights holders are beginning to recognise their value beyond brand and IP ownership, increasingly viewing themselves as platforms capable of unlocking access to high quality early stage companies from industries like B2B SaaS, climate-tech, payments and mobility solutions (not only sports tech) and participate in the upside for doing so.

At Como 1907 Ventures (a project I’ve led, for full transparency), partnerships with founders are structured around milestones rather than assumptions. Specific commercial and operational deliverables must be met before equity is unlocked, ensuring that access to club assets, whether distribution, facilities, data, or credibility, is earned and measured. Initial results from this approach will be shared publicly in July when we host our Demo Day.

A common challenge in this space is capability mismatch.

Sourcing venture quality opportunities, supporting founders operationally, and identifying what scales to venture sized outcomes require skillsets that differ meaningfully from those found inside most sports organisations.

Solving an internal club problem rarely translates automatically into a defensible or venture-scale business.

There is also a gap on the investor side, too. Many venture capital firms (especially those not looking solely at sports tech) lack experience working directly with rights holders or navigating sporting calendars, governance structures, and stakeholder complexity.

The Players Fund operates at the intersection of these worlds, bridging founders, investors, and rights holders, and translating sporting access into outcomes that could hold up both operationally and at venture scale.

9. Roblox becomes a “must do” (via Joe Farren)

Joe Farren, Innovation Consultant at FutureSport Co, who worked on City Fan Lab’s Stickerbook Challenge, was struck by the scale of engagement the initiative generated and expects many more organisations to pay closer attention in the year ahead.

“In 2026, Roblox and Gaming platforms transitions from a “nice to have” to “must do” part of the sports marketing mix, delivering real ROI, measurable fan acquisition,” explained Farren.

He continued, “the first phase of sports brands building on Roblox was very much test and learn. These activations drove huge top-of-funnel engagement but it’s fair to say were treated by CMOs as a nice-to-have brand awareness plays rather than a serious performance channel.

That is now changing. Platform updates are unlocking full-funnel fan acquisition, with in-game mechanics and plugins that connect branded experiences directly into owned and operated loyalty platforms.

Proof points can be seen in the form of Manchester City StickerBook Challenge on Roblox, which drove 41 million unique plays, 300 million impressions and 6k + sign ups to the Cityzens loyalty scheme through a 1 day competition mechanic.”

“In 2026, Roblox transitions from being an experimental channel to firmly established part of Sport fan engagement strategy equally as important as legacy social platforms.”

10. The scope of sports travel and the experience economy is set to expand (via Jamie Corr)

Jamie Corr, co-host of the Sports Pundit Marketing Podcast and currently working with a number of global brands and tourism authorities, sees positive momentum around the experience economy - another area where Ari Emmanuel was bullish when delivering his ‘Anti-AI’ bet to Patrick O'Shaughnessy.

“In 2026, fans will no longer travel just to watch sport,” said Corr, “but to participate in its culture, values, and impact.”

“Major events will act as platforms for immersive, city-wide experiences that blend sport with art, food, community, and sustainability.

Destinations that succeed will be those that design journeys rather than itineraries and where attending a match, race, or championship becomes an entry point into local identity and global connection.

The next phase of sports tourism will be defined by purpose as much as passion with travelers increasingly choosing destinations that reflect their values (environmental responsibility, inclusion, authenticity, and legacy).

Cities that treat sport as a civic asset, using it to activate public spaces, support communities, and tell meaningful stories, will stand apart in a crowded global market.”

This is true for participation led sports such as triathlon, endurance racing, and mass events including Ironman and Hyrox (see recent launch of the Hyrox Cruise) as well as spectator sports delivering participatory in-stadia experiences.

However, for all the positive momentum, there are also areas of caution.

Over proliferation of participation events risk diluting authenticity and rising entry fees can exclude the communities that generate energy and identity. Similarly, premium in-stadia experiences drive yield, though overly aggressive monetisation risks hollowing out atmosphere if core fans are priced out.

One emerging response is granular pricing segmentation, with accessible sections designed to preserve culture and noise alongside high value hospitality that subsidises access elsewhere. Models being explored by teams such as the LA Clippers point toward a widening gap between the lowest and highest price points.

In both cases, success depends on balance of protecting accessibility while also creating enough differentiation for fans to justify travelling for more than the match itself.

None of this is one size fits all. The feasibility and impact of these shifts vary significantly by sport, market, and rightsholder.

As ever, I would be genuinely interested to hear where you agree, where you disagree, and what you are seeing play out on the ground. Feel free to reply directly to this newsletter with your own perspectives.

GROUP CHAT

That’s a wrap for this week - huge thanks to everyone who’s part of our growing community. Not part of the group yet? What are you waiting for? Apply to join us by filling out a simple form on the website. Feel free to share this link with (your favourite) colleagues.

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P.S. You can see a full list of all the current members, here.

INNOVATION PODCAST

Inside Napoli’s Unique Approach to Player Image Rights with Leonardo Giammarioli ⚽️

On today’s episode of the Sports Pundit Innovation Podcast, Andy is joined by Leonardo Giammarioli, Chief Global Business Development Officer at SSC Napoli, to unpack how one of Italy’s biggest clubs is building a smarter, more sustainable commercial model.

Leonardo has worked across the sports business from multiple angles, including agency-side at SPORTFIVE, brand-side at NIVEA, and within clubs across different football cultures, giving him what he describes as a “360-degree” view of how the ecosystem works. At Napoli, that perspective matters, because the club’s ambition is clear: compete at the top level without the financial profile of Europe’s super clubs.

In this conversation, we explore two of Napoli’s most distinctive advantages. First, the club’s approach to squad-wide image rights, which gives sponsors clearer access to players, reduces category conflicts, and even feeds into transfer decision-making through commercial forecasting. Second, Napoli’s end-to-end control of merchandise, which has transformed both brand perception and profitability, from premium sponsor alignment to rapid, culture-led drops tailored to specific markets.

If you’re interested in how a club can build modern commercial leverage through ownership, control, and smarter infrastructure, this episode is a masterclass in commercial innovation.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

SUPPORTED BY SUMMITLY 📆

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Summitly makes it easier than ever to discover and plan for industry events, bringing together major conferences, curated communities, and fringe meetups, all in one convenient place.

Unlike traditional booking platforms, Summitly is a visibility and discovery layer, helping professionals find where to connect in real life without the hassle of spreadsheets, scattered invites, or missing out on important side events. From stadium-sized summits to intimate after-hours gatherings, Summitly ensures that no opportunity for connection slips through the cracks.

We’ve just added over 100+ events for 2026 so take a look if you’re in the process of planning movements for 2026.

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JOBS BOARD

We’re not a recruitment agent, but we have created a custom search on LinkedIn to help to you to find some the most exciting job opportunities within the sports industry a little bit more easily…`

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On today’s episode, I’m joined by Avelino, a rapper known for his sharp lyricism, deep wordplay, and cultural influence far beyond music.

In this conversation, we talk about the lessons that he brings from music into football, why the system needs disrupting, and how Nexus Football Group plans to elevate both the game and the people in it.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Nexus Football Group: Founding an Agency with Reach and Relatability Built In 🤝

There was a subtle moment that told me a lot about the newly launched football agency, Nexus Football Group.

It’s not in the press release. It was simply something Avelino said during his appearance on the Sports Pundit Podcast, almost offhand, when describing how he, Harry Pinero, and John Loaiza came together to start the company.

“I can’t say that I masterminded it,” he told me. “Some things just fell into place.”

To put a large part of it down to serendipity isn’t something I’m all that used to hearing.

In sports, especially at the sharp end of the business, success is usually dressed in strategy and glossy pitch decks. Founding stories are often reengineered at conferences to sound more grandiose. So the fact that Nexus didn’t start this way (or pretend to) almost makes its architecture more appealing to study.

While it feels like a new kind of agency that he’s launching, it’s really a modern response to a very old question: Who do athletes trust?

For years, the trust de facto fell to the man in the suit backed by the big shiny agency brand. But that equation has changed.

Now, representation means more than negotiation. It means image. Platform. Longevity. And trust has shifted from brands to personalities.

Which brings us to Harry Pinero.

Harry is best known as a presenter. A culture-shaper. A guy who can be just as comfortable joking with footballers on YouTube as he is speaking insightfully on Sky Sports.

“Usually companies go to cultural figures to be ambassadors,” Avelino said. “That area’s already covered for us, ’cause our ambassador is a founding partner of the company.”

It’s an elegant inversion. While most agencies need to borrow cultural capital, Nexus has it built in from the start.

This obviously helps with reach (he has well over a million followers on Instagram), but more importantly, it creates immediate relevance.

Remember: we’re now in an era where every player coming through has been raised on YouTube, social clips, and short-form storytelling.

Harry didn’t take the traditional route into sports media. He made his name online, by being himself, long before mainstream platforms like Sky Sports came calling. Players recognise that. They see someone who understands the pressures of public scrutiny, who’s navigated relevance, backlash, reinvention, and all the other things that come with having a personal brand in the era of infinite content.

“He didn’t rise to fame last year,” Avelino said. “He’s got staying power… He can hang with the young people doing Footasylum, but at the same time have a proper conversation with Paul Scholes or Gerard Pique.”

In other words, Harry knows both the game and the culture that surrounds it, which is invaluable when you’re a young athlete considering who you want looking after and advising you on your image. He has the lived experience and the ability to open (most) doors.

This is all the more powerful when to complement this, John Loaiza, who is perhaps the most expected member of the founding team, plays the role of operator, leaning on his deep network in Latin America and prior agency experience.

As CEO, he’s the engine behind the day-to-day.

“He’s Mr. Operations, Mr. Discipline, Mr. Get Things Done,” Avelino said. “He’s the ‘how’ to my ‘why’… Without a John, ideas like this are just ideas.”

Avelino, known for his lyricism and ability to create connections, says the name Nexus was chosen to reflect the uniqueness of this trio and the desire to be a meeting point between culture, sport, and innovation (more on that last part will come in due course).

There’s a theory that the most successful organisations start with a shared worldview. Something both implicit and human.

And that’s what Nexus has among its unlikely trio of founders.

Their uniquely complementary skills offer them distinct reach and relatability from the go, which might be the most valuable asset in giving them a genuine shot at challenging the status quo.

SP PODCAST

#60 Avelino: Reshaping the Future of Football Representation

I’m joined by Avelino, a rapper known for his sharp lyricism, deep wordplay, and cultural influence far beyond music.

Alongside presenter Harry Pinero and football entrepreneur John Loaiza, Avelino has co-founded Nexus Football Group, a next-generation agency built to reshape the future of football representation.

Beyond managing talent, Nexus aims to unlock overlooked brilliance, bridge culture and sport, and create a new blueprint for how players are seen, supported, and celebrated.

In this conversation, we talk about the lessons that Avelino brings from music into football, why the system needs disrupting, and how Nexus plans to elevate both the game and the people in it.

Listen Now

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On today’s episode, I’m joined by Misha Sher, Global Head of Sport, Entertainment and Culture at WPP, and one of the most respected voices in the intersection of sport, creativity, and brand strategy.

In this conversation, recorded at the Johan Cryuff ArenA in Amsterdam during Soccerex Europe, we explore what great sponsorship really looks like in 2025, why it's no longer about exposure, but experience, and how WPP works with both talent and brands.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Brand Building: How eBay's Activation Had Them Off to the Races 🏁

The Goodwood Festival of Speed takes place next week.

It’s one of the most famous car events in the world and is a magnet for brands trying to be noticed. Most of them won’t be. eBay, however, has managed to stand out.

Their campaign, which debuted in 2023 and returned last year as eBay Garage 2.0, was the (fairly recent) winner of the Sports Industry Group's Hospitality & Experience Award.

And for good reason.

Rather than sponsor something passive, eBay built a gathering place for enthusiasts.

This included the return of their curated museum of car parts spanning 75 years, a speed challenge to rebuild an engine, live expert talks on sourcing and fitting parts, and hands-on DIY demonstrations from creators like Matt Armstrong, Becky Evans, Edd China, George Clarke, and Ben Shephard.

Further to this, there was also a dedicated family play zone, giveaways, and programming hosted by Ortis Deley to add to the atmosphere. They even displayed a Flux Capacitor.

The results (as well as the awards) show that this worked.

According to agency Collaborate Global, in 2024 the stand attracted 80,500 total users with 21,000 actively engaged and had an average dwell time of 9 minutes, which is about twice the norm for Goodwood.

Behind that success was a simple idea to celebrate DIY spirit. That mindset informed every element of a summer-long programme across multiple motorsports events, culminating at Goodwood.

“This particular campaign was all around experiential,” said Misha Sher, Global Head of Sport & Entertainment at WPP, speaking on the Sports Pundit Podcast during his attendance at Soccerex.

The insight for this was that eBay already had strong commercial performance in the car parts and accessories category but performance marketing can only take them so far. At some point, they needed to give people a reason to want their brand to win.

“Oftentimes when you think about brands showing up now, it’s like: what’s the story? What’s the relevance? Why there? Why is this interesting for the audience?”

The eBay Garage was an answer to that series of questions.

It’s tempting to think campaigns like this are expensive one-offs. But the real cost is in the thinking. You need to know who you’re talking to, what they believe, and how you can show up in a way that makes sense. Most brands skip those steps and go straight to promotion. This often leads to campaigns that reach a lot of people but change very little.

@beckyevanzI joined @eBay UK at Goodwood's Festival of Speed to see how many people could complete the eBay 39s Pitstop Challenge - watch how it went down! #AD #eBayUKAutoParts

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What eBay did was different. They found a corner of culture where they already had something useful to offer, then they built something physical to prove it. The garage made people feel like eBay belonged in the conversation. And once you're in the conversation, the sale becomes much easier.

“People who enjoy working on cars already know what parts they need,” Sher explained. “They don’t always know where to find them, or who to trust.”

“We’re obviously showing up in places where you have car enthusiasts,” he continued. “And that’s very on brand and it’s interesting and engaging and drives traffic to your business... it’s a win-win all around.”

This thinking can apply anywhere.

Start with the people you want to serve, understand what they enjoy, and then build something that makes them feel understood.

That’s what eBay did at Goodwood (and across the summer) and it’s why it worked so well.

SP PODCAST

#59 Misha Sher: Lessons from 20 Years in Sports and Athlete Marketing from WPP's Global Head of Sport & Entertainment

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Misha Sher, Global Head of Sport, Entertainment and Culture at WPP, and one of the most respected voices in the intersection of sport, creativity, and brand strategy.

Misha has spent the last decade helping some of the world’s biggest brands, from Toyota to eBay, connect with culture through sport. He’s also worked directly with global icons like Pele and Mesut Özil, helping turn talent into brands that last far beyond the pitch.

In this conversation, recorded at the Johan Cryuff ArenA in Amsterdam during Soccerex Europe, we explore what great sponsorship really looks like in 2025, why it's no longer about exposure, but experience, and how WPP works with both talent and brands.

Listen Now

Not yet a subscriber? Join over 3,000 sports business leaders, from Formula 1 to the Premier League, that read Sports Pundit every week to get impactful industry insights.

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On today’s episode, I’m joined by Rob Pilgrim, Head of Sport & Primetime at YouTube EMEA.

In this conversation, we explore what that future looks like through the lens of YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s four big bets: AI, Creators as Studios, The Living Room, and Protecting the Creator Economy.

If you care about how sport is being reshaped by platforms and creators, this one’s a must-listen.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Primetime Isn’t Over: How YouTube Could Save Pay TV 📺

We’re well past the phase of explaining why YouTube matters in sport. Everyone gets it, especially for new challenger sports properties looking for reach.

What’s less understood is how YouTube is starting to reshape the value of premium sport. And not by undermining traditional broadcasters, but by removing the friction around them.

Rob Pilgrim, YouTube’s Head of Sport & Primetime for EMEA, joined me on the Sports Pundit Podcast recently. What stood out was how intentional he, and YouTube, have been about not trying to replace broadcasters, but working with them.

“I’m really comfortable with how core broadcasters are to our strategy. It’s been a big feature of my tenure in this role,” Pilgrim said. “We want to go with the grain of the industry. We want to work with the existing broadcast ecosystem because they are so brilliant at what they do.”

A good and frequently referenced example is Brazil’s CazéTV, which streamed the 2022 World Cup on YouTube with permission from domestic rights holder Globo. Millions watched on Cazé’s channel, yet Globo’s TV audience stayed steady.

“It wasn’t cannibalistic. It didn’t take from one and give to the other. But the millions and millions of viewers that CazéTV brought in increased the overall audience. It was additive.”

It’s not that fans of CazéTV were going to YouTube instead of Globo (they weren’t going to Globo anyway). Instead you need to consider the framing that it was an on-ramp that brings new viewers into the sports ecosystem who may not have entered otherwise. He’s currently doing the same for the FIFA Club World Cup.

We’ve seen this approach elsewhere too. Sky Sports and DAZN have both used YouTube to push visibility around women’s football, treating it as a free-to-air distribution layer to build interest and momentum.

But YouTube as a free content platform is only part of the story.

Primetime Channels is still “nascent,” but it deserves far more attention. Available in the US, Germany, and the UK, it lets fans subscribe to premium services directly within YouTube — no app-switching, no extra logins, no new payment details. Just a seamless path from a highlight to the full broadcast.

This is especially important as rights continue to be split between different services. In the last few years, Pilgrim says searches for “Where to watch” have increased sevenfold (using Google Trends data).

Primetime Channels won’t solve the fragmentation of sports rights entirely, but it helps to simplify the experience, acting as a connective layer that brings the pieces back together.

“Through things like Primetime Channels, we can start to help solve for that. We can collapse that funnel,” said Pilgrim. “From watching something for free, like a trailer, a press conference, or a preview,” he continued, “to the main event, like a football game on the weekend.”

“In a couple of clicks, the user can find their way to the main event. That’s what we think is really exciting about the technology we’re developing.”

Where YouTube once sat at the top of the funnel, only helping broadcasters like Sky attract viewers to their own platform, now the entire customer journey can happen within YouTube itself. Broadcasters can still charge for access, retain ownership of the relationship, and build loyalty. They just don’t need to send viewers elsewhere.

Mid-roll ads that trigger after goals, channel memberships, built-in shopping, and the standard ad split all offer them additional ways to earn revenue on the platform. Partner sales (which allow broadcasters to sell their own inventory alongside their linear deals) have also been instrumental in bringing them on board.

As YouTube’s monetisation tools continue to develop, more content and more partners will inevitably follow. So it’s almost certainly a misconception that YouTube signals the end of pay-TV.

In reality, it can strengthen it. With less friction, premium content can still be paid for (as well as monetised in smarter, more flexible ways).

Once seen purely as a reach tool, YouTube is becoming an increasingly powerful engine for conversion.

If you're a broadcaster, a league, or a club, the question isn’t whether to be on YouTube (that’s already quite clear). The question is how to use it best for your specific strategy and needs.

SP PODCAST

#58 Rob Pilgrim: Making YouTube the Best Digital Destination for Sports Fans

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Rob Pilgrim, Head of Sport & Primetime at YouTube EMEA.

Rob has spent the last eight years leading YouTube’s end-to-end sports business across the region, from commercial deals and product launches to strategy and societal impact. He’s helped build a team that’s landed global rights deals, launched paid products like Primetime Channels, and championed the platform’s role in accelerating the growth of women’s sport.

In this conversation, we explore what that future looks like — through the lens of YouTube CEO Neal Mohan’s four big bets: AI, Creators as Studios, The Living Room, and Protecting the Creator Economy. If you care about how sport is being reshaped by platforms and creators, this one’s a must-listen.

Listen Now

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On today’s episode, I’m joined by Vansa Chatikavanij, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Present Ventures, a firm investing in emerging leagues, media, and fan-driven technology.

In this conversation, we explore the investment thesis behind Present Ventures, why community is increasingly the engine behind commerce, and what the rise of alternative leagues and women’s sports tells us about the next generation of fans.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Marketing Tu(Tour)ial: What We Can Learn from Will Smith’ Album Launch 🎶

Will Smith recently launched his first album in nearly 20 years, but his approach was far from old school.

Instead, he invited a dozen creators to The Lighthouse, a creator campus in Venice, California, and let internet word-of-mouth take over.

“This was the new press tour,” said Vansa Chatikavanij, Partner at Present Ventures, on the Sports Pundit Podcast. “Rather than doing a global tour… he invited a handful of creators to spend 90 minutes with him and reached over half a billion audience. And that was it.”

Smith’s campaign provides us more than a glimpse of where media is heading.

Distribution today is about tapping attention rather than buying space. And creators are the infrastructure that makes that possible. To leverage that, Smith made himself the centre of gravity rather than going from outlet to outlet.

Creators came to him, each producing something suited to their own style, from comedy sketches to lip-syncs to behind-the-scenes reels. It looked spontaneous, but the coordination behind it was deliberate. The goal was to show up natively, where audiences already spend their time: TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat etc. etc.

“How you market 10 years ago, five years ago, versus how you market to fans today can be so much more cost effective,” Chatikavanij said. “You don’t need to show up in 100 places. You need to show up on 100 pages.”

The venue, in many ways, epitomised the strategy. The Lighthouse was built by Whalar as a hybrid between studio and clubhouse. Its limited creator cohort is overseen by a council co-chaired by Colin and Samir. It’s designed for the next generation of storytellers and really showed Smith’s intentions.

This mindset is starting to shape sport too, where creator-led distribution is beginning to define how new leagues launch and grow. It’s central to Chatikavanij’s thesis as a co-founder at Present Ventures.

She calls this ‘Sports 3.0,’ a model that puts community, content, and commerce at the centre of the industry.

Their investment in Good Good Golf is a great example.

“YouTube golf had more than 4.3 billion views in the last 90 days,” Chatikavanij said. “It’s a massive white space that people are just starting to understand how to monetise.”

Good Good started as a group of friends filming casual golf challenges. Today, their YouTube channel has over 1.7 million subscribers. They’ve launched their own product line, partnered with Callaway, and now sponsor PGA Tour players like Michael Block and Joel Dahmen. They've become one of the most influential brands in golf without any traditional media footprint.

In February, the creator collective became part-owners of TGL’s LA Golf Club, bringing their audience and content instincts into one of sport’s newest league formats. It’s no coincidence that that format is also backed by Present Ventures, both at the league level and more recently through their investment in expansion franchise Motor City Golf Club.

You can already see how this plays out. As well as being investors, Good Good will likely be a key part of how LAGC, and the league more broadly, gets introduced to fans. That’s the difference between reach and resonance. You can advertise to people, or you can invite them in.

This model has particular potential in women’s sport, where budgets are smaller but digital fluency runs deep.

“The money coming into women’s sports is small compared to the men’s,” said Chatikavanij. “But having this technology and being able to be influencer-athletes opens up that world and opportunity.”

Alongside Unrivaled, a new 3x3 women’s basketball league, Present is backing TOGETHXR, the media and commerce brand co-founded by Alex Morgan, known for its viral “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” t-shirts.

Each of these investments reflects the same belief: when content, identity, and community align, people don’t only consume, they participate.

Like Will Smith’s album drop, the opportunity lies in rethinking distribution. It means loosening the reins from the old guard and trusting in new methods of delivery. Ones that don’t simply sell your story, but help people to tell their own.

As Chatikavanij surmised “The way to reach a young audience is to reach out and really borrow the influence of the other people that have these kids' eyes and ears and attention.”

SP PODCAST

#57 Vansa Chatikavanij [#57]: Investing in a New Era of Sports and Entertainment at Present Ventures ⛳️

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Vansa Chatikavanij, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Present Ventures, a firm investing in emerging leagues, media, and fan-driven technology.

Vansa’s background is as global and multidisciplinary as it gets, from advising on water and climate projects at the World Bank, to building billion-dollar web3 infrastructure in Asia, to now shaping the future of sport through investments in companies like Togethxr, Unrivaled, and Good Good Golf.

In this conversation, we explore the investment thesis behind Present Ventures, why community is increasingly the engine behind commerce, and what the rise of alternative leagues and women’s sports tells us about the next generation of fans.

Listen Now

Not yet a subscriber? Join over 3,000 sports business leaders, from Formula 1 to the Premier League, that read Sports Pundit every week to get impactful industry insights.

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On today’s episode, I'm joined by Matthew Jafarian, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy at the Miami HEAT.

Matthew is also the co-founder of 601 Analytics, a data and analytics platform born inside the HEAT that’s now used by over 20% of the NBA, the league office, and teams across the NFL, NHL, NWSL, MLB, and (soon) MLS.

In this conversation, out tomorrow on all good platforms, we dig into how the role of data is evolving in sport, why teams need to start acting like the billion-dollar businesses they are, and what it means to build a company within a world-famous organisation.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Lesson 601: How the Miami HEAT Empowered Entrepreneurship from Within 🔥🏀

601 Analytics wasn’t part of the master plan.

It was, however, the result of an organisation with an entrepreneurially-inspired leadership willing to back its people and their intuition.

When the Miami HEAT brought in Matthew Jafarian in 2015, the brief was simple: help lead the organisation’s digital transformation. Paper tickets were being phased out. Mobile access and data-driven experiences were the future. The team needed someone who could build products, not just implement tools.

Jafarian, who had previously co-founded and sold a mobile app startup, wasn’t convinced.

“I said no,” he recalls, speaking on the Sports Pundit Podcast, his first podcast appearance. “I didn’t want to go from a tech company to an organisation where we’d just be the IT guys in the corner.”

That changed after a playoff game visit and a behind-the-scenes tour of the HEAT operation.

“The brand of the Miami HEAT and Kaseya Center is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. That’s not always the case.”

That is important context. While many teams talk about innovation, Jafarian saw that the HEAT actually backed it and nurtured it. From ownership to senior leadership, the support was there. From that foundation, he set about solving real problems inside the organisation.

“We created a product that helped the HEAT immensely,” says Jafarian, now EVP of Business Strategy and Co-Founder of the resulting spinout, 601 Analytics. “It helped us understand at any point in time what’s happening in our business. It’s like having an app for your business.”

It was only a few years into the journey that he realised other organisations were facing the same issues. Starting with the Milwaukee Bucks in 2020, what began as an internal tool was spun out as 601 Analytics.

“We were building something for us to meet our needs,” he says. “But our needs are not that different from every other sports team.”

Fast forward to today, and the data platform is now used by 20 percent of NBA teams, as well as clubs in the NFL, NHL, MLB, NWSL, and soon MLS.

This ability to recognise shared problems and act on them is what made the Miami HEAT uniquely well-positioned to build. But the same opportunity exists for all sports teams. They sit on troves of underused data. They operate physical venues. They have built-in audiences, powerful brand affinity, and pain points that external vendors often don’t know as intimately. In short, they have all the ingredients most startups wish they had.

And it’s not just data this applies to. The HEAT has also created Court Culture, an in-house fashion label that emerged from a simple insight: fans didn’t always want traditional licensed merch. Sometimes they wanted something that felt more Miami.

“A lot of the stuff we sell and make a ton of money on doesn’t even say HEAT on it,” Jafarian explains. “It just says Miami on it.”

Again, the idea came from within. People close to the team and fanbase saw the opportunity and were backed to build it. The team even became an NBA licensee to make it happen.

That mindset has brought wider benefits.

“That’s exactly how we frame it… we turned a cost centre into a revenue centre,” Jafarian says. “But it also made our core business a lot stronger. We were able to retain the best people in the business. And we kept them busy. Smart people want to keep solving the next problem.”

That same support from leadership now extends into venture investing. Jafarian leads the HEAT’s strategic investment efforts, helping identify startups that align with the team’s operational priorities.

“If we’re bringing on a vendor into the HEAT, we’re creating an instant showcase for them,” he says. “We’re improving their enterprise value. There could be an equity component as well.”

What the HEAT has built goes far beyond two business lines. It’s a model for what modern sports organisations can become. Not only licensees. Not just partners. But product builders, brand creators, and market accelerators.

When you consider how many industries sports touches (think: media, fashion, food, ticketing, travel), it’s hard not to wonder why more teams don’t take this approach.

They already have what most startups lack: users, distribution, trust, data, and access to capital. What they do need is the mindset to build, the curiosity to solve the problems right in front of them, and perhaps most importantly, the empowerment from ownership.

SP PODCAST

#56 Matthew Jafarian: How the Miami HEAT Empowered Entrepreneurship from Within 🏀🔥

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Matthew Jafarian, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy at the Miami HEAT.

Over the past eight years, Matthew has led one of the most ambitious digital transformations in American sports, overseeing the HEAT’s approach to data, technology, and strategy. But what really sets him apart is the fact that he hasn’t just transformed his own organisation, he’s also helping to reshape the entire industry.

Matthew is also the co-founder of 601 Analytics, a data and analytics platform born inside the HEAT that’s now used by over 20% of the NBA, the league office, and teams across the NFL, NHL, NWSL, MLB, and (soon) MLS. From fan insights to ticketing to food and beverage optimisation, it’s become the operating system behind some of the smartest front offices in sport.

In this conversation, we dig into how the role of data is evolving in sport, why teams need to start acting like the billion-dollar businesses they are, and what it means to build a company within a world-famous organisation.

Listen Now

Not yet a subscriber? Join over 3,000 sports business leaders, from Formula 1 to the Premier League, that read Sports Pundit every week to get impactful industry insights.

Subscribe now

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Rich Buchanan, a leading voice in performance strategy and one of the most thoughtful minds working at the intersection of elite sport, data, and leadership.

Rich is also a former colleague… and now (for reasons still unclear 😅) he’s agreed to join forces with me again. This time as host of a brand new spin-off: the Sports Pundit Performance Podcast, joining Leanne Bats as a subject-led guest host. Couldn’t be happier to have them both involved 🤩

In this episode, we introduce the new series, unpack Rich’s journey through performance, and have an honest conversation about where the industry goes next and what needs to change.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Taco or Not Taco: The Case for Being Data-Informed, Not Data-Led 🌮

World-famous marketer Rory Sutherland, a leading advocate for the application of behavioural economics, recently shared the story of Taco Bell’s failed launch in London more than 15 years ago.

The location was central, the brand was well-established in the US, yet the launch flopped.

If you were looking at the data alone - footfall, revenue, conversion - you’d draw a simple conclusion: the concept didn’t work, and further expansion in the UK wasn’t worth pursuing. But what the data didn’t reveal was that the restaurant’s entrance was hidden down an alleyway. Customers simply couldn’t (easily) find the door. The data said it failed. Context told a different story.

In the same interview, Sutherland also pointed to Nokia, which had received data showing that consumers in developing countries wouldn’t pay more than a set amount for a phone. Based on this, they delayed launching a smartphone. But what the data missed was the leap in perceived value. Smartphones weren’t just better phones, they were people's first computers and their first access to the internet. As a result, demand didn’t follow historic price sensitivity. By the time Nokia realised this, the market had already moved on.

Performance strategist Rich Buchanan highlighted a similar blind spot within football.

On the latest episode of the Sports Pundit Podcast, he reflected on how scouting and recruitment processes often filter prospects using technical or tactical data.

“Maybe a player isn’t showing up in your filtered data set because their coach doesn’t ask them to do certain things. It doesn’t mean they can’t. You’re narrowing your lens based on data, not reality.”

The problem is mistaking clarity for truth. Data can feel objective and precise. But it’s only as good as the questions we ask of it and the context we apply around it.

“Lots of people take data with blind faith… but they haven’t sense-checked whether it’s valid or accurate. That’s your job as a practitioner.”

This is important to consider as there has never been more data in sport.

From player load to heart rate variability or fan engagement metrics to scouting algorithms, every facet of performance, operations, and strategy now comes with a spreadsheet, a dashboard, or an AI-generated insight. Having data is no longer a differentiator. It’s an expectation, even below the top tier.

But as the flood of data accelerates, so too does the pressure to let it lead. We hear it in boardrooms and changing rooms alike: “We want to be more data-driven.” It’s a phrase that sounds progressive, even essential. But it carries hidden risk.

Being “data-led” can sound empowering, but Buchanan warned it often means outsourcing judgment to a system.

“That, to a certain extent, means making decisions on data that you absolutely have to be sure is valid and accurate,” explained Buchanan. “You’re almost devolving yourself of decision-making responsibility and de-skilling yourself in your clinical reasoning or executive mindset.”

In elite sport, where margins are fine and decisions carry real consequences, blind deference to data can become dangerous. Instead, Buchanan championed a more balanced approach: be data-informed.

“What most people meant when they said they wanted to be data-driven is that they wanted an extra perspective. That’s what data-informed really means.”

This is where the human element matters.

“It’s that human skillset, that reasoning, that emotional intelligence, to understand that [data] might inform our opinion but not override it.”

So, use the data. Embrace it. Interrogate it. But don’t let it lead you blindly. Because in sport, as in life, the numbers don’t always tell the full story.

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Branded content is now central to how sport delivers value for fans, sponsors, and rights holders.

End Product is developing a new tool to help organisations create better content with less friction. But first, they want your input.

They’ve created a short survey (5 mins max) to understand what’s working, what’s not, and what’s really needed to improve branded content and activations.

👉 If you work in marketing, content, creative or partnerships have your say. Key findings will be shared back.

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SP PODCAST

#55 Rich Buchanan: Bridging the Gap Between the Boardroom and the Dressing Room

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Rich Buchanan, a leading voice in performance strategy and one of the most thoughtful minds working at the intersection of elite sport, data, and leadership.

Rich spent nearly two decades in the trenches of professional football, first as a physio, then as Performance Director for Swansea City during their Premier League run. He’s since held roles with the Premier League, DC United, and Zone7, and now advises sports tech companies and delivers leadership masterclasses on how to embed high-performance cultures that actually work.

Today’s episode is a little different. It’s not just a conversation - it’s an announcement. Rich will be hosting a brand new spin-off of this podcast, The Sports Pundit Performance Podcast, a five-episode mini-series bridging the gap between the boardroom and the changing room.

In this episode, we introduce the series, unpack Rich’s journey through performance, and talk honestly about where the industry is heading next and what needs to change.

Listen Now

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On today’s episode, I’m joined by Sukh Sadhra, Head of Marketing at Premiership Rugby - the top tier of English club rugby union and home to some of the most iconic teams in the game 🏉

In this conversation, we unpack Sukh’s marketing philosophy, how he’s repositioning Premiership Rugby for a new generation of fans, and why the Final at Twickenham has become a sell-out event two years running. We talk creativity, conversion, culture, and what it takes to turn a rugby match into an unmissable experience.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Rugby, Rebranded: How Premiership Rugby is Winning New Fans in Surprising Ways 🏉

The Gallagher Premiership Rugby Final is sold out. Again.

That’s two years in a row the league has packed out Twickenham. And this time, it happened weeks before anyone even knew which two teams would be playing.

It’s a big moment for a sport often accused of being stuck in the past. And it’s no accident.

Sukh Sadhra, Premiership Rugby’s Head of Marketing, has spent the last two seasons rebuilding its strategy around two key ideas: make the matchday unmissable, and meet fans where they already are.

“This is supposed to be our Super Bowl moment,” Sadhra explained on the Sports Pundit Podcast. “You don’t need to know who’s playing, you just want to be there.”

The final has become a headline event in the domestic rugby calendar. But what’s most interesting is how they’ve pulled it off.

The sell-out wasn’t driven by a single campaign or one silver bullet. Instead, it’s the result of a coordinated shift in how Premiership Rugby operates across brand, data, content, and partnerships.

Some of the changes include a relentless focus on experience, from matchday maps to digital ticketing and fan village activations, a centralised data strategy that turns ticket sales into something resembling a trading desk, and smarter calendar storytelling, with Derby Weekends and Lions Watch campaigns helping to build momentum across the season.

“We’ve become obsessed with the numbers,” said Sadhra. “We test everything, from which message drives urgency to how fast we can convert a good mood into a sale.”

So far, so smart. But one of the more surprising (and quietly effective) tools in the mix? Influencers.

When you think of influencer marketing, rugby probably isn’t the first sport that comes to mind.

But Premiership Rugby is deliberately changing that. Not just by working with creators, but by doing it in a way that fits the sport’s long-term ambitions.

“Our objective with influencers is to get eyeballs on the sport that weren’t traditionally on ours,” Sadhra said.

Rather than sticking to insiders or rugby-specific creators, they’ve cast the net wider. This includes reality TV contestants, lifestyle vloggers, family accounts - people whose audiences might not normally consider going to a match.

“We work with influencers from diverse backgrounds... families, people from The Traitors, even gladiators.”

And they’re not treated like promo machines. Instead, they’re given real access like behind-the-scenes tours, tunnel walks, and early stadium entry to create content that actually feels like something fans want to watch.

“You won’t get 100 fans buying tickets after a single post. But that’s not the point. This is about visibility, relevance, and playing the long game.”

What Premiership Rugby is doing isn’t isolated to just them. It reflects a bigger movement across marketing: decentralisation.

More and more, fans don’t want to hear from the official account. They want to hear from people they follow, trust, and relate to. The smartest brands are shifting their strategy accordingly.

Take Unilever. The global FMCG giant just announced it will spend 50% of its media budget on social and work with 20 times more creators. Why? Because modern consumers, in their words, are “suspicious” of corporate messaging. Distributed storytelling works.

“If you want new fans, you can’t just expect them to come to you,” said Sadhra. “You need to show up where they are even if it’s not on your own channels.”

That means not worrying so much about where the attention lands and just making sure you’re part of the conversation.

What can other sports and brands take from this?

Start by thinking beyond the stadium, beyond the official social feed, beyond the old funnel.

“Everything is an element of FOMO,” Sadhra said. “Whether it’s Glastonbury tickets or our final, you want to create a moment that people don’t want to miss.”

It’s not about influencers replacing traditional marketing. It’s about integrating them into a broader ecosystem of attention. One that reflects how people actually consume culture now.

And for a sport like rugby, the fact it’s happening here, not in LA or Miami, but at Twickenham, is the real headline.

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SP PODCAST

#54 Sukh Sadhra: Selling Out the Premiership Rugby Final Two Years Running

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Sukh Sadhra, Head of Marketing at Premiership Rugby - the top tier of English club rugby union and home to some of the most iconic teams in the game.

Sukh’s background spans roles at Betfair, Sky, and experience-tech company Pollen, where he led CRM and brand communications, giving him a uniquely data-driven and fan-first approach to sports marketing.

In this conversation, we unpack Sukh’s marketing philosophy, how he’s repositioning Premiership Rugby for a new generation of fans, and why the Final at Twickenham has become a sell-out event two years running. We talk creativity, conversion, culture, and what it takes to turn a rugby match into an unmissable experience.

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On today’s episode, I'm joined by Leanne Bats, Head of Digital and Innovation at Sport Waikato, a not for profit Regional Sports Trust in New Zealand with the vision of 'Everyone out there and active' 🏃🚴‍♂️

In our conversation, we discuss how she’s implementing innovation to increase participation in Waikato, what she has learnt from her time with New Zealand Rugby and FC Barcelona, her philosophy towards innovation, as well as who inspires her (and an exciting announcement that we want to share with you) 💡🥳

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Child’s Play: Why Participation Is the Strongest Signal of Fandom 🏃🚴‍♂️

If you want someone to care about your sport tomorrow, get them playing it today.

That’s the simple but strangely overlooked insight at the heart of Leanne Bats’ career, which has taken her from working with global powerhouses like FC Barcelona and the All Blacks to now driving innovation at a regional sports trust in New Zealand.

And the conclusion she’s drawn across both elite and grassroots settings is clear: participation is the leading indicator of fandom.

“If you want people to be a fan of your sport or team, you need them playing that sport. That’s the best way to do it,” Bats said on the Sports Pundit Podcast.

But getting people to play is no longer as simple as offering a Saturday morning match and hoping they show up. The habits, preferences, and expectations of young people have fundamentally changed. And sport, in many cases, hasn’t kept up.

Bats calls it the Netflix effect: an entire generation raised on frictionless content, custom algorithms, and unlimited choice. Why would they commit to rigid training slots or fixed leagues when every other part of their life is flexible?

“They want to do things as and when they kind of vibe them,” she said. “When I grew up, I had three TV channels. They have a hundred million channels on YouTube to choose from.”

That’s not a generational flaw. It’s a design mismatch. Sport was built for scheduled, centralised delivery. But participation today needs to be as accessible and adaptable as everything else in a young person’s world.

“Team sports... that you have to rally around 21 other people just to even get a game on... are becoming increasingly difficult and counterintuitive to today and the world.”

In Bats’ region of New Zealand, she’s seeing a 10 percent annual decline in participation for these structured formats. Yet many organisations are still trying to solve the problem by doing what they’ve always done, only louder.

At Sport Waikato, where she is Head of Digital and Innovation, her team is trialling tools that meet young people where they already are, primarily in digital and gaming environments.

One example is GameFit, a pilot using VR headsets in high schools to engage students who have either dropped out or wouldn’t typically engage with physical activity.

“They’ll do everything to get out of PE,” Bats said. “But they’ll jump right into this and then they’ll take off the headset and be like, ‘That was the coolest thing we’ve done.’”

It’s not just fun. It’s also real movement. Heart rate monitors show it delivers the same intensity as a hard bike ride. But more importantly, it opens the door. And Bats and her team are actively tracking whether getting students engaged with something new can lead them to something else.

The same principle applies to their upcoming Virtual Cycling League, where students receive two-week fitness challenges that can be completed anytime, anywhere. It’s designed to reduce the friction that keeps kids from showing up. It has also been developed on top of hardware that already exists, making it easier to implement quickly and to test and learn.

To this point, Bats doesn’t see innovation as a synonym for technology or invention. It’s about proactively responding to the context, and that context is always shifting.

The fundamentals of sport are strong. But the formats must reflect how people live today.

“Sport is the core, but not the whole,” she said. “Today, it’s also entertainment, culture, and belonging.”

To reach the next generation, sport needs more entry points. It needs to be physical and digital, structured and social.

“I thought the motivations would be totally different,” she said. “But they’re not. The way younger generations engage with fandom is incredibly similar to how they want to engage with participation.”

“You don’t have to be Barcelona to do this,” Bats added. “You just need to offer an entry point that resonates.”

Coming Soon: Leanne will be hosting a new podcast on innovation in sport with Sports Pundit with the first episode coming very soon. Stay tuned!

SP PODCAST

#53 Leanne Bats: Taking Lessons from FC Barcelona and the All Blacks to a Regional Sports Trust

On today’s episode I’m joined by Leanne Bats, Head of Digital and Innovation at Sport Waikato, a not for profit Regional Sports Trust in New Zealand with the vision of 'Everyone out there and active'.

You might be thinking it’s fairly unique for a regional sports trust to have someone leading innovation, and you’d be right. This isn’t a typical role, it’s one that has been created specifically for Leanne - a former Football Fern, who has gone on to work with some of the biggest sporting IP on the planet in the form of the FC Barcelona and the All Blacks.

In this conversation, we discuss how she’s implementing innovation to increase participation in Waikato, a region in the upper North Island of New Zealand. We also discuss what she has learnt from her time with NZ rugby, her philosophy towards innovation, as well as who inspires her.

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On today’s episode, I’m joined by Michael Israel, Chief Information Officer at The Kraft Group, where he oversees a complex digital ecosystem spanning everything from the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, to global manufacturing plants and commodities firms.

In this conversation, we dig into how he’s planning for the AI era, what it takes to futureproof a stadium like Gillette, and why the guest experience - from concession speed to TikTok-ready connectivity - is becoming a performance metric in its own right.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

New England’s Revolution: Understanding The Patriot’s Playbook for Innovation 🏈

At a manufacturing plant in New England, an AI-powered vision system scans a truckload of raw materials and determines whether they should be placed in a warehouse or routed straight to a conveyor belt. The system then alerts a forklift operator and verifies the task is completed correctly.

The same system monitors video feeds for safety and security at Gillette Stadium, detecting if someone climbs a fence, leaves a bag behind, or even potentially carries a weapon.

Soon, the same core technology could even be used by coaches of the NFL’s New England Patriots or the MLS’s New England Revolution to analyse formations in real time, flagging when a player lines up incorrectly.

These are three wildly different use cases for vastly different organisations, but all benefit from one centralised view, overseen by Michael Israel, Chief Information Officer at The Kraft Group.

Israel, the latest guest on the Sports Pundit Podcast, oversees a digital ecosystem that is anything but ordinary. With responsibilities spanning leading American sports franchises, stadia, a retail campus, a paper commodities trading firm, and multiple manufacturing plants, Israel operates at a scale few CIOs in sport can match.

“Because we’re supporting so many different businesses, it affords us the ability to investigate technology that normally, if I was just supporting the football team, I wouldn’t,” he explained.

This isn’t about complexity for its own sake. Rather, it is about compounding insight. At The Kraft Group, a solution discovered in one business often finds a second life in another. In a world where most organisations operate in silos, Israel’s team is moving laterally.

“A solution I may be finding in manufacturing, I can take that same piece, get proficient at it, and apply it over here, or vice versa at times.”

Covering such a diverse array of businesses, from Patriot Place to Rand Whitney Group, is more than a quirk of structure. It is a strategic asset.

This is especially when it comes to AI. While many organisations are still dabbling with generative tools for tasks like email writing or CV editing, The Kraft Group is exploring more than 70 use cases ranging from HR automation and inventory forecasting to real-time fan operations.

The size and variety of the group means Israel’s team can test, adapt, and scale solutions faster. Data lakes grow deeper and patterns emerge sooner.

“Like an entrepreneur, maybe 10 of them will wind up in production,” he explained. “But we're evaluating each potential use case based on what's happening within the individual business unit.”

“As we go through potential use cases, my team is meeting with stakeholders across the business and asking, ‘What challenges are you facing?’”

Take HR, for example. The department receives around 10,000 resumes a year, a volume ripe for automation. Using AI, recruiters can filter through the required skills in less time to identify the best candidates already in the system.

But this isn’t just a playbook applicable for conglomerates.

The Kraft Group also learns from external partners, particularly when major events raise the bar. Whether it’s hosting Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour or preparing for seven FIFA Men’s World Cup matches in 2026 at the Gillette Stadium, each occasion brings fresh challenges and new insights.

“There are things that we are doing that we normally wouldn’t do because FIFA’s coming in here,” Israel said, describing it as akin to seven Super Bowls. “Last year we had the Army-Navy game… we had the opportunity to work with the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Department of Homeland Security.”

This ability to shift gears, absorb lessons, and experiment rapidly is underpinned by culture as much as structure.

“I’m lucky to have an ownership group behind me that allows us to be entrepreneurial… so it allows us not to get stagnant… we’re always looking for new ways to improve.”

In a sports industry often defined by narrow remits and fixed roles, Israel’s work shows what happens when you zoom out.

Whether you’re running a stadium, a startup, or a supply chain, it’s important to understand that innovation doesn’t always come from building something new. Sometimes it comes from smartly applying something already in practice elsewhere.

SP PODCAST

#52 Michael Israel: Applying AI Across The Kraft Group

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Michael Israel, Chief Information Officer at The Kraft Group, where he oversees a complex digital ecosystem spanning everything from the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium, to global manufacturing plants and commodities firms.

Since joining in 2019, Michael has led a sweeping transformation: from deploying WiFi 6 and 5G across Gillette Stadium, to installing IPTV screens and menu boards that unlocked new sponsorship revenue. He’s introduced AI-driven safety systems, automated raw material detection in manufacturing, and is now overseeing a 5-year strategic tech partnership with NWN designed to re-architect their digital backbone, all ahead of hosting seven FIFA World Cup games in 2026.

In this conversation, we dig into how he’s planning for the AI era, what it takes to futureproof a stadium like Gillette, and why the guest experience - from concession speed to TikTok-ready connectivity - is becoming a performance metric in its own right.

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On Today’s Episode, I’m joined by Andy Thompson, Managing Director at SailGP, an international sailing competition, where teams compete across a season of multiple grands prix (GP) around the world in cities like New York, Sydney, San Francisco, and Portsmouth.

We discussed Andy’s journey, as well as the journey of this upstart league, which was only founded in 2019, but now finds itself with 13 races and 12 teams, with owners like Ben Ainsley and Kylian Mbappé and blue-chip sponsors like Emirates, Accor, and Rolex.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube 🎧

BIG IDEA

Smooth Sailing: How SailGP is Cleverly Navigating Sponsorship Landscape ⛵️

In sport, as in life, many assume that size determines significance. The bigger the league, the greater the reach. The older the institution, the deeper the commercial roots. Occasionally though, a newcomer shapes the landscape through clarity, conviction, and smart design rather than tradition.

SailGP fits that mould. Launched in 2018, it is a high-speed sailing league built on foiling catamarans that glide across the water at over 60 miles per hour. Yet some of its most impressive acceleration has taken place off the water.

In only a few seasons, SailGP has attracted a sponsorship portfolio featuring Rolex, Emirates, DP World, Cognizant, Accor, and Mubadala. These are brands often aligned with global sporting giants like Formula 1, yet they have chosen to back a league still early in its journey.

“In my view, that [Rolex deal] was very much a coming of age for us,” said SailGP Managing Director Andy Thompson on the Sports Pundit Podcast. “We understand the responsibility that comes with a brand like that, but it also pushes us forward.”

This goes far beyond simple brand alignment. It reflects a deeper shift in how sports properties can work with commercial partners. SailGP avoids recycling traditional formats. It places values and flexibility at the centre of its approach. Each deal is crafted with intention and relevance.

While many leagues rely on rigid sponsorship tiers or standardised asset bundles, SailGP builds relationships around tailored access and bespoke activations. This has become one of its defining strengths.

“As a new property, you can provide a more bespoke set of rights for partners,” Thompson explained. “We’ve been able to tailor hospitality experiences and curate content that really enables partners to activate in the right way.”

This approach has resonated with brands that prioritise B2B outcomes. Partnerships are shaped to meet objectives around business development, athlete interaction, or storytelling through content.

“We’re rubbing shoulders now with major championships in golf and tennis,” Thompson said. “That’s where we see ourselves, and it’s how we’ve built our proposition.”

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of SailGP’s model lies in the way partners move between team and league assets. In other sports, brands often face a binary choice. Here, the pathway can shift over time.

Emirates began by supporting the British team. As further opportunities emerged, the brand expanded involvement to league level. Accor followed a similar path, starting with the French team and later scaling up. Meanwhile, Mubadala entered as a global league partner before choosing to take on title sponsorship of the Brazilian team, gaining a more ownable and narrative-driven asset in the process.

“It’s not been a concerted strategy,” Thompson said. “But it’s something that’s evolved, and it works.”

The same dynamic can also be seen in Formula 1. Earlier this year, Santander shifted its sponsorship from Ferrari to the central F1 property, before also agreeing a deal with Carlos Sainz’s new team, Williams.

“Sponsors are aligning to teams to get that access to athletes and the team,” Thompson explained, “but also [looking for] a broader set of rights in the league.”

Alongside this fluid structure, SailGP is also building one of the most data-rich ecosystems in professional sport. Each boat generates over six billion data points per season. The organisation supports this with a dedicated data science team, focused on both performance and commercial insight.

“We have a strong data science team, one side focused on the boats, the other on commercial,” Thompson said. “And the data is only as good as the analysis you can do.”

This analytical mindset carries through to audience strategy. With support from Oracle, SailGP is developing a CRM to understand and engage fans more deeply. From ticketing to giveaways to digital touchpoints, the league is creating a more direct connection with its community.

“Why should fans sign up?” Thompson asked. “Tickets, giveaways, exclusive access. That’s how we build depth, not just reach.”

SailGP shows how emerging properties can compete at the highest level by remaining agile and focused. Its sponsorship model feels current and responsive. It’s flexible in design, driven by values, and backed by precision.

Rather than inherit old systems, SailGP has created new ones. The league stands as a case study in how to grow a premium sports property through intelligent structure, thoughtful partnerships, and a clear sense of identity.

The future of sports sponsorship belongs to those willing to embrace change. SailGP, aptly powered by its self-generated momentum and guided by purpose, offers a glimpse of that future already taking shape.

SP PODCAST

#51 Andy Thompson: Taking SailGP to an Audience Beyond Sailing

On Today’s Episode, I’m joined by Andy Thompson, Managing Director at SailGP, an international sailing competition, where teams compete across a season of multiple grands prix (GP) around the world in cities like New York, Sydney, San Francisco, and Portsmouth.

Andy’s career spans the likes of Deloitte, London 2012, and Americas Cup - where he was first introduced to both Sailing and SailGP founders, Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts - who aspired to create a commercially viable sailing series.

In this conversation we discuss Andy’s journey, as well as the journey of this upstart league, which was only founded in 2019, but now finds itself with 13 races and 12 teams, with owners like Ben Ainsley and Kylian Mbappe and blue-chip sponsors like Emirates, Accor, and Rolex.

Listen Now

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Executive Ghostwriting by Sports Pundit

We’ve recorded over 50 podcasts with leading executives, from the ICC to the MLB. With each one, we’ve distilled a Big Idea from the conversation into a newsletter (this newsletter), amplifying their insights in the process.

Now, we’re offering the Sports Pundit treatment for your personal brand.

If you’re a leader in sport with ideas worth sharing but no time to shape them, we’re opening up our expertise to a select group of you that want to show up online with clarity, consistency and confidence.

As a reader of this newsletter, you’ll get 25% off your first month. We’re only working with a max. of five individuals, and we’ve already locked in one of those spots, so if this sounds of interest to you, get in touch today to learn more.

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In the build up to our Speakers Only reunion event at Moonshot this week, in partnership with MLB, we are revisiting our conversation from last summer with their European Managing Director, Ben Ladkin.

We discussed organising major events like the London Series, fostering baseball participation in Europe, finding alignment with popular global sports such as cricket, and tapping into culture and the wider export of Americana.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple 🎧

BIG IDEA

MLB's Moonshot: Building a Fan Base in Europe, One Swing at a Time ⚾️

Walk into Moonshot in west London on a Friday night and the scene is part batting cage, part bar, part arcade. Friends take turns swinging in high-tech cages. Burgers and beers are passed around. A scoreboard lights up. There is laughter when someone connects. Louder laughter when someone completely misses.

It looks like fun. And that is the point.

Competitive socialising has become one of the most influential trends in sport and hospitality.

Just look at how Topgolf turned driving ranges into social hubs, Sixes brought cricket into the mix, or F1 Arcade made Formula 1 hands-on. These are not just places to watch sport. They are places to feel part of it.

Baseball, perhaps more than any of them, suits this format. The act of swinging a bat is simple to grasp and surprisingly difficult to master. That contrast is part of its charm. When a clean hit happens, it creates a moment worth remembering. For someone who has never watched a full game, it can plant the seed of interest and create a lifelong fan.

While Major League Baseball does not run these venues, it sees their value.

Places like Moonshot and The 108 offer physical access points to a sport with limited presence in the UK and Europe. They create familiarity through experience, which is often more powerful than promotion.

Ben Ladkin, Managing Director of MLB Europe, and a previous guest on the Sports Pundit Podcast, explains the league’s strategy through three interconnected pillars: content, events, and participation.

“We certainly lean into all three of those pillars… they all benefit each other,” he said. “If someone sees a brilliant piece of content that inspires them to play or inspires them to come along to the series, or they go to the series and then they start following our social channels, it's all very much interlinked.”

A person does not need to know the rules of baseball to enjoy stepping into a cage. They do not need to support a team to share a clip on Instagram. But once they have held a bat and made contact, they are far more likely to want to see the sport in its professional form. What begins as a group activity can lead to something deeper.

This pattern is already familiar in other sports. Running, cycling, and triathlon thrive on active participation. People do not simply watch the Tour de France or Ironman, they train, register, and compete. The line between spectator and participant has blurred as fandom and identity begin to overlap. Even short casual encounters, like a round in a batting cage, can unlock a sense of connection.

“We want to build a really good business over here, but that starts with increasing that fan base,” Ladkin said. “And so a lot of our activity is around making sure we're catering to all of our avid fans and the fans that we do have, but also looking at those different sorts of elements of culture that will give people roots into fandom.”

That culture extends far beyond the diamond. It appears in music, food, fashion, and film. A Yankees cap in a music video, a hot dog that feels more Chicago than Camden, a reference to Wrigley Field in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. These details build familiarity.

In this regard, baseball holds a unique cultural advantage. While cricket may have a much larger player base in the UK, it rarely features in popular culture. Baseball does. And venues like Moonshot amplify that, from the menu to the memorabilia.

By creating touchpoints year-round, MLB’s light association with these venues helps build the foundation for future fans, while also nurturing existing ones.

The London Series will return in 2026 and with it offers scale, visibility, and media coverage. But as Ladkin makes clear, it represents only one part of the equation.

“We're very conscious that we need to be doing this all year round,” he said. “And, also it's not just a question of bringing two teams across and doing a series. We do things across those pillars that kind of are scalable and sustainable and able to build those fan bases.”

The long-term work happens elsewhere. It takes place on a Tuesday night at Moonshot or The 108. It happens when someone realises that baseball feels fast, not slow, when you are the one at the plate. It begins with a clean hit and that sweet sound of contact.

Participation offers one of the most powerful forms of engagement sport can unlock. That is why the MLB is right to be encouraging more people to take swings.

SP PODCAST

[ARCHIVE] #28 Ben Ladkin: Fuelling European Interest in Major League Baseball ⚾️

In the build up to our Speakers Only reunion event at Moonshot this week, in partnership with MLB, we are revisiting our conversation from last summer with their European Managing Director, Ben Ladkin.

Although now representing a major American sports league, Ben's journey in sport began at Arsenal, where he spent 11 years, eventually leading the media group and building their digital and social media presence during the dot com era.

Now at MLB, he operates across three key pillars: content, events, and participation. While the content pillar aligns closely with his past experience, he has embraced the new challenges of organising major events like the London Series (which took place earlier this month) as well as fostering baseball participation in Europe.

This has required tapping into popular U.S. sports already capturing mind-share in Europe, finding alignment with popular global sports such as cricket, and tapping into culture and the wider export of Americana.

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This week, I was joined by someone who’s been on my guest bucket list since I launched the show, Overtime founder and CEO Dan Porter.

We talked about Overtime’s evolution from media platform to league operator, their recently announced partnerships with the ATP Tour and NWSL, and how they’re navigating the fast-changing worlds of both NIL and social media.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube now 🎧

BIG IDEA

When most sports organisations talk about ‘monetising their audience,’ they’re usually referring to sponsorships, media rights, or ticket sales. At a push, they might throw in a line of branded hoodies. But at Overtime, the Gen Z-focused sports media brand, audience monetisation looks more like a modern brand incubator than a traditional sports property.

“We can get up to six comments a second,” says CEO Dan Porter, describing the activity during one of Overtime’s livestreamed games. “A hundred, 200,000 comments during a live event that we will moderate and engage with.”

That use of ‘comments per second’ isn’t simply a vanity metric. It is the foundation of Overtime’s entire business model - a model that turns attention into identity, and identity into IP. Instead of relying on legacy licensing structures, Overtime is creating its own playbook and owning the entire stack.

Porter, the 50th guest to appear on the Sports Pundit Podcast, is clear that Overtime sees itself more as a creator brand than a traditional rights-holder. He draws direct comparisons to MrBeast’s Feastables, Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, and Prime - the beverage brand launched by Logan Paul and KSI.

“What you see broadly in the creator economy, which we’re part of, is people who use media to create a massive audience, but then decide they want to monetise that themselves,” Porter says. “MrBeast makes way more money from Feastables chocolate than he does from his media platform. But Feastables wouldn't exist if he didn't have this huge media platform.”

What Overtime is doing is much bigger than selling merch. They’s building a full-scale brand ecosystem that generates tens of millions in revenue.

“I feel like merch is [when] you have a t-shirt,” Porter explains. “We have over 3,000 SKUs of different products that we do, mostly built around our brand. [This includes] a mix between lifestyle and performance that we target every single high school athlete in America with.”

Increasingly, those products are becoming cultural artefacts in their own right.

In February, Overtime Elite announced a partnership with The Pokémon Company, a crossover that might raise eyebrows in traditional sports circles but made perfect sense to Overtime’s audience. The collaboration included special edition jerseys for all eight OTE teams, debuted during the Pokémon Playoffs, and a lifestyle capsule that dropped on Pokémon Day, a celebration of one of the most successful franchises in the world.

This wasn’t a gimmick. It is a strategy that they have continually used to great effect. And is also part of a broader pattern: Overtime has collaborated with the likes of 7-Eleven, Spongebob Squarepants, Rolling Loud, Dreamville, Utopia, Courtside, And1 - and just a few days ago, launched a limited edition Harden Vol. 9 OTE RWE shoe in partnership with adidas and James Harden.

These are deliberate cultural alignments, designed to keep Overtime relevant where it matters: at the intersection of sports, music, gaming, and youth identity.

The same thinking applies to how Overtime works with its athletes. In an era of NIL, most sports properties see athletes as distribution channels. Overtime sees them as co-creators.

“We’re trying to create media with them,” says Porter. “A lot of times, if you shop our apparel, you see all the same athletes as models for that apparel.”

This approach is both authentic and scalable. Overtime’s athletes power the brand and grow with it. The flywheel turns: content drives attention, attention builds identity, identity fuels product, and product sustains culture.

Where traditional sports leagues license rights and broker media, Overtime is doing something different. They’re building leagues from scratch, designing products in-house, and cultivating an audience that feels more like a fandom than a fanbase.

They didn’t wait for a broadcast deal or federation approval. They built from community up, and now they’re scaling across verticals most sports organisations can’t even access.

Overtime represents a new archetype in sports: part league, part lifestyle brand, part cultural engine. And unlike most legacy organisations, it didn’t inherit an audience, it earned one and made them participatory.

When you build with that kind of an audience, not just for it, the opportunities go far beyond merchandise.

So, while a lot of the industry is still licensing logos, Overtime is busy licensing meaning.

SP PODCAST

#50 Dan Porter: Building Overtime into an IP Powerhouse for the Next Generation of Sports Fans 👟

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by the CEO of Overtime, Dan Porter.

Formerly head of Digital at WME, CEO of OMGPOP, and the creator of the mobile game ‘Draw Something,’ Dan founded Overtime in 2016.

Now a digital sports media company geared towards Gen-Z sports fans and operating a series of professional sports leagues - it began focusing on posting short-form content of high school athletes captured shared to social media.

This social-first identity carries through across all of the companies endeavours to this day, so I’m delighted to have Dan on to discuss the companies evolution from media platform to league operator, their recently announced partnerships with the ATP Tour and NWSL, and how they are navigating the evolving landscape around areas like NIL and social media.

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This week on the Podcast, I spoke to a man representing some of the biggest athletes in the world - Roc Nation Sports International President, Michael Yormark.

We spoke about the impact of Jay-Z on culture, representing Real Madrid’s Vini Jr and Springboks’ captain Siya Kolisi, and what the NBA does right that Rugby must follow.

🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen or follow these links to tune in on Spotify and Apple or watch on YouTube now 🎧

BIG IDEA

Rugby prides itself on tradition.

It’s a sport built on respect, teamwork, and humility. Players don’t chase the spotlight. In fact, they’re taught to shun it.

As Michael Yormark, President of Roc Nation Sports International, an agency representing World Champion Springboks captain Siya Kolisi, put it on the Sports Pundit Podcast,

“It's all about team. It's all about the club. It's all about your country.”

That ‘European’ mindset has helped rugby hold onto its values. But as loved and watched as rugby is, it is still leaving a lot on the table. To turbocharge its growth, it needs to follow the NBA ‘blueprint’, according to Yormark.

As well as winning titles, the modern athlete wants to tell stories, build communities, and use their platform to drive change. In rugby, that kind of ambition is still seen as taboo. When players speak up, build their brand, or work with commercial partners, they’re often criticised for being ‘distracted’ or not focused on the game.

It’s cultural.

It’s also outdated.

Take Ellis Genge, now one of the sport’s most compelling voices and, like Kolisi, represented by Roc Nation.

“He was actually scared to tell the story,” said Yormark. “He wasn't sure how rugby would receive the story, or how they would respond.”

That fear is widespread. But when players are empowered to step forward, something shifts, not just for them, but for the sport as a whole.

Yormark’s own discovery of rugby is a great example of this.

Born and raised in the United States, the sport wasn’t on his radar until a moment in September 2019 at a gym in London’s James Street. That day, he noticed people gathered around TVs watching England progress through the Rugby World Cup.

A few days later, while en route to watch Kevin De Bruyne play for Manchester City, the Rugby World Cup final between England and South Africa dominated the airwaves. It was Siya Kolisi’s post-match speech that caught Yormark’s attention, so much so that within 48 hours, he had reached out. After a 10-minute call, the relationship was born.

Not long after, Kolisi became a Roc Nation client and Yormark began to make his mark on the sport, pledging to amplify the Springbok’s Captain’s story around the world.

And that’s exactly what they did. Kolisi is now one of the few rugby players with true global recognition (only Ilona Maher has more followers), not only because of his playing ability, but because he let people into his journey.

This is where rugby can learn from the NBA and Roc Nation.

“Players are [rugby’s] number one asset,” Yormark said. But unlike American sports, rugby often fails to treat them that way.

The NBA figured out a long time ago that sport is entertainment. Players are the product. Commentary goes beyond analysing the game, telling stories, building narratives, and inviting fans into the lives of their heroes.

“Those that really run the sport at every level need to understand that rugby, especially professional rugby, is entertainment,” said Yormark. “Rugby needs to look at itself a little bit differently.”

Accessibility is another issue. In the UK, most rugby is hidden behind pay-TV subscriptions, making it harder for new audiences to engage. Even when you get through the paywall, the storytelling often stops at surface level. And that matters. Because as Yormark put it bluntly:

“With all due respect, when I go to an England match, it's very homogeneous. There's no diversification in the stands. It's middle-aged white men.”

That’s not sustainable. If rugby wants to grow, in relevance, audience, and revenue, it needs to evolve. Players need platforms. Fans need stories. And the sport itself needs to embrace a little disruption.

“Sometimes you gotta break out of tradition,” Yormark said. “Because fans are always looking for the next big thing.”

Rugby doesn’t need to lose what makes it special. But it does need to open the door to something new.

Embracing players and letting them tell their stories is the first step on that journey.

“By storytelling around their players, developing star power, and shining a light on those players, it's great for club rugby, it's great for international rugby, it's great for the sport. Because young kids want to follow stars. Young kids want to be like stars. And we need to turn these players into heroes.”

“There's a handful of players that people know within world rugby, but they're definitely not global icons. And they should be. They absolutely should be.”

SP PODCAST

#49 Michael Yormark: Empowering Vini Jr and Siya Kolisi's Purpose-Led Approach 👊

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Michael Yormark, President of Roc Nation Sports International, an agency representing the likes of Vini Jr, Kevin De Bruyne, Endrick, and Siya Kolisi.

Michael set up this division in 2019, moving to London with nothing but a suitcase and an alternative approach to representing athletes, particularly within European football. They’ve since expanded their presence to places like Italy, South Africa, and Brazil - and expanded their remit from football to also include rugby and netball.

In this conversation we discuss that journey, the influence of Jay-Z, representing some of the biggest and most marketable athletes in the world, approaching new sports, how he would market rugby, and much more.

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Subscribe now