Unofficial Partner Podcast

A live podcast recorded at MSQ Sport and Entertainment HQ in London for the launch of Callaway Golf's new brand film 'At Last'. 
You can see the film by clicking this link. 
As the golfing world looks to Augusta for The Masters, the first major event of the golf calendar next week, it was a good time to take the temperature of the business of golf with four experts from across the game.
Ben Sharpe, MD of Europe, Middle East, Africa, Pacific and India, Callaway Golf
Jason Wessely, Director of Golf, Sky Sports
Georgia Ball, YouTube Creator and PGA professional
Rob Spedding, Director of Content, Future Publishing
Topics discussed:
The State of the Game
Brand Over Product
The Influence Ecosystem 
Sky Golf's Numbers 
Women's Golf 
World Cup Overlap 

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

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. 
These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. 
Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 
Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. 
If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Digital advertising has a dirty secret: most of what you're paying for never reaches a human being. Dr. Augustine Fou is a world leading expert in digital ad fraud and has spent 20 years watching the internet fill up with bots, fake impressions, and dodgy metrics; and the advertisers funding it often know, but keep spending anyway. The incentives are too comfortable to disturb.
Sound familiar? Sport has built valuation models, rights deals, and global expansion strategies on fan numbers that deserve the same scrutiny. This conversation is about the mechanics of self-deception, and why the moment of reckoning may finally be arriving.
Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. 
These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. 
Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 
Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. 
If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

The latest dissection of the sports media and streaming marketplace from the ever popular, long running series featuring expert analysis from Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett. 
This episode goes deep in to:
Why Premier League chose Singapore as the all important test market for its direct to consumer platform. 
What is Apple's sport strategy, is there such a thing? 
FIFA offers a 'ten minute hook' for YouTube viewers at the 2026 World Cup
The NFL has chosen to begin negotiating with Paramount’s CBS before any of its other media partners because a change-of-control provision
Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. 
These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. 
Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 
Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. 
If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Three highly experienced communications professionals join Richard to dissect some recent high profile PR gaffes.
Guests:
Henry Chappell, Founder and CEO of Pitch Marketing Group
Neil Daugherty, Senior Managing Director at Teneo
Jon Tibbs OBE, Founder and Chair of JTA Group.
Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.
These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.
Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.
Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app.
If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Ted Knutson's career tracks a remarkable arc: professional gambler at Pinnacle, architect of Brentford's analytics-driven recruitment model, founder of StatsBomb — built from a blog written during cancer recovery into a global data company sold to Hudl in 2024 — and now Strategic Director of Football at Crux, Bex Smith's women's multi-club platform, while running The Transfer Flow newsletter and podcast. This is a conversation about what data actually means when real money is on the line, and what happens when you try to port a proven model into entirely new territory.
In this episode:
Why the football media's early hostility to analytics was really about power, not methodology
The betting-to-football pipeline: transfers are just bets on humans with a longer cycle
What StatsBomb's sale to Hudl reveals about consolidation risk in sports data
Why professionalising operations matters more than data sophistication in women's football right now
The three layers of data application in sport — and where the real edge lives next
Transfers as hope: why fan demand for transfer content is really about optimism
Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. 
These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. 
Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 
Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. 
If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.