Unofficial Partner Podcast

This is episode 9 of ReThinking Sport, our series created in collaboration with Portas, the global strategy consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity.

One of the big ambitions of this series has been to look at the football market through the eyes of the people who own and control the clubs and the people in charge of the leagues and the sports’ governing bodies.

So previous episodes have featured Ricky Parry, the chair of the EFL, Mark Bullingham, CEO of The FA and Kelly Simmons, head of the women’s professional game at The FA and the WSL.

On the club ownership side, we’ve had guests including Andy Holt, owner of Accrington Stanley, and Paul Conway, head of Pacific Media Group, one of the leading proponents of a multi-club ownership model, which is a feature of today’s conversation with our guests Brett Johnson and Fabrice Bocquet.

Brett Johnson is a founder and partner of property development company Fortuitous Partners which invests in professional sports and is the Co-Chairman of the Phoenix Rising Football Club, a professional soccer team, based in Phoenix, Arizona and which plays in the USL, the league below the MLS in the States. More recently, Johnson bought the rights to a new USL Championship franchise in Pawtucket, Rhode Island which is set to begin in 2022 at a new stadium.

And earlier this year, Johnson was a member of the consortium that bought Ipswich Town Football Club, one of the founder members of the Premier League team but who currently reside in League One, the third tier of English football.

My other guest is Fabrice Bocquet, who is a Partner at Portas Consulting. Fabrice leads the Global Football Practice and was formerly Managing Director of French club FC Lorient, having begun his tenure at the Ligue 1 team as Chief Financial Officer in 2011.

Every episode of ReThinking Sport can be found by searching Unofficial Partner via the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. Alternatively, you can go direct to unofficialpartner.com and search ‘Portas’ and you’ll find series one and two in their entirety.

And if you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via unofficialpartner.com

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

This is another episode in our series Talking To Women About The Sports Business, with my regular co-host Laura Weston, the global PR consultant and trustee of the Women’s Sport Trust.

Earlier this year Eni Aluko was appointed sporting director of Angel City FC, the new expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) which begins playing in 2022. The Los Angeles based franchise has a majority female ownership group led by actor Natalie Portman, venture capitalist Kara Nortman and a host of other founder members including Serena Williams, Jennifer Garner and Mia Hamm.

Before moving in to management, Aluko played professional football for Chelsea and Juventus among others and made 102 appearances for the England national team from 2004–2016, competed at the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup in China, 2009 UEFA Women's Euro, 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany, 2013 UEFA Women's Euro, and 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she represented Great Britain.

A qualified lawyer, Aluko built a career as a TV pundit immediately combined with representing players and advising on contracts.

All of this makes her supremely well placed for a very wide ranging conversation about many aspects of football, from the boardroom to the playing field, the pressures and challenges of fame, the role of agents and the future of both Angel City and women’s football, in the UK, Europe and the US.

If you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via unofficialpartner.com

Every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app.

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 @UnffclPrtnr

This week we’ve assembled another group of very expensive expert advisers to brainstorm a new sports property that will make billions for its creators (minus Unofficial Partner commission, cash only).

The idea comes from our friend and former podcast guest Gundeep Anand, who in 2016 created The Last Stand, a street football tournament aimed at uniting communities and breaking down social, cultural and religious barriers through sport.

Now Gundeep is launching a women’s street football version in the centre of Birmingham next month and we got a group together to see how we can help.

Joining Richard and Gundeep are Ricardo Fort and Michaela Gooden.

Ricardo was head of Coca Cola and Visa global sport sponsorship programmes and now runs his own consultancy, Sport by Fort, advising rights holders, brands and other investors in how to make sport work for them.

Michaela is a former professional footballer for Fulham who became an agent with Magna Sports Management, where she oversees a roster of male and female players including several WSL stars and England internationals.

If you work on the sponsor or media side of sport, or for an agency looking to learn more, you can get in touch with us, or go direct to Gundeep.

Every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app.

And if you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via unofficialpartner.com

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

Today’s guest is John Amaechi OBE, the former NBA basketball player who has built a global reputation as an organisational psychologist via his own APS Intelligence consultancy. His book The Promises of Giants was a New York Times bestseller, and is a manifesto for a new type of conversation about leadership.

A Chartered Scientist, John was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and a Research Fellow at the University of East London.

If you’ve ever heard John talk about sport and the business that surrounds it, you’ll know this is a topic about which he has very strong and persuasive views.

Every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app.

And if you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via unofficialpartner.com

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

Mia Stellberg is an esport psychologist. She’s employed by some of the world’s most successful teams to help them win and keep the best gamers in the world happy and focused on being the best they can be.

Stellberg wrote recently that “Esport is chess at warp speed. It’s strategic, you need to be really clever, several steps ahead of your opponent, you need to have good strategy, you need to practice all the time, to the point – and even beyond – of obsession.”

So, what does she do to make good players better? What’s the tension between the needs of the individual player and the team owners? What are the areas of competitive advantage that determine the difference between winning and losing?

But beyond that, we talk about the life of a pro gamer, the pressures and the incentives. And we ask how the usual tropes of sports psychology apply to the gaming world, things like team culture, 10,000 hours and marginal gains.

Welcome to a world I hardly knew existed, and an opportunity to delve in to the lives and the minds of some of the best and highest paid esports gamers working today.

If you don’t already get the weekly Unofficial Partner newsletter, you can join thousands of busy sports biz execs who receive it direct to their inbox every Thursday, subscribe via unofficialpartner.com

Every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app.

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 @UnffclPrtnr