IMG's all-you-can-eat future; Peter Hutton's brain; Alcaraz v Raducanu; Todd Boehly's crap idea dissected; Ooh, sports biz friends! 15 networking tips; Leaders with Ed Smith; Spying on Performance 54
Overthinking the sports business, for money
Did I hear that right?
Meta has just dispatched Peter Hutton from California to take part in the Unofficial Partner Web3 Brainstorm at Emirates Stadium next Wednesday evening?
And that he’s just one of twelve big brains in a live and slightly chaotic brainstorm session that opens up the real world challenges inherent in football’s relationship with NFTs and blockchain?
Not coming? That’s a risk.
For group tickets, email Sean@UnofficialPartner.co.uk
Wise UP Homework: What to say about Ethereum’s Merge in the queue to get in.
What’s the difference between IMG and P/E?
This week’s podcast guest was Adam Kelly, President of IMG Media.
My view on IMG is that it’s worth noting what they’re doing, or planning to do, as it’s indicative of something broader. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, IMG is at the epicentre of the sports market globally.
But it’s a multi headed hydra - the breadth of their service offer makes it hard to engage with them.
So, we used Rugby League as the front door.
The agency has entered a 12 year all-you-can-eat joint venture with the sport in England.
This quote was very interesting on private equity (bearing in mind the caveat that IMG/Endeavour is part owned by p/e in the form of Silver Lake).
Adam Kelly: The private equity model, I think you've summed up fairly accurately, is that they come in with a big barrel load of cash and outline an argument - or try and paint a picture - that it's the capital that’s the shortcoming of a particular sport, and that a combination of a trade in equity, with a restructure, is going to resolve most of their shortcomings.
Our view is that of course, capital can play a part, but the real focus in our approach is one of industrial expertise…in almost every case, I believe that (sustainable growth) can be achieved without the need to give up long-term equity and the challenge that may pose in the future for exit and a drain on the revenue sharing mechanism on a long term basis.
There’s so much in that quote that’s universal to sport today: Long term short term; specialist v generalist; real world trade-offs; opportunity cost; succession planning.
The financial engineering that comes with p/e can tie up a sport’s ability to develop over the next decade or more, when today’s C-suite decision makers have moved on, sometimes to the very p/e firms they let in the door.
Time will tell on IMG’s Rugby League relationship, but it’s moved the sport from the sidelines of the business conversation to somewhere more central, and it’s a fascinating case study to follow.
See also:
There’s an absence of moral judgement around Alcaraz’s commercial deals
A prodigiously talented, good looking and very marketable teenager wins the US Open.
Sports industry experts rush predict ‘a great future as a brand ambassador’.
Big round numbers are conjured from the air and become part of the clickbait news cycle.
The money is celebrated as a just reward for the talent.
The brands are welcomed to the party; each deal adds a degree of tangibility to the ‘he’ll make a billion’ bullshit.
Compare the tone of the coverage with that which accompanied Emma Raducanu’s incredible win last year.
The Met Gala, the Dior, Tiffany and Porsche deals; each came with a wagging finger of faux moral judgement.
Emma Raducanu: “Maybe you just see, on the news or on social media, me signing this or that deal and I feel like it’s quite misleading because I’m doing five, six hours a day (of training), I’m at the club for 12 hours a day,” Raducanu told various national newspapers.
“But I throw out one post in the car on the way to practice and all of a sudden it’s ‘I don’t focus on tennis’. I think that it is unfair but it’s something I have learned to deal with and become a bit more insensitive to the outside noise.
“At the end of the day, I feel like my days (with sponsors) are pretty limited. I’m not doing crazy days. I’m doing three, four days every quarter, so it’s really not that much.”
Let’s see if Carlos Alcaraz is forced to respond in this way as the deals come in.
Todd Boehly’s Crap Idea In Three Acts
What happened?
New Chelsea owner Todd Boehly floated some ideas at a conference.
Jurgen Klopp was asked to respond.
The Harlem Globetrotters were referenced.
First bounce: Prickly defensiveness: What is it with these rich Americans coming over here buying our clubs and misunderstanding our entirely unimpeachable European football culture.
Second bounce: Patronising magnanimity: A welcoming of bold new thinking that challenges the status quo, particularly from a very rich man.
Subtext: extreme wealth is a proxy for hard-won wisdom, a position often evident when sports journalists report on business stories.
Third bounce: Fucking hell, that’s a revealingly shit idea though.
Ooh, sports biz friends! 15 questions when attempting to build an industry network
Tomorrow’s podcast is about the peculiar art (science?) of networking, ahead of what we’re loosely calling the conference season (Translation: Leaders Week and WiseUP, the Unofficial Partner Web3 Brainstorm - see above).
Guests: Laura McQueen of Leaders and Sean Singleton, the not-as-silent-as-you-might-hope partner of Unofficial Partner.
Discussion points:
What’s the difference between industry friends and actual friends?
How long should you talk to people who will never spend money with you?
Planning or spontaneity? Bearing in mind, ‘planning for spontaneity’ is self help bullshit.
Which conference archetype are you? The useless time waster, the business card collector, the annoyingly persistent new biz bloke with a different badge than last time…etc
Who the fuck has time for tangible objectives and SMART targets?
Can you conjure serendipity? A guide to happy accidents. See also, the underrated role of the escalator in sports business history.
Is talking to strangers a lost skill? Shyness is nice but shyness can stop you…the generation who stopped talking to each other, phone calls as the new meetings etc.
What did Covid reveal about conferences? The limits of technology, death by Zoom and the intangible magic of being among real people.
What’s the future of female-only industry networks, why they’re a thing and how will they evolve? See also: The Diversity Ghettos Problem.
How best to meet people on the exhibition floor ring road: Are you a chaser or a sitter?
Best opening lines to a VIP you don’t know?
Worst conference food to eat while standing up?
How to get away from a boring person?
When is it socially acceptable to start drinking? See also, The Sue Anstiss Position - how to tackle a conference sober?
‘Any work come out of it?’ How to justify time out of the office to the bitter and resentful drones back at HQ. A guide to over promising and under delivering.
UP @ Leaders, with added Ed
Diary note: I’ll be talking to Ed Smith on the podcast stage at the Leaders Summit - 12pm on Wednesday 28th September.
Ed is author, test cricketer, co-founder of the Director of the Institute of Sports Humanities and former Chief Selector for England Cricket 2018 to 2021, a period which included the men’s team first ever ICC Cricket World Cup victory.
Our topic is a cracker: Why do we need selectors when we have data?
See you there.
If you have questions, put them in the replies to this newsletter.
Use UP15 for a 15% discount on your Summit passes. Visit leadersinsport.com/UP for more information.
4 Randoms
MyGolfSpy’s revealing deep dive on the ownership of Performance 54. Jed Moore’s sports PR agency links between LIV, PIF, Rick Shiels and the Jazzy Golfer to some of the biggest golf brands in the world.
File under dull and worthy: Athlete influencers on Linkedin. The medium is the message etc.
Follow the money, to China: Is time running out for TikTok? (Spoiler: probably not).
Sportsbiz Job of the Week
The job: Head of Sponsorship Valuation - Turnstile
The blurb: Are you a management consultant looking to break into the world of Sports and Media? Or an industry expert having worked in the space of valuation?
If so we might just have the role for you - Apply your consulting and strategic skillset to the global sport and entertainment industry by helping many of the most progressive brands, rights holders and investors to understand the market value of their sponsorship assets.
The link: Apply now at https://lnkd.in/gUJn4UNY