The Arse Licking Playbook; The Tennis Funnel; Trump 2.0; The Other League Table; The Lexus Question; Tiger as banking crisis; F1's big reveal; Expected Goals Live; ESP founders' story
Overthinking the sports business, for money
This newsletter is sponsored by Redtorch, a research & creative agency that’s been at the heart of sport and fitness for over 20 years.
We all know the value of research that produces usable insights and creative that’s actually effective. But with so many agencies to choose from, how are we supposed to know which is the right one for us?
Redtorch makes the choice easy.
Independent, friendly and highly qualified, they’re trusted and retained by many of the world’s biggest sports and fitness organisations because they offer everything you’d expect from a specialist agency: unmatched flexibility, the best people, a constant stream of innovative ideas.  Â
Visit www.redtorch.sport to learn more.
The Arse Lickers Playbook
(Q. Is it Arselicker, Arse Licker or Arse-Licker? See also: Bellend).
Every sports leader has a question to answer.
How to deal with The Donald?
Like the Labour front bench, every sport CEO will be scouring the internet for old quotes that are even faintly critical of the free world’s glorious leader.
Doubtless sport’s C-Suite will copy every other business sector. By which I mean it will spend a great deal of the next six months trying to crawl up the new President’s backside.
This is a particular concern for rights holders outside the US. A whopping 95% of the tens of millions of dollars donated by sports team owners in the major US professional leagues in recent years reportedly went to Republican campaigns, candidates and committees.
What goes around…Trump 2.0
Type ‘Trump’ and ‘Sport’ in to the BBC website and two pieces are presented, written eight years apart, almost to the day, asking the same question: what impact will a Trump presidency have on sport?
The first in November 2016, was by Richard Conway, then a BBC sports news reporter who left to lobby on behalf of Qatar running in to the 2024 World Cup and then co-founded Spectacle Partners pr firm. Conway’s piece was followed this week, by current BBC sports editor Dan Roan.
There are shared themes.
The Big Eventers - What impact will Trump have on the American swing of Olympics and World Cup? Conway’s piece was before the IOC and FIFA hosting decisions, so the jeopardy focused on will they won’t they give him their Crown Jewels. Spoiler, they did.
Human rights whataboutism - Trump 2.0 is a gift to Saudi and its lobbyists. From Dan Roan:
During the president's first administration, Amnesty International documented "extensive damage to human rights", adding that protecting them in the US "means ending gun violence and guaranteeing adequate healthcare for all, including abortion".
The Other League Table - The human rights group has also highlighted that the US had the fifth highest number of executions (24) in the world last year. Saudi Arabia was third highest with 172 executions.
American isolationism - FIFA and the IOC have truly global constituencies, countries which are about to suffer from Trump 2.0’s tariff wars and immigration bans. Back in 2016, Conway quotes IOC president Thomas Bach deploring "a world of selfishness where certain people claim to be superior to others". That was seen as a clear reference to Trump's proposed plans that include potential restrictions on Muslim immigration and the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants. The next IOC president - to be voted on soon - will be asked whether they agree with Bach’s sentiments.
China - Hisense just signed up as FIFA Club World Cup partner, with the aim of building profile in the US marketplace. That same US marketplace might be about to add 60% import tax on Chinese goods. (Fun fact: 88% of American Christmas presents this year will have been made in China).
How you explain the result reveals more about you than it does about Trump
You’ll have your own theory as to why Trump won, you don’t need me to add to the pile.
Having built a business around a podcast…we at UP are all over Scott Galloway’s theory that it was the pods wot won it. Three hours of Joe Rogan and all that.
It is of course, bollocks. Or at least, partial bollocks (sounds nasty), in that the answer to ‘why did he win?’ is not one thing.
But it’s useful bollocks.
It’s bollocks that we’ll use throughout 2025 to make the commercial argument for podcasts as the perfect marketing channel for today’s sports industry.
You’ll have your own bollocks, that will fit your personal or commercial interest.
You might jump on the anti-woke bandwagon, framing the 52.8% to 48.2% Republican majority as a revolt against ideas such as diversity, inclusion and equality.
At last, the voters of Michigan have given you license to pour shit over the commercialisation of women’s sports leagues without fear of being called a misogynist wanker.
The Tennis Funnel
Are Pickleball and Padel more than just a marketing funnel for tennis?
That was a question that came up in this week’s podcast on the protracted decision to put the LTA in charge of pickleball in the UK.
The Lexus Question
This gets us below the headline and into a more granular issue.
The posh set’s Toyota brand signed up as an LTA partner last year.
Why? What has Lexus bought?
Alex Inglot asked a good question: What proportion of the LTA sponsorship is due to the excitement around padel? How much of the revenue from the deal will be attributed to growing and promoting padel, rather than tennis?
The answer is, we don’t know.
Because the LTA doesn’t reveal that level of attribution. Like tax, it doesn’t get ring fenced to fill my particular road hole. Or at least, not publicly.
This information vacuum will only encourage the pro-padel lobby to poke further. And the same questions will face pickleball if the sport moves to become part of the LTA, a decision to be taken by the sports councils imminently.
It’s about trust in the end.
Does the padel/pickle lobby trust the LTA to prioritise their sport over tennis, which is after all, what their name says.
It’s about money, but also about time and priorities, focus and expertise allocation.
Tiger as Banking crisis
Trump promises to solve the great geopolitical problems of the era.
Russia Ukraine; Israel Palestine; PGA Tour LIV…
The latter rumbles on.
One issue, mentioned previously, is that golf has never replaced Tiger Woods. His era of sheer star voltage coincided with the media rights boom resulting in the game now being over valued in the market.
See previous note - It’s still Tiger’s world
A build from Normal Sport, along the same lines:
The thing I never hear when we’re talking about all of this is that everything that has happened over the last several years could be attributed to the decline of the Cat. Everyone was overleveraged when Tiger was bumping because … why not? And with him slowly dissipating from view, there is just so much slack in the line there that has created myriad headaches and problems that were previously covered up because Tiger was fist pumping 64s all over the country.
Expected Goals Live
Thrilled to announce that Matt Cutler and Maggie Murphy’s hit women’s football business podcast is going on the road.
First stop is Edgbaston, where they are appearing at the Bears Women Launch Party, an evening dedicated to celebrating the new era of women’s cricket.
You can listen to Expected Goals every Wednesday, covering everything about the business of the women’s game.
How revealing will be F1’s big reveal?
F1 has carved out a new sportainment moment.
My friend in the paddock clocked the prices - £58 to £113 - and wondered what exactly it was being launched?
Is it the car liveries, or the actual cars?
There’s a world of difference, apparently.
Founder’s Story
Over on UP Yours, the Unofficial Partner guest blog.
By day Ivo Slot, Sian Kelly and Oli Ng work at The Sports Consultancy.
Being bright sparks, they’ve identified a problem.
The importance of building a network from the beginning of your career is something that we found is often stressed. However, it became clear to us that there wasn’t an appropriate space for emerging professionals in the sports industry to do so, with big conferences and industry events geared toward senior decision-makers - C-suite executives. Whilst we know that these events are so valuable and are where we aspire to be in a few years time (once we are important enough) they’re often hard to access for those in their earlier stages of a career, due to high ticket prices or exclusive access!
So, they created ESP.
Here they are.
It’s a great idea, so why don’t you get involved? They’ve got a Linkedin Group here.
Thanks for reading.
Share this newsletter with your friends and family.
And finally…
Now click the Fucking Like Button, I Mean How Fucking Hard Can It Fucking Be????
It’s the heart shaped thing below, you fucking bell end. It’s the lowest form of human-to-internet engagement and for reasons we don’t quite understand helps us appear more popular with people who don’t yet receive the newsletter, most of whom are of no value in and of themselves, but who collectively add to the story that this newsletter is popular among a group we’ve started to call industry insiders.
We’re grateful for your help in this matter.
‘Is it the car liveries, or the actual cars?
There’s a world of difference, apparently.’ .. Put all your money on the paintwork, not what lies beneath