What we thought 2023 would be like v What 2023 was like
PIF, MMA M&A; There’s money in grievance; Our prior assumptions reveal us; The $100 Saudi bet on Jake Paul; The pull of story; Head v Body; Sponsor deals of the year; Misha Sher’s PB
Amazon's infinite game; It's Me time; Service as differentiator; Alexa is a Gooner; Mercury questions; Closed league culture wars; Media rights gravy trains; 40 ideas for 2024
It's a BLAST; SI x AI = WTF; The value of warmth; Fans are long FaZe Clan; Ding Dong it's a festive UP hangover; Swimsuit Schwimsuit; Attention Matters; Prem rights line ups; Sky's tennis hedge; H&M
The $100million Challenge; ESG WTF; Amazon's Black Friday Super Bowl; AI v Infantino; TGL v Selling Shovels; Poulter's bag; Crap idea of the week; The Scudamore caveat
The FA and the Beeb; Everyone Everywhere; Putting a cost on sport's Great Platform Giveaway; Elton Mayo on VAR; Data as arse covering; The purpose trap; Will Mercury rise; UP on TikTok
ESPN all in on TGL; Golf for Barstool bros; Sport's Napster moment; Tiger = Goat + Whale; FTX ripples; Should endorsers get sued; DAZN and women; Olympic Succession; King Richard vs Air
Ho Ho Ho Etc; Christmas comes early; Jazz Sawyers on Athlete 2030; Rugby's Gen Z fear; Dame Edna's Guide to Sports Marketing; Sportsbiz in 100 Objects; Keegan's crisps; Smaller and smaller rooms
Sportel Diary; Which one are you again? Fun with OTT differentiation; The ESPN v IMG after party face off; Is ESPN worth $25billion; SportelMan; YouTube's $14bn NFL bet; Croker's Partridge moment
Leaders UPload; Umbers’ Numbers; Bach overtures; That Seb Coe rumour; Man Utd’s $10billion dollar question; UP tat; Squeezed Middle; An Idiot’s Guide to Sportel; C-Sweet
The £220billion Question; Project 2030; Cricket in the Olympics; Peanuts to $150m; Unbundling athletics; Firestick as a verb; Where Shit Ideas Meet Stupid Money; The World Cup problem
Scudamore got lucky; The Premier League has won; Convergence IRL; Fantasy is betting's kindergarten; Saudi has bought 2034; Byron Sharp is nuts for The Hundred; Apple won't buy F1; HS2 v London 2012
The Jake Humphrey Problem; Why we're obsessed with leadership; The Good and Bad Captain; The Premier League's Squeezed Middle; The book, the pub and the Amazon five star rating system; Georgie's shirt
Football owners are all we talk about; Sports News Upload; One week to Convergence; Tennis economics; New Balance has a moment; Wales v Asda; F1 Vegas prices;
That Ari Emanuel Podcast; What is ESPN now; The Mark Oliver Conundrum; PIF takes; Gotcha's getting tired; CAA, from Tiffany to Walmart; Leaders Week x UP; Lineker on semi-retirement; Patient 1
Redemption arcs v staying in the problem; Commonwealth v Birmingham is broke; PIF takes; Sandhurst, leadership and talent ID; Boris the Buzz Addict; Aren’t we over major events yet; Napster v Spotify
The Pirate Edition; Spotify spikes, TalkSPORT and that FT piece; Ripple effects and rumours; Pirate Nostalgia; Are you going to Sportel?
What ESPN's big bet on gambling means for the sports media bundle
UP breaks The Athletic; What piracy reveals about fan engagement; The Dan Snyder Effect; WIFA is the real open door; We have the ear of the CMO; JayMoh, voice of a generation; Infinite Athlete
How piracy works; Hiding in plain sight; Cheap Currys; How not to ambush WWC; Lifetime Basket Value; The cost of a Utd fan; Golf gets even more confusing; Best Premier League kits; Be more Luton
Yeezy does it for United; Squeezed Middle; What is British Cycling; Matt Cutler joins UP; The Pirates vs The Premier League; Portnoy's complaint; ESPN and Penn; Convergence Brainstorm
Nike and Women, 24 years of hurt; WhatsUP on that Orange ad; Google's WWC discovery; New Liverpool job; Early bird tickets going fast; Dads and daughters; The Grandstand delusion; Kick It Out
NEW: Unofficial Partner Live, Tickets On Sale Now...100 places going for what we're calling our Brainstorm UP The Orbit - Like a conference, only good
Be radical and say 'I Don't Know'; Mervyn King on the limits of forecasting; The Cara Delevingne Guide to F1; The second biggest sport; Did Orange get it right; This Girl Goes to Tesco; Messi business
Billion Dollar Women's Football Brainstorm; The Difficult Problems; London playbook; The cult of Finlay Andrews; Web3 WTF pt2; That 777 piece; Super League as Brexit
Wrecks Em; Maximum Effort copycats; The Squeezed Middle; Whose numbers are they anyway; Geoff Boycott's guide to racism; Enshittification; Declan Rice's shirt; UP Billion Dollar Brainstorm is a hit
That Chelsea PIF Clearlake rumour; Perception v Reality; Should rebels be punished; Gary Neville's map; Winning v losing 4-3; What Lewes' tickets tell us; When clubs change logo; Top ten sports pods
The real cost of Infantino's duff bluff; The absence of marketing; UP x ISH; Ed Smith on optimism; The (Rob) Key to Bazball; NBC v USGA; Anatomy of a Wrexham rumour; The Athletic lay offs
PIF takes; LIV for TMRW; Trust and Antitrust; Succession memes; UEFA's league hedge; Being Charlie Marshall; The event from hell; The number's always wrong; Beware the higher ground; Guess the child
How much for Tottenham's Stadium; Stop promoting the CCO; Aneurin Bevin's guide to sports politics; The Greater Good; Diversity by Degrees; Sports PR genres; Handsome footballers; Unstoppable Anstiss
The Product; The business of jeopardy; Going from paying to paid; The chasm between CCO and CEO; Jo Coates on building value; Patrick Reed's Guide to Economics; NRL hearts Tina Turner RIP; AFTV x UP
Things that shouldn't work but do; Beware physics envy; Why was Wembley full; Burger King's Big Idea; Funnel panic; Buy Side goes to Paris; Did we blow the Lottery; Still a man's game Souey?
Formula More; Who will pay for Andretti Cadillac; Skinny NGBs; Sport by McKinsey; TNT's Charm Offensive; All eyes on Gary Neville; AI IRL; The Santander Problem; Drive to Survive's Concorde episode
Infantino as moral guardian, discuss; Dark threats and the reach v money question; Does unbundling work?; Sports Podge goes back to Langans; Top 10 Sports Movies; Is Air any good?; Gen Z cliches
The Four TOPs; Olympic deckchairs; Crypto.com exclusive podcast; On board the crypto rollercoaster; SportsPro Live got big; Maggie Murphy v Daniel Levy; ChatGPT spam, AI FFS; Loved UP Etc…
How old's too old? 40 is the new 60; WFH WTF; Booze culture; Noisy v Quiet offices; Ed Warner on UKA; If Tesco Ran Sport; How to get ahead in the sports business; Ryan Reynolds on marketing
What the IPL will do next; The Harry Brook Question; Franchise v Country; What Sangakkara knows; How premium is the Premier League; Six sponsor errors to avoid; Big Gambling bets on convergence
What's the point of Amazon sport; The UEFA Boys Club; DAZN WTF; Inside the WTA; The sport as creator problem; Betting's gotcha moment; Today's Golfer for sale; Attribution errors and sports rights
Women's football should be reassuringly expensive; Token women, male allies and stepping stones; Fear of the Daily Mail; If Eddie Hearn ran rugby; The Big Idea meets AI; The Moya Dodd Pod; UP.com pt2
Coke and the Olympics; Plastic and Paris 2024; Soccer AM was the future once; What if the IOC had just one job; Goat's WPP future; LIV, PIF and VFM; Top 10 Sports Books; Sportradar number of the week
Scarcity value v the 2026 World Cup; Nike x Corteiz; The UP Big Idea Hall Of Fame; When footballers try to act; Skills challenge schtick; Billie Jean King; The secret of a great sports film; UP300
Ambassador, you're spoiling us; FIFA's starf*cking tendency; Bazball's build message; BBC's bad decision; The Buy Side; The muddle of the middle; IWD dilemmas
What's Klopp worth; LFC were too big to fail; RBS guide to risk capital; The real LIV CEO; The ultimate bundle piece; Fixing rugby; Rich get richer shock; Social media in China, the cheatsheet
The UP Big Idea Hall of Fame; In praise of obviousness; So farewell then, BT Sport; Adam Silver's magic; Rich golfers make bad TV; A billion for a LIV franchise v You'll make it back in shirt sales
New Series Launch: The Big Idea
Being Warren Gatland; The rise of the Super Coach; And v Either/Or; Kick it v Run it; Zero latency; Super Bowl betting shop; Test cricketer as coal miner; Trott on Purpose; LIV's shirt strategy
Gatland Exclusive
Martin Glenn; The FA's lost radicalism; Todd Boehly, Clearlake and Other People's Money; ICE hell; Shopatainment; Sir Clive v Big Eventers; Visit Saudi, get arrested; Adidas, Beyonce and Melvyn Bragg
Regulation isn't about football; 50+1 doesn't add up; Reassuringly expensive right backs; Being Mo Salah's agent; The Bundesliga Fetish; The real Drive to Survive; Bad metaphors; McCartney hates Nike
Mo Salah's agent on the meaning of Transfer Deadline Day
Beyond the sports biz bubble; The World Cup on AI; The Premier League is underrated; Things we’ll miss when they’re gone; Trends are rarely hot, they’re slow, big and obvious
The lessons of Spotify; The festival bundle; Rip-off prices v In Rainbows; PR agency staffer as coal miner; The Napster Analogy; Herbivores v Carnivores; Price innovation and consumption analytics;
NEW Unofficial Backchannel; 1000 Doors and The Prem's Project Fear; George Osborne's 2012 legacy; Buy high, sell low, Fanatics gets out of NFTs; ROI of Athlete tech investments v footballer's pubs
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7 Hot Trends for '23; ChatGPT is the new NFT; Fun with moral panic; Now Fans beat New Fans; The Hypocrisy of Big Sport; Only good when it suits; A stupid idea amnesty; The return of phone calls;
