How David Beckham Became Football’s First $500M Brand | Simon Bayliff

0:00I'm so interested in the conversation about David Beckham because he, for me, is someone who has transcended his sport. He's arguably the first kind of real builder of a brand outside of just playing football. Yeah. When did you first start working with him?

0:16Simon Bayliff: 96, 97. I was very much the Sorcerer's Apprentice. You know, my boss at the time, still a bit of a mentor now, Tony Stevens was his agent and I worked for Tony. who was in his 60s at that point in time. And so I very much sat in the passenger seat in my first kind of formative years as I was learning the trade, as it were. And very long story short, I then started kind of just working closer and closer with him on a day-to-day basis. And so, yeah, that relationship just developed. We're exactly the same age. He's a few months older than me. but having come from working with Tony who was very much a brilliant strategist but also superb salesman, very much a brand guy, former head of sales and marketing for the Wembley complex and so he was very much a commercial and a very atypical football agent but brilliant nonetheless and so I learnt from him effectively the apple didn't fall too far from the tree and And that was very much being thoughtful in how we built an ecosystem around David.

1:27And he played a huge part in that, obviously.

1:31Simon Bayliff: He was doing the hard work. He was on the pitch doing the hard work. And was incredible at how, with all the things that were going on in his world, it just was like this bubble of calmness all the time. And it used to amaze me how he did it. But he did. And, you know, he's totally unique. totally unique how keen was he to to not just be a footballer and to have conversations with you about how he can he can build brands or was this something that you guys were driving and you were saying you just worry about the football and we'll deal with everything else no i think it was i think it was a bit of both really i think we had we sat down and we realized that like david had like i I think we worked out, it was like 33 different ingredients to what made him who he was and included all sorts of, probably more than 33, right?

2:21Simon Bayliff: But it was just the ones that we came up with. It was, of course, the obvious things, brilliant footballer, Manchester United, the looks, the wonky teeth at the start, then now being married to Victoria, the Spice Girl, all of those things, that cocktail was just so powerful that it was just totally unique. And he had a real appetite for it. And I definitely feel that being married to somebody as commercially savvy as Victoria helped that as well. Very switched on. And she understood the commercial value of brand. And so we were often saying, I think we need to look at this sector, this category, this brand.

3:01Simon Bayliff: And there was always rationale and thought behind it. You know, people often said, oh, why did you grill cream? Well, we wanted to talk to the working class man that stood on the terraces at Old Trafford. And so we very carefully constructed like a brand portfolio and brand strategy around Adidas technical excellence. Is David a Nike type of athlete? No, he's definitely an Adidas. Why? What's the difference? Oh, there's clear differences across all the giant apparel brands. You know, Puma, very much like the lifestyle, funky, cool. Nike, yes, it's a performance brand, but also it has a very different positioning to like German technical excellence of Adidas.

3:43Simon Bayliff: And that was very much where we felt David sat and he agreed. And so it was about putting the pieces of the jigsaw together in a really thoughtful way that complemented like the bigger picture. Of all the things you've mentioned, the wonky teeth is interesting. Why would that be on a list of a bunch of things that is kind of marketable? Because I think it was at the time, it was something, it's a bit like when I first met Mark Cavendish and I was connected to him via Lance Armstrong and Cav came and sat in my office in central London and said to me, just so I'm clear, are you going to get me to stop swearing?

4:23Simon Bayliff: And I said, no, I'm not, but that's kind of who you are. And it's not offensive, it's relatable. And I think at the time, it sounds crazy, But I think at the time, David not having the perfect smile made him relatable, more relatable to people. And sometimes I think you can be overpolished and then you push your authenticity and your relatability away from the man in the street. And were you and David inspired by US athletes that he saw had kind of built a brand around themselves? Yeah, very much so. Who was he looking at at the time? He loved basketball, you know, really liked basketball. And so looked at, of course, looked at what Jordan was doing.

5:01Simon Bayliff: and he was the gold standard. He had number 23, right? Yeah, he was the gold standard, exactly. So he loved that and I think he genuinely believed and why not is a global game that he could follow in his footsteps, not mirror what he'd done, but certainly follow in his footsteps for sure. And we believed it, we believed it too. Performance is always the underpinning part of all of this. You can't build a house on sand foundations. Fundamentally, the athlete always has the most important job. If you're not consistently performing at the level that he was, then it comes crashing down. Would you give us an idea of what the strategy would have looked like for David?

5:41How you would have kind of gone about, you've done the 33 sort of things or what he has to offer the world. Then you have to kind of build a strategy around that. So how would that look?

5:50Simon Bayliff: Effectively, we would start off by doing a brand identity. So that means that we sit down and really, like sounds stating the blinking obvious, but really understand David as an individual. So understanding his embedded deep values, what are his principles, and like teasing all of that out in a sense of if you were a type of music what would you be if you were a car mark what would you be like what does he see himself as because the difference between being a volkswagen and being a lamborghini but why why do you see that and so basically doing a you know a brand identity document that then informs the strategy so we'd sit and you know work through all of those questions a really deep dive into what he saw and what we saw and then we'd then find a way and bearing in mind there was there are systems and tools now you can use that makes this easier back then it was very much you know pad and pen and you know typing away and then we would have to go to work and identify brands that most aligned with with that some Some brands didn't want to get involved because they just didn't understand it.

7:10Simon Bayliff: And some really loved it. And they saw a huge, huge upswing in police sunglasses. 900 % upswing in product sales for them when we did the police sunglasses deal. And yeah, it was crazy. It's crazy. And a brilliant partnership, brilliant people at the brand. David loved them. And it was just one of those perfect partnerships, really. And the police deal obviously was a huge success for police, but also for David. I can still in my head see those images that you managed to create. Was there another deal where you kind of reflect and think, I was so proud that we not just did a deal that was great financially and from a positional sense, but actually I guess one that was really ambitious that other people weren't offering, that you kind of, you almost saw what the future looked like from a brand athlete perspective and you delivered.

7:59Simon Bayliff: I think there's probably two that jumped to mind for very different reasons. Pepsi it was a long term relationship we'd had with Pepsi and I think what I was most proud of, you go back onto YouTube and see some of these, was how far we pushed the creative narrative with the TV commercials, big budget, really really complicated delivery when fundamentally as a footballer he's going to be training every day of the week, trying to deliver those and get those done, you know, some of the the gladiator pepsi commercial there's the cowboy pepsi commercial some of those like bigger bigger tv ads were moments of real pride because it was hell to actually get them to that place but why was it hell i just think it's not from pepsi side it's just logistically it's one thing putting on a bit of paper we've got this idea of you know what's using your pepsi portfolio of athletes but it was super ambitious.

9:04Simon Bayliff: Was that your idea then? It was effectively us sitting down with the agency, with Pepsi, with obviously their agency, and talking about the direction of what they wanted to do from a marketing perspective. And so it was definitely a group think collaborative approach. See, that's interesting because I think most people would imagine a brand just comes to you and says, we'll have David. If they pay the money, then they get the athlete. Whereas you were actually, along with David, You were involved in the storytelling and the actual execution of these deals. Yeah, and Dave wanted that. Not just getting them, I did it.

9:38Simon Bayliff: Yeah, Davey wanted that. And I've no doubt that Victoria had input into that as well. When they're at home, they're talking about, what do you think of this, what do you think of that? But he definitely had some input into that as well. And credit to Pepsi. They believed in us as a group and they believed in the product. And we did. And yeah, so that was incredibly ambitious. and I look back now, I'm obviously very grainy on YouTube when you look back at them, but I still think, oh, wow, they were stressful times, but great to get them done nonetheless. And I think the other one I would say is Adidas.

10:16We did some really interesting things with Adi

10:20Simon Bayliff: and they were really open to doing some non-traditional things. and you know they were in terms of like bespoke product but also merchandise they were doing some really interesting things that had david's input into them in terms of like boot design stud design material usage all of those kind of things that normally it's just sign your contract here's your boots david was very very deeply embedded in what the prop the end product was going to look like and how it could not only help him but also help footballers generally and i think he quite liked that that he was breaking trail from a performance perspective or a technical perspective with a with a product and yeah there's some really interesting more interesting things that didn't actually come to light some ideas like materials on boots and things like how you could like keep pushing the envelope and he was really into it really really into it and it always impressed me just how much time he gave to the partners that he really really loved so he would challenge you and also challenge the brands to constantly push the envelope 100 and i think that's a misunderstood element of building this david beckham brand because i i certainly had this impression that he just got great people around him he played football and delivered that side of the bargain and let you do everything else but it sounds like him and victoria were both really creatively deeply involved in the direction and the execution.

11:49Simon Bayliff: They were, yeah. I mean, a simple, now you look in the shops at the Adidas Predator, the tongue with the elastic. That was David. Is that right? Yeah, the elastic was his idea. I just assumed that was a boot designer going, you need this elastic here. No, it was his idea. What did he say then? It was his idea. He basically never, amazingly, he never used to lace his boots up. So I never know how he played. They were so loose. He used to basically knot the laces at the top eyelet, cut them off, there just be knots, and then he'd pull the tongue right down and obviously put it around the end of the boot.

12:27Simon Bayliff: And so if you look at some old pictures, you'll see just how much of his foot is actually exposed. And he wanted none of the laces showing because of perches on the ball. He felt it made a difference to the whip of his free kicks and his crossing. And so something as simple as that, That was his idea. So he's also a details guy. Oh, obsessively so. Mark Cavendish, the same. Obsessive about details. Obsessive. And I think that's, it's a trait I see in a lot of top athletes that I work with and ones that I don't work with. I see, you know, Nadal moving the bottles at Wimbledon. It's that OCD element of obsession by design.

13:12Simon Bayliff: And I think there's almost, to get to the top level, I think you almost need to have a part of that in you, weirdly. I just think it's one of those things, and I see it as a behavioral trait with lots of people. Hayden Wilde, world champion triathlete, he was the same, absolutely just anal about, my seat's one millimeter too low. It's incredible. You can't argue because they're the best at what they do. Exactly. And you just admire it, and I love that. all of the evidence proves the fact that they're right. Yes. Attention to the tiny details rather than the big picture is going to make a difference for them.

13:47I think the other thing when it comes to small details is David can't impact the overall direction of Adidas, but he can impact a tiny detail on the boot that will make a big difference. And I think it's again about him finding the opportunity to have the impact and it is in those small details. And I think if people are listening to this, they would think, well, this sounds easy. that you get one of the world's greatest athletes who just so happens to get better and better at football as those years progress just at a time when brands are realizing the power of an athlete, right? So your job's easy.

14:20But actually there's some real pinch points here that I keep thinking about. And the first one is Manchester United, right? The more you ask him to do outside of playing football, I imagine the more Manchester United are, A, thinking, well, that could be money in our pockets that's going directly to a player. And that used to not happen back in the day. but also it's time away from kicking a ball which they might worry about the impact on the pitch so how was the relationship with Manchester United and what did you learn about how to manage those kind of relationships in that period?

14:48Simon Bayliff: Yeah, I think it was always fundamentally good but I think they understood there were times when it was tighter and a bit more tense than times where it was more relaxed and they understood the commercial side of the business understood that David was who David was. But obviously the football side of the business, Sir Alex just wanted football performance. And so as David grew, the tension got greater and greater, basically. But fundamentally, we always say with all of our athletes, and always have done, especially with David, is that performance comes first. And so we used to have a rule that we wouldn't do anything commercially two days before a game.

15:30Simon Bayliff: That was our fundamental non-negotiable. When you look at the calendar and you work out how many free days that creates for a team that play in the Champions League and in the Premier League, it's literally like 23 days. So you look over the calendar, look at all your partners, look at the number of commitments you have embedded in those contracts, and fundamentally that creates a headache because you miss one of those days. you then can't find it again for several weeks because our promise to the club was that we wouldn't allow David to put commercial stuff before football. They respected that.

16:13Simon Bayliff: The commercial people understood that more than the football side of the club. But we also had a duty to grow his brand, and he was an exceptional case. He was delivering, even at the times of the height of pressure that was going on off the pitch for him, he was still like somehow would find a way to just block it out and deliver big performances like consistently and it was like his safe place got onto the pitch that's it nothing nothing can affect me when i get on the pitch and so yeah things were it was challenging absolutely it was and you know there were times when we're scrambling to get onto a plane to go to spain to shoot a one hour commercial and fly back and you're trading the following day.

16:59Simon Bayliff: Yeah, that absolutely is going on for sure. And there's times when we got it absolutely perfect. And there's times when we got it wrong. Flight gets delayed. There's fog at the airport. Oh God, now what are we doing? And so, yeah, there was a lot of hustle going on, that's for sure. But fundamentally, we always understated and over-delivered for the brands that we work with. That was important. I remember the period where you'd done a lot of this great work and suddenly the narrative around David changed slightly. and even actually from Sir Alex Ferguson, didn't it, about is this guy more interested in fame or more interested in football?

17:31You were right on the inside. Did you ever see a period where David didn't put football first and he was going, actually, don't worry about it. Let's just, this is such a great commercial deal for me. Let's do this and the football will be fine. Never, never, never.

17:45Simon Bayliff: No, he absolutely loved, he loves football. Yeah. Still loves football. Obviously, I'm not that close to him anymore, but at the time I was with him, absolutely loved football. He loved Manchester United, never wanted to leave Manchester United. It was his boyhood club, everyone knows that. But yeah, I mean, we've missed commercial opportunities because I was waiting at the training ground for him to finish doing his 50 free kicks. Every day, every day, 50 free kicks. Didn't care. After training. after trading didn't care what commitments we had we're like we've got to get a flight Manchester airport and we've missed flights and things like that and explaining that to people it's often quite tricky but again just obsessed with the details and yeah just absolutely loved the game and wouldn't allow anything to come in front of it that's for sure he's just an absolute consummate professional and I knew that was the answer which is why I wanted to ask the question because I think that people will now see where David Beckham got to if you're an 18, 19-year-old footballer coming through.

18:51And you know that great phrase that the military use, where everybody wants to eat, few people are prepared to hunt, right? Young athletes will see what David had and say,

18:58Simon Bayliff: well, that's what I want, and I want it now. And I think sometimes they lose sight of the fact, the only reason David got that was because the football never became number two, despite the fact that he was so commercially successful. And I wonder how, with the athletes you work with today, you kind of make them realize that without this, everything else doesn't happen yeah yeah i totally agree and i say the same thing to you know athletes now and david had like a desire some of the some athletes in the world just have that right it's just innate it's a fire that never ever stops and their relentless relentless pursuit of excellence which i love absolutely love and and he had that and at no point in time that i was with him or that it wasn't just me right it's a team it's always you know we before me but we had a team of people and they said the same thing he's just like never ever let football come behind anything but like his desire to win his desire to be the best was just unrelenting i mean brilliant it's infectious it's really infectious and how did that show up in terms of his behaviors and maybe the the behaviors you saw from him that you now employ in your own business today I saw sacrifice, dedication, and like an obsession, like a real obsession that, you know, he hated to lose more than he wanted to win.

20:27Simon Bayliff: And I think that's something that rolls off the tongue very lightly, but very few athletes really, really get it. And I think he's had... Why does that make a difference? I think there's two things in life that you control 100 % yourself, right? and I say this to all my athletes and I say it to my kids, it's like effort and attitude, the two things that you control, that nobody can take from you and you can control it. And I think David was unwavering with both of those elements and I think there's a big difference. And I think there's, especially young players now that say, oh, you know, they see Jude Bellingham and they're like, yeah, I want to play for England, I want to play for Manchester United.

21:06Simon Bayliff: But I think that it comes a lot easier now than it ever used to And I think that certainly with the rise of social media and the infamy of football and the Premier League, like academy players now, I just don't think quite understand what it took to get to the level that the Davids and the Paul Scholes and the Neville's and the Shearer's and the Owens and they had to go through. And so I do think it's, I'm not saying it's easy. It's not. It's easier in my personal view. and so I just think it takes another level of desire and hunger to get there. And were you working with David when he lashed out at the World Cup and got the red card?

21:48Simon Bayliff: Yeah, yeah, I was, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where were you that day? Probably the, I was there. In the stadium? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Helped him get out of France. He went to, flew to New York to see Victoria. So how quickly did you realise that this wasn't just going to be a red card and people would forget about it the day later? Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, I mean, everything is supersized around David in that period of time, that's for sure, because of all the things we've talked about, the Spice Girls, Victoria, her doing so well and things like that. So, yeah, it was always going to be cataclysmic, but also, ironically, it was probably one of the defining moments in his career, and I think it's helped make him who he is today, 100%.

22:32Simon Bayliff: I think with that, I just think because you can never, fully appreciate the highs unless you've really hit the lows and i think that absolutely was the low moment in his life the lowest of his football career for sure and i think it's everyone likes the the fairy tale of the hero that gets knocked down and gets back up again and i think fundamentally that was the narrative that was playing out we didn't realize it at the time of course so this is in reflection a time it was horrible for him i mean we had white powder sent into the office so we had bullets sent into the office. I mean, how he played during that period of time is still, to this day, beyond my comprehension.

23:15Simon Bayliff: Burning effigies outside of football grounds. And yet he still did. He found calmness and he found a way through it and actually it's helped define him and create the guy that he is. And so, in many ways, we're kind of weirdly thankful for that moment. Most England fans at that time wouldn't have been. but now when you look back it's like god yeah that really that really changed things for him but i don't know how he did it because it was pretty horrendous and you said you had to help him kind of escape from france yeah just helped him get out of you know get out of the get away from the competition he can't take like normal commercial flights certainly couldn't after all of that that's for sure so it's part and parcel of the job right is helping and protecting and guiding and he just needed to be around Victorian family.

24:03Simon Bayliff: He needed to shut the world out and just be around people that loved him. And I got that. And obviously he was the English pariah at that point in time. And yeah, he obviously came through it brilliantly. But at the time it was incredible. And I'm not sure you'll ever experience anything quite to that level. But I'm sure you will have moments with athletes since and with athletes you work with today with your business where there will be difficult moments. so i'm interested in how you deal with that like how how much did your job for david change the moment he got that red card i think one of the changes that has been in certainly talent management is used to be fundamentally there to negotiate contracts manage a little bit of pr etc and now it's completely changed into being you know this full service strategist which includes all the things we've talked about but a big part of it is crisis management as well and there's no education you get on this you learn through baptism of fire right and it's just building up resilience and thicker skin from getting through bumps and scrapes you've had either with David or with other clients because obviously other things are going on at the same time and so you learn a new skill set a wider skill set and so it was incredibly incredibly high pressure for me and for tony and the rest of the team at that point in time and i guess i was the closest to him because i was just the most relatable in terms of age and things like that and i spent the most time with him and so yeah it it stretched my competency that that's for sure because those things that were happening that had never happened before to anyone.

25:46Simon Bayliff: I don't think any agency had had to field or manage a situation like that. And I mean, thankfully, social media wasn't really a thing. God knows what would have happened if that had been the case. Very much a double-edged sword. But yeah, just it was full on. It was relentless. Lots of sleepless nights and lots of stress, that's for sure. And what was giving you the sleepless nights? Because you You can't control the fan narrative, right? You can't control the death threats and the burning effigies and the chants in the stadiums. So what was within your control that you were able to add value?

26:21Simon Bayliff: It's more the advice, the advisory side, right? It's the advice and the guidance that you can offer, the pressure. Don't get me wrong, that pressure is an absolute privilege and it has been for my whole career. It's been humbling, the athletes I've worked with, but there is definitely a pressure that comes with, am I making the right decision? Am I making the right decision? and the reality is you never know. You don't have a crystal ball. You can go left or right or straight on. All of those may end up you falling into an elephant trap or you may just be lucky enough to pick the right way. And so because it was all new, this intensity and this level of media attention and it was all so negative, like you just felt that you were damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

27:04So you're constantly, brain is turning over with us as a team, like, should we do that?

27:10Simon Bayliff: Should we do that? Should we do a charity appearance? We're thinking about authentic ways to just right the ship. And inevitably it was little and time, time and little things here and there, pulling back into football, just really focusing on where his safe place was, which was in Old Trafford and on the pitch. And then just hoping that time would, meant it would just go, but it just takes longer when you're at that profile. and so yeah it was it was a lot of sleepless nights for a lot of us to be honest with you around him because like bloody hell what can we do and was it time do you think that that changed the the narrative around david or was there anything that you did that was fundamentally vital there's probably i i look at like david and i think and there's probably one percent of what went on in his world that i felt that i owned in the sense that i'd helped you know when i'm sitting watching a game whether it's the fact i hand carried the boots that he scored the goal against greece to the game in like little tiny things that like i keep to myself that like yeah i helped there and that's that that's the way that maybe one percent maybe two percent but fundamentally that's the bit that i own and that's the bit that i get out of bed for that's the bit i like and i love doing um but it's not something you talk about at parties and that that's for sure uh and so i think that supporting and trying to give the right sage advice at the right time is is the hardest is the hardest thing and of course you're leaning into a lot of people to do that so it's certainly not about me it's about a group of people that we're trying to navigate extremely choppy waters for him i don't really understand though why you're carrying his boots to that playoff game because the famous shot is a footballer carries their boot back why was he not yeah because he's boots got damaged and in training and David used to he used to wear a brand new pair of boots every game he used to drive Adidas mad but they were like okay so literally new boots every game and the boots that he was going to wear he couldn't wear so we were scrambling literally like can you get inside to go via Adidas in Stockport on the way to Old Trafford that day and met him at the tunnel gave him the boots then he did that and it's like oh yeah I remember that the rest of my life i get goosebumps now i mean like i was literally in that corner with his mum and dad and when it went in you could feel the concrete in old trafford shaking it was it was incredible absolutely incredible it's just and that's why i just that's why i love the industry so much because sport is about moments it's about big athletes delivering in big moments and there's a litany of fantastic athletes that you can just say i remember that moment i remember that tiger woods the masters you can just remember how they deliver under incredible pressure nonsensical levels of pressure but somehow they do it and that's what separates the good from the great it's really interesting isn't it that you can do all of that work but it's actually about it's about creating moments and only the athlete can create the moments like i think of you know the most remarkable one the Tiger Woods Nike golf ball where it sits on the edge it rolls with the tick I mean like if AI had designed it you would have said no that's not realistic it wouldn't sit perfectly and then it falls in or David against Greece with the ball and that amazing free kick and again like that free kick was a vital game in the last moment he was the guy that took free kicks it's like if you wrote it you wouldn't believe that the story and I just think that you're right it'd be AI scripted correct but there are certain athletes where you just feel like they've either been blessed or there's something else going on there they're just always the centre of attention he's one of them he was like that for sure he was like that without a doubt but yeah you're right I still get goosebumps as well Michael Owen France 98 I was sitting with his mum and dad when he scored that goal against Argentina I was like just moments like that that you just cherish and go yeah that's why I do it that's why I do it what was it like being part of the Michael Owen train because it's a very different story to David's it was a huge explosion at a young age and then real challenges after that yeah yeah I mean brilliant family really amazing family Jeanette and Terry and really really solid family and Michael is a real intellect like he's a bright guy and is commercially savvy and I think I don't ever get the feeling he was ever really loved by the Liverpool fans I think the Liverpool fans always felt that he loved England more than he loved Liverpool which is why there was, again it's a personal opinion why there was always more love for Robbie Fowler than there was for Michael so I think it was a forced marriage really but like crazy talented, crazy talented guy and I think that sadly it was just the injury never quite getting the injuries right and that wasn't on him, that was on the advice from from club or specialists and just never quite getting right and because he was so explosive it meant that unless it was a hundred percent right he was then always just going to like re-injure and re-injure and re-injure and so yeah i'm still unbelievable goal scorer and very very different like commercially savvy but so certainly wasn't as what's the right word he He certainly wasn't as engaged in building Owen Brand, you know, Brando and Owen Brand.

32:55Simon Bayliff: He wasn't as engaged in that. Still wanted to do the big commercial stuff, so he did Jaguar and did McDonald's and some of the other big things, Umbro, back in the day. And so it's a very different place. You can't have, in my role, you can't have a cookie-cutter solution. You can't just go, there you go. Because it worked for David, then it's going to work for you. Well, you can't do that, of course. There are lots of fundamentals from the brand build around David that, yes, absolutely, I use and take away and have used with Mark Cavendish, I've used with Daniel Ricciardo, I've used in even lesser sports, you know, Maddie Hinch, Olympic goalkeeper.

33:33Simon Bayliff: And so a lot of fundamentals that come out of that that we still use. But, yeah, everyone is slightly different, and that's also what makes it really interesting once you scratch beneath the veneer and see what really makes the athlete tick. Well, let's talk then about the modern athlete because it's a very different era now to the era when you were building David's brand. It's a social media driven era. Are there still the megastars? I look at the Premier League today and I wonder whether we have a David Beckham, whether we have a Michael Owen. Yeah, I think it's one of the big trend shifts. I think back in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was very much about like the mega contracts with the real icons of the sport, very traditional sponsorship.

34:21Simon Bayliff: And now, and that was very much top down. So it was only the guys at the top that were picking off those opportunities. And now it's very much like a ground up. It's much more democratized. For sure, there's academy players that are getting boot deals. Some arguably should or shouldn't, but that's happening. And also now what has happened is that athletes are enterprises. The top athletes are enterprises. You know, they are very much, it's about equity play. It's about brand fit. It's about authenticity. It's about value alignment. and it's about fundamentally how do you create a commercial ecosystem around yourself that when you come to finish, you've got Jude Bellingham Inc.

35:14Simon Bayliff: that is a fully operational running business. And so it's far more sophisticated, but there's a lot more of it happening. It's certainly more diversified than it used to be. That's for sure. I think this is very interesting. How do you, I mean, it really is what David's done actually, because when David stopped playing, there was brand Beckham. And that's why, you know, what happened with Inter Miami happened. That's, you know, he's, you know how Gordon Ramsay's built this amazing ecosystem around himself and this incredible brand. And like brand Gordon's just working all the time. They're obviously good mates.

35:45And it's the same with David. There's this constant brand just always working. How do you get an athlete into a position where when they stop doing the thing that they're famous for and well paid for and celebrated for, they remain relevant?

35:59Simon Bayliff: Really good question. I think it's a combination of things, right? I think that we stopped working with David towards the end of his Real Madrid time. And then he started working with Simon Fuller and Victoria's people, and they've done a brilliant job. And I would say that it's certainly down to a collection of things. One, you've got to stay relevant in the media. You've got to, whether that's now digitally relevant or it's traditional media, you've got to stay relevant. but also I think that extending your business influence and your business tentacles into projects that strike a real interest in you, whether it's investing in a sector, investing in a brand, I guess the Miami example is an extreme but brilliant example, but there are lots of micro versions of that.

36:51Simon Bayliff: Andy Murray with Castor, there's other ways you can build a business. I think that a lot of the time athletes think that when they get to that level that oh I'm just going to produce my own range of clothes and they'll sell it just doesn't work so does a good deal then for a modern athlete look more like an Andy Murray type deal where there's already an established business they're going to deal with all of the nasty business building stuff you give your brand equity to them in return for actual equity and it might not pay out on day one but you will have 5, 10, 15, 20 percent of the overall business yeah those are the exciting deals i think so de-risks it a lot yeah for the athlete but also if the athlete's got the appetite and i'd always encourage this don't just write a check don't just write a check for a business like get involved like understand how the brand works understand how the brand wants to grow understand what their objectives are and actually there may be areas where you can offer other value apart from just financial Get in and motivate the team, understand their marketing plan.

38:01Simon Bayliff: Get involved and learn because then from there, there are other offshoots of ideas that you can use and grow as part of your own ecosystem. Can we talk about an athlete that I think should be a much bigger brand than he is, Anthony Joshua? And I don't know how involved you get in boxing, but we were talking before today, me and the team, the name Anthony Joshua came up. And I wonder whether it might be him, might be someone else, whether there's an athlete you look at and think, man, I wish I could get my hands on that athlete because I know that I could do something incredible with that person.

38:31Simon Bayliff: Yeah, but I think that I don't disagree. I think Andy Joshua is an incredible athlete. I mean, what a specimen. Look at him. He ticks a lot of marketing boxes, for sure. Looks great, both physically and very eloquent in what he does. When I saw him come out at the Olympics, I thought, wow, he's going to be an absolute world beater and he's going to be a world beater for a number of years. And it depends on how you measure success, right? Because I think he'd probably sit here and say, yeah, I think I've been successful in what I've done. Has he been as successful as he could have been or where his potential was tracking to?

39:08Simon Bayliff: And I'm not a boxing aficionado, but I certainly am passionate about athletes and brands and what have you. And I do think that he could have been even bigger. And he is, I don't get me wrong, he's big, but he could have been another level above where he is now. And what do you think could have got him to that point? Well, as I said earlier, I think fundamentally, the foundations are about performance. And you get found out when performance drops. And he's got a good team around him. And I think that had the performances stayed consistent and a couple of those key losses hadn't come when they did, and to the people that he lost to, I think he would have just gone on a flight path to the stars.

39:52Simon Bayliff: but the athlete is at the centre of it and if they don't get that right on the court, on the field, in the ring, on the track then there's not a great deal you can do really and I think he had to have kept going kept winning, not losing and I think that would have then taken him to the next level I agree with you, I think the reason for us having this conversation is probably what's happened in the ring rather than outside the ring I think actually outside the ring they've got it right but I guess one of the hard things for you is you work with an athlete or you meet an athlete when they're 20, 21 they're at the beginning of their career and of course they'll be fully focused on the game or the sport or whatever it is they do to a great level but as they get more famous as they get more traction I mean you must have seen it where the eyes just fall away from the prize and I wonder whether that's the difference between the great and the legendary is that the legendary never take their eyes off the prize Yeah, I totally agree I totally agree.

40:51Simon Bayliff: It's that just relentless pursuit of excellence every day in every moment that I see as something that is consistent with the greatest, certainly the ones I've been privileged to work with. And I just think they never, ever ease back. They just like, yeah, fine, stick it in the trophy cabinet. What's the next thing? What's the next thing? What's the next thing? And it's hard as well. when you look at what's happened around AJ in the sense that the opportunities, like the Saudi, I mean, it's eye-watering amounts of money. So it's not like we were talking earlier about the deal that's come in that was like, you know, a million pounds.

41:32Simon Bayliff: Do we want to do it for David? Well, no, it's not a right fit. When somebody's offering you, and I don't know the numbers, but somebody's offering you that reported amounts of money, like it's that's just takes finance off off the table completely and you'd hope that then you trust the athlete to be able to have laser focus to still keep doing what they're doing and i think that's probably where it's where the lines have got a bit blurred boxing it's particularly easy to blur those lines i think because of how much of it's an entertainment event as well as a sports event so we had a guy called frank smith you also heard of frank yeah you know the ceo of matchroom boxing and he came on the show and he was we were talking about um the fight with Jake Paul or Logan Paul, I never know.

42:13Yeah, Jake Paul. It's about the fight with Jake Paul. And I said, like, everyone's just saying this is like a joke for him. And Frank's take, which is a perfectly legitimate one, he said, well, hold on, he's been given a bag full of money to do the job that he does against a guy who can't do the job anything like the level that he can. So you're basically going, there's a load of money, go and just get the job done and do it quickly. Like, who wouldn't say yes to that? and actually the conversation we've just had for the last hour I think maybe, I wonder whether you would have had a different approach to that actually and it's not, the last thing he needs is another bag full of money what he needs is maybe something more credible

42:50Simon Bayliff: Yeah I think so, I think a lot of it is about timing right because I think that certainly would he have taken that opportunity five or six years ago when he was absolutely in his pomp I think he wouldn't have even considered it and I wouldn't have advised him considering it either that's for sure because again make the right performance decisions and the money comes after it will come totally if you're good enough and he clearly was good enough so I think there was a timing thing for sure but yeah I think it's it was it was madness on both sides somebody could have killed him which was absolutely crazy and the damage he did do bloody hell so even now you wouldn't have advised AJ to do that at this point in his career no I don't think so why not I look at it and putting the money aside clearly Zern had already a lot of money yeah so putting the money aside what does he gain out of it does it does it move his brand forward no does it change any brand essence to around aj no i don't think it does if anything it maybe even takes him a fraction back and actually dilutes it in my view and i look at it and i go oh you kind of lost that real polish and that real shine yeah great word aura for me anyway and I'd say well why would you why would you why would you do that I don't know why you'd do that and again I don't know what his financial circumstances are so there's probably a big part of that that was that but if you if you can divorce from the money because he's already done a lot then I would have said yeah that's not sure in terms of just your brand that's not going to help your brand can't help with the financial discussion that's separate but in terms of your brand I think it would actually put a dink dink in it for sure on the flip side and suddenly you're not allowed to talk about one of the athletes you work with here right I would like to know who outside of your stable you look at and think they are just getting it right in the modern era who is nailing it at the moment do you think yeah Lindsay Vaughn interesting that is a really that is a really interesting shout because I've seen her she's already back in the gym like doing leg presses on a broken leg I know so why is that so good for her brand then?

45:00Simon Bayliff: I just think, I'm a big fan, I've a big, big admire of hers for a long time and she, like, literally in spades nails the performance piece, right? She's the goat. Absolutely superb. But also, from a marketing perspective, all the obvious things she nails. Smart, eloquent, good looking, all of those things, the obvious stuff. But also, I just think she's like so, authentic really really authentic and i think that much like like cav has that as well like that authenticity that you feel like you could go to the pub and sit and chat to her and just it'd be like a normal conversation she's not like a multiple world champion olympic champion etc and and she also has what i really love about how she positions herself and her brand is that she is she's evolved as the industry has evolved and it's become more digital first she's evolved and so like her her social output is superb her brands and her partners you can see that they're really really embedded in in her journey and i look at it and think yeah she's she's nailing it absolutely nailing it and you know credit to her and her people i love that you shouted her out actually, because I think that, again, lots of people wouldn't have known her name before the last few months because they weren't into skiing.

46:26She's now transcended skiing by proving herself to be just a kind of a superhuman, by almost in the maddest of ways trying to do what she did at the Winter Olympics. But that's a story for the ages now. That's the documentary in five years' time. That's a Netflix deal. Totally agree. That's like, there's your future.

46:45Simon Bayliff: Totally agree. Mapped out. Yeah, totally agree. Who do you think? I'm not going to be able to say anyone as good as you can't say any Norwich players as Lindsay Vonn well not Josh Sargent that's for sure who do I think is nailing it at the moment I think I want to I think Max Verstappen but only because I think it's Max Verstappen right because he's almost refused to get carried away with the way that a modern athlete can be like he doesn't want to do social media videos he's not going to go to the premiere of F1 the movie because he's already busy enough and every other driver turns up and he's like well why do I want to go to that I'm not getting paid and I want to be with my family the new cars come out for the start of the new F1 season and people don't understand there's huge pressure on those drivers to say the right thing to protect the sport and the image of the sport and then we'll be people saying come on just ease off a bit and he's just being really honest he just says i'm not sure i want to be in the sport forever you know it's not necessarily that he stands out in terms of he's creating a brand that has loads of value like it's probably a harder job for someone like you because he's not necessarily playing the game yeah but i think max a bit like lindsey von has total authenticity like i think what he says is what he believes yeah there's no bs with him yeah it's that dutch the dutch abruptness isn't it absolutely the Dutch abruptness but also I think it gives you in a world where so much of your freedom is stripped away because you're a famous athlete I think it gives you it's crazy tell me about that I'm so interested because I obviously knew Daniel when he was first coming through in F1 loved him at Red Bull I thought potential he'll be on my list of who you think could have been yeah who you think could have been what happened so I got I got introduced to Daniel through Lewis's lawyer who called me one day and said look, I've got this guy who's in Formula One, needs help building his brand, sorting himself out commercially and I think you're the perfect fit for him.

48:54Simon Bayliff: Would you be interested? And I said, yeah. I mean, what I know about Formula One, you can write right on the side of a stamp. But I'm also very nimble and I can learn fast like I did in cycling and in other the sports I worked in. And so, yeah, met Daniel. That went really well. And he bought into, like, my thinking of how we can help him. In a very challenging and rights-restricted sport, very, very tricky to do that with an athlete. But it's fundamentally dependent on performance more than anything else. And so we started working together. Really, I think he is unbelievable. Like just a brilliant, brilliant character.

49:40He's in my top five favourite sports people I've ever met and worked with.

49:43Simon Bayliff: Yeah. As a guy. I totally agree. I totally agree. I totally agree. Just everything you'd want in an athlete. What era was this when you worked with him? So it was the last six. So he went to, he was with CAA for the last kind of two or three seasons. So it's like the five or six years before that, basically. Was he at Red Bull? He was at Red Bull. So he'd just gone to Red Bull. Right. Just gone to Red Bull. And, yeah, it was interesting because there were lots of cultural challenges because I was seen as an outsider to Red Bull, which is fine. I quite like that. How did you deal with that? Like I always do, just graft.

50:22Simon Bayliff: Just graft and just let my actions, you know, do the talking for me and did the deal, did the work. And eventually they realised that I was going to be around and was credible. I may not be from the F1 family or have a wealthy father that was in the sport, but they knew I was credible and actually took a deal to the team, did a team deal for them, which they were grateful for. And so, yeah, I had to swim up current for a while, to be honest with you. And my team were the same. You know, we were armchair Formula One fans, really. and Daniel was really interesting because he's super talented brilliant personality the team were over leveraging him massively because it was the time when Max and him were together and Max was like no I'm not doing it Daniel was like yeah sure I'll do it and one of the things I had to teach him very early on is the power of saying no it's okay to say no if you don't say no people don't value you which the team wouldn't like yes because he was valuable because he said yes and I think there was a period of discomfort from him where he was like really?

51:37Simon Bayliff: I'm not sure I should be saying no listen you have to take a position on it at some point and otherwise they're just going to keep coming at you and keep coming at you and why does that increase his value? because I think that scarcity increases value and if the team don't know they've got carte blanche you know open feeding on Daniel's time they now have got this they now come to him with opportunities that are actually worth his time. And he learned that pretty quickly. And I just always felt with him, super talented driver, right? Super talented. I always felt he was fighting the, like the max machine.

52:19And he never wanted to be number two at any point in time, which I get.

52:24Simon Bayliff: And his father was fairly influential in that as well. and he was really close to Daniel and they thought pretty strongly about not being in Max's shadow. Not that the team positioned it as that, but you could clearly see they thought that Max was the bright young star that was going to dominate for years to come. And so he just wasn't comfortable with it and felt he needed a new challenge. So Max wasn't like a contracted number one driver. No. But it was like Daniel just felt the energy in the team was behind Max. Yeah, I think it's the energy in the team. it's what's been communicated you know through people in the team and sometimes probably him manifesting it himself but fundamentally they were allowed to race each other and i think it you know max was offered x and daniel was offered y and he was like well don't think i'm that much different to him and yeah so he just decided that getting away and starting afresh was the was the way to go um i didn't agree with it i thought that um staying at the team uh was the right thing to do but i think he recognized that i was coming from a commercial brand perspective and the decision was fundamentally embedded in racing and race opportunity and so i risk i acknowledge that i'm not the one that can throw a huge amount of light into that space the thing is in some ways I have more respect for Daniel for making a sporting decision than a commercial decision.

53:53If he'd have gone to Renault and gone, well, I just want, I literally want to, because the criticism was he'd gone for the money, right? But what actually the reality that you're telling us is he went from a sporting perspective because he didn't want to be in the shadow of Max Verstappen.

54:07Simon Bayliff: And he thought this would allow him to... That's right. And the money, the levels they were at, like the money was de minimis, the difference. Right. So actually, it was all about the drive. really it was all about him being the star number one driver that's what he wanted and he wanted the attention he wanted the the resource you know put into him so at those levels like we're talking a few million here or there which i'm not being laissez-faire about but at that at that level it then is it's all about the drive for him so what went wrong i mean you're so you know better than And I do, Jay, but you're so dependent on the team, on the car.

54:46Simon Bayliff: There's so many other factors. I mean, it's the most individual team sport in the world, Formula One, I believe. And you're so reliant on so many things. And if all of those stars don't align, then you can fall well short of the performance that's required. And I think that they just never quite got the car right. And then it just starts going from there, really. and if you stop winning then inevitably the sport keeps moving forward right there's the next hot shot coming through it's Oscar Piastri it's whoever the next one is coming through and so you stand still in Formula One you're moving backwards so I think that that's what just inevitably started to started to happen really.

55:27In the way that you were you were able to kind of insulate and shield David from the challenges he had after his red card at the World Cup how did you try and insulate Daniel from the fact that performances were an issue?

55:41Simon Bayliff: I think he was really honest with himself. So he knew. He knew. So it was not like you were talking to him about things he didn't know well himself. And so I think, if anything, he was putting more pressure on himself than he was on, you know, than from anywhere else. He just knew. He was so driven. Forgive the pun, but he was so driven. and so determined to win that he was putting all of that on himself. But the most relaxed person I've ever met, I remember being in Austin and it was the night before the Grand Prix. And obviously, as you know, in qualifying, the drivers are trying to be as light as they possibly can.

56:28Simon Bayliff: And then in like 24 hours, they're trying to get as heavy as they possibly can for the downforce. and we agreed to go for some ribs in austin right and like daniel is like literally eating four mains we're then thinking um with my colleague jonathan with daniel and we were like oh it's 10 o 'clock he's probably gonna you know go to bed now and get rested up and then we're like finish this meal and he's like oh look my mate's playing in a band like down the road and we're like shouldn't you be you know no no it's all right mate it's all good let's just come pop and see him go down the road live band his mate has done maybe he's obviously playing guitar and singing in this band in this like sawdust you know on the floor bar in austin and he's there until like i don't know half 11 quarter to 12 and then just walks back to the hotel just casually uh and then obviously podiumed in Austin that year and I just like blew my mind just that's how he handled pressure just doing things that he really loved doing away from the sport It's great that you got the podium I just wonder whether if you'd have gone to bed at nine o 'clock could he have got first I just I wonder whether in the way that David Beckham never forgot about football first I wonder whether maybe Daniel had forgotten that the number one thing is the Yeah I think also yeah I mean it's a fair observation what he always what he was always consistent in his communication with us is that when he finished driving, he didn't want to be around the sport.

58:01Simon Bayliff: And he's shown that that's the truth. Yeah, I mean, literally, yeah, completely anonymous. I don't know what he's doing. He's building his brands and things like that. But he was very clear that he didn't want to become a commentator, didn't want to work in a team, didn't want to do commercial appearances. So, yeah, he was very clear about that and he's gone on to kind of do it. It's almost like it was a 100-mile-an-hour hobby rather than a job. But shame because he's just a brilliant, brilliant individual. And why was he such a marketing dream, Daniel? Because he was and is. Yeah, he is. Lots of reasons.

58:38Charm, smile, infectiousness, personal ability, sense of humour.

58:45Simon Bayliff: I just think, again, just always stayed relatable. to people. He was the one driver at that point in time that I genuinely felt any fan could feel they could just walk up to him and have a conversation. And they actually could because he's such a nice guy. Yeah, exactly. So it was authentic. It wasn't forced. And there was, you know, there was none of the BS around, you know, I'm a Formula One driver walking down the paddock, you know, and keeping people at bay. He was very much very approachable. And that's what made him so unique, really. I've loved this conversation it's so interesting like the life you've lived you know you get one life right do something with it that is enjoyable fills you with purpose just trying to make a difference really quietly in the background you've done all those things and it's so nice and very rare to get you to talk on camera about it thank you so I'm humbled to be on the show I appreciate it thank you so much good man yeah thank you that was great