From the Cheltenham Festival to the Mandarin Oriental: out and about in a week of sportsbiz

0:04Hello and welcome to another episode of the Leaders Sport Business Podcast, the podcast about leaders in sport from leaders in sport my name is james emmett i'm the editorial director here at leaders and i'm coming to you in a different way this week without my great good colleague david kushnan he is overseas um in india delivering uh helping to deliver our indian sports summit out in bangalore with uh the team at royal challenges bangalore i'm about to get on a plane myself to go to la to help deliver our Business of Soccer events. So there's something different this week for the podcast. Some bits and pieces from out and about in the sports industry over the course of the last week.

0:54A little bit later on in the podcast, we're going to be hearing from Laura McQueen, my colleague and the Leaders Managing Director, who was leading a session at our International Women's Day event on Tuesday. It wasn't actually International Women's Day on Tuesday, Tuesday, the 11th of March. We had about 50 people come down to the Mandarin Oriental in Hyde Park for a workshop focused on personal well-being but also on sustainable investment into women's sports. So we're going to be hearing from Laura a little bit later. Also hearing from one of the people that Laura was interviewing on stage, Liesl Jolly, who's the women's football lead at Visa.

1:53um but first um before we get into that we're going to be playing in a few bits and pieces from a trip that i made to the cheltenham festival earlier this week the festival is now four-day festival wrapping up today as i record on friday the 14th um but i was there on wednesday Cheltenham um Cheltenham is a four-day jump racing festival overseen by the jockey club the largest commercial entity in british horse racing Cheltenham very much the the sort of gold standard um the biggest jump racing event on the calendar it's something of an interregnum period at the jockey club they're kind of between permanent chief executives charlie boss manning the ship in before a permanent ceo is appointed um attendances are down a little bit year on year that's the certainly that's the mood music in the media but i have to say having been along on Wednesday.

3:07The atmosphere was terrific, actually, in terms of the space at Cheltenham itself. It's a much more comfortable experience. And I was lucky enough to have a little tour of the orchard, which is kind of like the sponsor village at Cheltenham Racecourse. Kerry Weeks, the director of partnerships at the jockey club um took me around pit lane style um to see what is one of the buzziest areas at the festival attendances might be slightly down but it looks like the hospitality areas at least are um thriving um so we're gonna hear a little package which includes um carry weeks um taking me around the sponsor area the orchard at cheltenham race Of course, we're going to be hearing from Katie Mabry, who's the head of brand partnerships at Debenhams, and Simon Jeffs, who is the founder of Brooklyn's Watch Company.

4:06But first of all, here is Kerry Weeks. All right, here we are at Cheltenham. I'm with Kerry Weeks. Kerry, what's your job title? I am director of partnership. We've got the beautiful sounds of the Guinness Village in the background. Beautiful, fashionable. Is that professional singer? absolutely and they're having great fun i think there's a lot of amateurs alongside they're always having a great time guinness obviously uh completely simpatico with the chandam festival right where are we carrie so we have just arrived in the orchard the orchard is kind of an area of of luxury brands have come together to create almost in its own destination and it's something that we started well actually it started back in 2018 and a group of us went to melbourne to check out the birdcage it's not a normal trek for the jockey club but actually it was something to be seen and it was all about how brands activated elevated the experience but very much within their own identity yeah and that's something that we've really tried to create here so many sponsorship things in uk sports seem to start in australia i was just talking to someone on the way here who's talking about the australian open tennis and how that is a complete festival for brands and they get it right they get it right yeah it is do you know what it's about really understanding we are in the entertainment business and it is fun and there's a feel-good factor i think when it comes to racing we are unbelievably lucky because yes you've got a busy schedule of racing yeah we've got 40 minutes of dwell time in between each race yes so you've got times for brands to be really truly engaged with it's not rushing at halftime to have to go and nip and go to the loo and get a pint and go and see your brand yeah it just happens very naturally so the orchard here is a um it's an activation area for um how many of your brand sponsors have you got sorry so we've got 30 sorry we've got 35 um partners here at chelton yeah and then we've got a handful of these partners here so we've got 10 partners within the orchard yeah and they bring their own experience and then collectively it's a bit of a destination we've got a dj in the middle there's a big screen there's betting and it's a real kind of social hub so it's great for people that might not necessarily be the kind of diehard racing fans.

6:14They might identify with one of these brands. And actually it almost makes racing a little bit more relevant. So that for me is absolutely key, is that through the brands we work with, they're bringing relevance into racing. And is it restricted access here or is it, this is for everyone, this is club level? It's club enclosure. Right. So anyone who's got hospitality, all our annual members, anyone who's bought a club enclosure ticket and then owners and trainers as well, they all have access to it. So we're now standing opposite the Debenhams Day Spa. Oh, I know. um activation we're looking at we're bizarrely we're looking ourselves in the mirror here i should have ironed my trousers i think before before okay you're wearing a lovely hat well actually i can say that i had my hair done in the devinham's day spa this morning so had you have complimented me on my hair i could have told you why yeah you've covered it up on that in a hat so uh just a topic just a topic um so in the day spa it's actually amazing activation these guys have been fantastic they're new for this year but it's giving ladies and gents yes the opportunity to come and have their hair touched up particularly if they've walked in from the car bark and it's you know been a bit windy yeah luckily not rainy this year it was snowing earlier well exactly and that affects that affects the hair um they come for likely looking ladies they are looking very chic some perfume um but then also you can have there's an array of perfumes you can have a quick sprit just to freshen up you can have your makeup you can have that a bit of a freshen up yeah they've got some great photo opportunities plenty of people in there it's very busy i'd say we're um we're maybe 40 minutes out from the first race and it is buzzing in here Oh, my goodness.

7:40Here we go. We're going into the Debenhams Spa area now. Okay, here we are inside the Debenhams Spa activation. What do you call this? Do you call this a chill-out zone? Do you call it a spa? This is our day spa, Debenhams Day Spa. This is your day spa. It's absolutely buzzing in here. It is. Predominantly women, but there are one or two men as well. Katie. Yes. Tell us about what goes on in here. So this is our Debenhams Day Spa. So we're welcoming our guests in today to get hair touch-ups, makeup touch-ups. we've got a self-serve station where you can do your own hair and we've also got a fragrance wall so you can have a little spritz have a drink with us or even use our photo booth yeah and you've been but this we're we're a day and a bit into Cheltenham uh was it busy yesterday it was busy yesterday it's been much busier today I feel like all the ladies are here today I think it's spreading that it's like oh my god I've just had my hair done yeah is it ladies day today it used to be style day style day is that what we call it style day now well that's a lot of crash my window in here today so yeah i think so yeah all right um and um you work for debnams right i do have okay um and what do you want to get out of the whole thing do you think so we just want people to know that we're still here obviously people still think that debnams is actually shut so it's just getting the message out that debnams is here we're back we're better than ever and we're online but obviously we're in we're in real life today so yeah just getting the message out that debnams is still here and what's your signature thing that you're offering is there a particular sort of hairstyle is there a sought after stylist is there a scent that everyone's after so we've got salon 64 one of our lovely brands here today so they're offering blow dries you know curls straight hair whatever you're after and we've got all our different fragrances from l 'oreal looks so yeah what's going on in here and have you had any winners winners absolutely not six out of six losses yesterday i'm afraid knock it on the head then yeah all right katie thank you very much Thank you so much.

9:26All right. Fabulous spot that. And actually, it's an oasis of calm in there. I think actually, within the racing day, you need an oasis of calm. It's very different from the Guinness Village. It's such an unusual thing. It's very different from the Guinness Village. Such an unusual thing to find at a sports event, to be honest. For us, it's actually, we know that we've got such a varied array of customers. It's about actually how are we enhancing each customer group. And this works fantastically well. It's, you know, you're coming to childhood and it's a long day. That's great. But, you know, gates are open at 10.30.

9:57Yeah. And then last race is probably about 5.20. Can I do that again? I'm so sorry. It is about 5.20. It's fun. Do you know if people know about this sort of stuff before they arrive? Yes. We've got a lot of information that goes on our auction page. It's on our website. We do a lot of kind of emails going out, campaigns around it. But actually, I think until people see it and hear about it from others, that's when it really comes to life. We've had ITV filming down here today as well. So then word gets out. It just gets more and more popular. And when you talk to these guys, when you chat to Katie in the wash up, how will you be trying to measure success for them?

10:31And footfall, will it be? It's an element of footfall. And actually, it'll be the conversation they've had. One thing I think we'll be looking at next year is, is there an opportunity to retail there? Because a lot of our other partners do really well from a retail perspective. But for them, this time, it's about enhancing the customer experience, getting those conversations going. What's Debenhams? How are we finding? What's the wider kind of appeal of Debenhams as it is now? how the changes have gone down and i think it's a goodwill factor yeah and it is very sort of we've just done a sort of his and hers guinness village it's predominantly a his uh debonham sparks predominantly a hers should we um should we keep walking should we keep walking so we've got bottle green now i've had a beautiful elder for our cordial from bottle green before i think they're the best they are the best so good so um shh shs have been long-term sponsors of ours yes um but this is the first time bottle green have activated within the orchard we've done a beautiful job they have got lanterns swinging down lots of greenery really bright bold colors and they're serving both alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails so really fun really fun vibe in there good stuff yeah good mix and when you when you do a partnership with a company like bottle green or the parent company of bottle green is it just a sort of partnership or do you are you able to put in kind of pouring rights and that kind of thing there's elements of that and actually what's great with um with shs's they've got multiple brands that we can activate with so actually wkd are fantastic with our student days that we do and they bring their double kd but the numbers for the student days are literally driving up exponentially at the moment it's fantastic so we do that um should we continue just going past security guard who looks a bit like jamie vardy the football player and then here's a lovely um apple tree yes so we are in the orchard there is a fullback to it and actually these higher now we're in the night they are actual real apple trees and they've stuck fake apples on oh okay yeah it's a half and half so this is night timber now night timber is this a sussex or a kent uh champagne growing i'm i live in brighton so night is a local um uh local company to me beautiful champagne you can't call it champagne beautiful sparkling wine english sparkling and And it is the very best.

12:38It's better to run. We've worked with these guys for a number of years and they have been fantastic partners. They bring their bus, which is their route master. They've got a double-decker bus, yeah. Which is nicely titled up as Cheltenham Festival so it knows where it's going. It drives down here. They've had some great footage of the drive along here. And they've been great partners. They activate at Epsom as well and across the group. So they are English sparkling. And one of their sort of... They've got a hashtag up there on their double-decker bus. Hashtag perfectly British. obviously one of their um brand values and that's sort of a bit of a jockey club uh brand value as well would you say we absolutely want to celebrate that as well right where should we go now i think now these guys is brickland's watch company they are again new for this year um and they have ferrated 100 watches using um golden miller's shoes yeah and they might be brilliant if we can grab a word with them okay great my name's simon jeffs um i set up brickland's watch company in 2017 and we launched our first product in September 2022 at a launch party um at Michelin house in Chelsea very nice um beautiful watches we can see them here in the would you call it a showroom there in the auction yeah it's kind of a I guess yeah a showroom or chalet yeah chalet yeah nice I mean tent no chalet it's definitely it's definitely yeah it's got glass and aluminium frames and it's a bit posher than a tent it's a bit posher than a tent yeah Simon you're not a watchmaker you've just revealed to me exclusively uh before we turn the mic on that you're actually a um an airline engine engineer aircraft engineer yeah yeah so um i'm trained in airframes and engines and i set up my own business in 1991 okay with a business partner um and we've been buying and dismantling aircraft engines for the last 30 years yeah and over the 30 years they've just got bigger and bigger yeah and now they are in the 70 000 pound thrust range um which and those engines are fitted to an airbus a330 so the sort of aircraft you get on to fly from heathrow to hong kong yeah that sort of okay big ones big big ones yeah um and so is it um quite a sort of short leap then from um dismantling uh aircraft engines to sort of dismantling tiny little pieces in a watch you know no well i mean the reason i got into watches was that um i i i had a sculpture made and it was because i'd bought a no a concord nose and visor assembly from brooklyn's museum trust yeah and it's such a beautiful piece um we asked sebastian conran to turn it into a sculpture which he did yeah and it's an absolutely stunning piece um and the whole process of design and manufacture i just it took seven years yeah but i i really enjoyed it and i thought i really want to make something i want to make something british i don't know what um and i just started thinking about it from then on yeah and then another sort of moment in time was when my uncle asked me to go to brooklands to watch his car being run yeah it's a 1930s car um it's capable of just under 150 miles an hour no seat belts no roll cage they were as brave as they come and i was so impressed with the technology i started looking around brooklyn's museum and actually paying attention as i hadn't before i just sort of skipped over stuff and i couldn't believe they were timing racing cars there to a thousandth of a second in 1907 and that's when the idea came that this would make a fabulous british watch brand because it's tremendous motor store and aviation heritage so i spoke to one of the directors they said great idea really love that idea run with it and the next stop was switzerland trying to look for mechanisms and um it sort of took off from there um fast forward then to i guess this year maybe last year when you're talking to the jockey club and you're making the decision to come on board as a partner talk us through the rationale now behind that okay so um it was interesting that the the the jockey club were interested in us um we were really pleased about that but i think they were looking to work with a british brand to make a special watch and i i think also the alliance of british watch and clockmakers recommended us probably because we are looking at making really beautiful and and high quality watches um yeah i think i think we major on really stunning designs and and and beautiful engineering and and finishing as well so um we were really pleased we weren't we we didn't know anything about horse racing um and then we started looking into the common heritage and from our perspective the common heritage started right from the early days when the guys started racing cars they were racing in racing silks and everything came from horse racing so that's why in motorsport you have a paddock and a clerk of the course and stewards and all these things that come from horse racing um but there was more to it than that and it was actually the jockey club were ahead of us they were focused on dorothy padgett being the owner of golden miller and and dorothy was quite a character who spent a lot of money at brooklyn's um she enabled the building of a five supercharged bentley she paid for all that um and because they weren't winning after a year she got bored and um i don't think she could bet the sort of money she wanted to either at brooklyn's so she came back to horse racing okay and that's when somebody said to her i've got two horses for you yeah insurance and golden miller um and i think her staff said well you know they look a bit like car horses i don't think they're going to do very well and sure enough they went on to tremendous success so golden miller is of course i think still uh i mean a horribly american word but the winningest uh gold cup uh horse right right so yeah one from five times in a row from 1932 to 1936 yes and then in 1934 just 17 days after winning here he won at the grand national yeah so the jockey club come to you you're um uh it's sort of a beautiful product uh proud british brand with a great story a great pedigree they've got this story right they've got this sort of storytelling proposition for you the golden miller thing and it's worth saying that um that obviously caught the imagination you decided to go in with them because you are selling a limited edition watch here um a hundred pieces um and it has some of the horseshoe from golden miller it does sort of baked into it i guess or designed into it um who comes to you with that idea was it carrie or how did that approach work um i think it was the the alliance spoke to us first and said that the jockey club will be interested in speaking to you um let's arrange a meeting with them in london yeah and that's what happened yeah so we went to london yeah and there were five people from the jockey club yeah and um they talked through the heritage they wanted to understand the models we'd made our first model was designed by sir terence conran and we were so fortunate that that to have such a an amazing designer get involved with us he got involved because his father used to go and watch the races at brooklyn's and his mother got so fed up with it she went to learn to fly at brooklyn's um but yeah i think it's basically the quality of our first piece um they we wanted to know whether we could meet their expectations can you produce a model in time for the cheltenland festival um and then the wild card was can you incorporate this racing shoe yeah and that was real real tricky yeah and so but they were helpful in the sense that they the problem went across to the trophy maker and he made um a special alloy from silver and the aluminium and then we supplied our drawings for our buckle and he's going to make the hundred buckles in that alloy fabulous so and so you're here um selling the whole range you know telling the brand story um howard says things are going quite well um first day not too bad in the afternoon certainly when people had some winners and exactly a little bit champagne in them um what do you want to get out of this what are the kind of objectives with your partnership with the truck is it as simple as um selling this limited edition watch no i think um i think it is i mean this this watch i think is going to sell quite quickly um it seems to be incredibly popular which is great news um but the audience here are they're used they're used to expensive watches and this isn't an expensive watch to them no the the cut you know the the general theme is is is them guessing how much the watch is and then over guessing the price by a long way and being pleasantly surprised that no actually this is watches priced at 6800 pounds yes there really is going to be only ever a hundred and um it does have that golden miller connection yeah um and but more importantly for us is raising um the profile of the brand yeah i mean it's fantastic to be involved with the jockey club and we've we've worked hard with this chalet and it looks absolutely stunning and you know the suppliers to the jockey club have been a major part in that but we're really proud of it and and we're feeling really happy to be here yeah and um you talked about the um the link between motorsport and racing obviously brooklyn's named after a motorsports hotspot you know the original track uh in the uk i think brooklyn's right um is this giving you a taste for kind of sports partnerships can you see a move into you know maybe some motorsports partnerships um we'd love to we've got a we've got a um a new model that's going to come out later in the year actually the final drawings arrived today for me to sign off from switzerland and the bezels are removable and they're track specific and you can time motor racing cars down to one mile an hour so as they if you were stood at silverstone and a car and your favorite driver came past you you start the stopwatch going and as he comes around And again, you stop it and it says he's just averaged 138 mile an hour on that lap.

23:43And you can tell whether he's on the pace or not. But it also reads across to horse racing. And they've already spoken about the Epsom Derby and the fact that the horses are averaging around about 35, 36 miles an hour. And you'll be able to have a bezel that you can put on your watch and you can tell how fast those horses are on that particular day, which is a really nice feature to have. So hopefully there'll be something there for us to do. And what about you, Simon? Final question. You're obviously here on the floor in the chalet now. Do you sell the watches yourself? I do. Very good. What's it like selling a luxury product at a sports event?

24:22I can't get my head around it. Is it a different experience? Yeah, it is a very different experience. Actually, most of the people that come in here, this isn't a big buy for them at all. yeah it's just what's the story are they going to be just a hundred i think this is going to be worth a lot more money yeah yeah then you're selling it for in the secondary market because people aren't going to be able to get hold of them yeah that's the general thread and you know a lot of them have got five patek philippes you know this is nothing to them and um they really love it so you're going to be here on the shallow floor for most of it are you um are you watching the racing you are you whining and dining people what does the week look like for you so um yeah we've just had a lunch with um around about 10 guests which is nice uh nice to be able to invite them out here yeah to see what we're up to and do you get a box as well what's the um no we don't get a box so we're just here at the chalet and they've got tickets um to come to this area and to see the racing and and in terms of us getting involved in the racing we've just been um you know downloading an app and having a few little bets and you've got your i can see every chalet has got at least one tv and so you can at least uh yeah people can come in and watch so i've never watched a horse race from start to finish which i did yesterday and i really enjoyed it because i'd got a bet on the horse that was in third place and he moved up into second and it was great it was really good to watch yeah so we we're doing a lot more of that yeah we're being a bit cheeky because we're looking at people thinking, I think he's a jockey.

25:57Are you going to ask him? Yeah, very well. You've got to get your information. The horse racing is all that information, like how valuable is your information? Yeah, Simon Jeffs, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Right, just coming out of Brooklands now, beautiful watches in there. They've got 100 of these limited edition Jockey Club watches. Yes. And 39 of them accounted for already. Amazing. I think that's the thing. is because there's that interest in terms of golden miller's shoe yeah and you've got you've got a fan base here who are hugely passionate particularly when it comes to racing they want to have something that no one else is going to have a very limited number of people are going to have so yeah there's there's huge demand and yeah i really hope it's successful i think it's looking like they're on track to sell out by the end of the week yeah fingers crossed and howard the um the lovely man in there was telling me that they retail for around about 6 500 500 which is cheap when it comes to uh luxury they're beautifully made i really like the back of them how they're all so clear and you can see oh yeah and everyone's got i'm not a watch and everyone's got the individual number on but he was saying yesterday was actually a really good day obviously 39 accounted for they went on sale yesterday first day of cheltenham um also online um and he said morning was slow but once people started winning a few races drinking a bit of champagne and do you know what i really like and it's what's really special it's a relationship that all the partners and i'm i'm pointing from one partner to the other right now but the the relationship they all build with each other and actually how they work together and you know the guys from boodles will give we're giving the brooklyn guys tips in terms of what they should be looking for how they should be approaching conversations yeah you know when when it's kind of peak selling time when actually it's time to close up early because it's a long day selling a luxury item at a sports event is a it's a it's a trick it's a challenge i'm not sure i mean never sold anything in my life i definitely wouldn't be able to would you be able to do that carrie no i don't do you know what's great for the teams that come here they're able to kind of watch the race and they're able to engage with their customers and ask them how their day's going what's going on yeah and all of a sudden they're into a natural conversation yeah and lo and behold they've sold a diamond necklace yeah i don't know if it's that simple but it certainly seems to be should we go talking diamonds should we go into should we go into boodles yes and this is a very special luxury jeweler yes they are one of our founding partners when it comes to being in the orchard yeah um they they they joined us when we weren't actually an orchard as such we were just a kind of a strip yeah um and they've been fantastic and actually what's brilliant here is when they very much first came on board as a sponsor and not activating at purely of the leading jockey um they dip their toe and each year we've been able to prove success in various different kind of factors that have made them to grow and grow and actually you can see the size of their show showroom has grown as well as the sponsorship they take and they're now sponsoring all this the pinnacle of jump racing yeah the buddhist world cup yeah it's called the buddhist gold cup now is it it is indeed wow i didn't know that and this is actually their fourth year sponsoring we've had a large renewal with them last year yeah and uh so gallop on the champ that's going for the kind of magic three-timer, which is kind of in history, only a handful of horses have achieved.

29:01Yeah, yeah, fantastic. And yeah, they've got plenty of product here. Do you know what? I don't see many security guards around here. They're very deceiving. These guys have eyes in the back of their heads, I can assure you. No, they're a really good team. Obviously, the first race kicked off, so it's just a little bit quiet. So you can actually see how it's all beautifully laid out. They're all about celebrating 25 years of the rain dance collection this year. and also kind of pink diamonds it's very sparkly in here and this must be a particularly satisfying partnership for you guys at the jockey club to have a sort of um luxury brand like boodles uh come in and then grow and grow their partnership taking on a race sponsorship as well obviously there's a conversation around gambling sponsorship it's nice to have a prestigious race that is sponsored by something other than a gambling company you know yeah we're incredibly lucky here particularly at Cheltenham and across the jockey club you know if you look at the partners we've got here today even just standing now we're looking at astin martin yeah we've got guinness to our left we've got ryanair sponsoring the feature race tomorrow yeah you know it's a broad spectrum of partners and that's i think we really recognize there is something for everyone when you go racing and we're not trying to be something that we're not we just want to appeal to our audience and that's how we're very lucky we can segment our audience in such a way and what do you do carrie on a um on a race day do you do do you do the rounds i literally i put in the steps and I'm really lucky we've got the most amazing team across the Jockey Club and our team all come together from other race courses and sports each other particularly for our major events which is really special to see um and I do a lot of kind of hopping around seeing stakeholders meeting partners yeah and actually it's amazing I've now got time to kind of get some really good feedback and bounce some ideas off each other um and hopefully meet some new partners along the way well that's the thing do you do sort of prospecting when you're here you bring potential partners in you do them you do them the tour because the reality is until you see it yeah and you feel the atmosphere and you understand how the flow works yeah you can't really imagine your you know your brand in such a place until you see it it's very tricky isn't it like to imagine this place we're we're essentially around the back of a race course here when you're showing people this on a non-race day it may just be a field right or you know i mean you have to sell you are yeah you're trying to hook in on the imagination but no we thought of brilliant the guys have done a fantastic job tomorrow we've got um a box of prospects and we are giving them the full experience so a trip up to the helipad in the aston martins yeah they'll be there they'll be having bacon brunch but with some of the best jockeys that have ever been around this course giving them their tips giving them their insights and actually insights of them as athletes insights in terms of the dedication the miles they do what it means in terms of the access that partners can have and what's amazing is a lot of the sports men and women within our within our sport they are so proud and happy and obliging to work with partners and they want to talk more to them they give so much access um so we're lucky that when we do have a day when we're doing prospects that they'll come they'll get stuck in um but then we also want to do the other side we want to you know get get get the box tipping enjoy hopefully a few winners along the way and give them fantastic hospitality so we've got some really good um good days lined up for our prospects and what about i mean we've spoken to a few of the folks around the village spoken to um katie and debnum spa spoken to simon at brooklyn's um probably um and um they all seem happy they all seem pleased um obviously we're here at cheltenham numbers are down on last year overall and there is this general trend i mean the experience is amazing like it definitely feels where the focus is this year is all about customer experience so we have we have left no stone unturned whether or not it's down the car parking there's 17 football pictures of new trackway that has been laid for this for this festival yeah or actually is it about upping the festival elements so we've got little pop-ups of different bands coming and playing throughout the day really elevating that festival experience there are scratch cards being given away with kind of chances to win a pint of guinness or a pint of lager wayfinding has been improved the general stewarding and also kind of just the kind of the race makers again just elevating everything and making people's experience even easier even better yeah um and i think the site looks fantastic and everyone you speak to is having a brilliant the changes we've made the race program have also you know we've got some really competitive handicaps with record numbers so that's fantastic yeah um it's yeah it's about the customer experience and actually i know that anecdotally partners here have had their best ever tuesday in terms of sales yeah so if people are coming they know they're here and they're engaging with the merle it's fantastic did you win the race the race is just the first race has just gone off yeah can i just say i also definitely noticed you trailing off no i don't know oh i didn't win no oh well you've got to lose more than you win in order to really say that is another win for the brits or so and this is the new lion yeah so this is a big thing this year last year we got an absolute hosing from the irish yeah and i think it's now five three to the brits this year so you've got a bit of a comeback that's the thing about chelden there's there's definitely this um this sort of um britain versus ireland thing going on yeah do you find that translates itself into sort of the partnerships as well you deal with i mean ryanair i guess is an irish owned but actually people generally about 33 percent of people coming over from ireland which is fantastic so i think that elevates in terms of the atmosphere and actually our partners want to tap into an irish audience it fits them really really really well yeah um so no i think it's it's fantastic so there we are that was Cheltenham this week's Style Day on the Wednesday a little bit of atmosphere out and about around the course my thanks to Kerry Weeks the Director of Partnerships at the Jockey Club Katie Mabry Head of Brand Partnerships at Debenhams Simon Jeffs the founder of Brooklyn's Watch Company also to Anna Chanduvi the CCO at the Jockey Club and to Charlie Boss the interim CEO now as advertised we're going to be hearing from Laura McQueen and Liesel Jolly the women's football lead at Visa from the International Women's Day think tank an annual event an annual gathering that we held this year at the Mandarin Oriental in Hyde Park in Hyde Park a lovely venue um laura was helming a panel discussion on sustainable investment into women's sport and she was always there also there to announce and launch a new initiative that we are running this year the be the lead initiative so i will hand it over now to laura mcqueen okay laura mcqueen md of leaders how are you doing i'm good thank you well i'm particularly good because i'm feeling very mindful oh well yes me too obviously we're in the middle of a mindful lunch or is it a mindfulness lunch did you no it's a mindful lunch i think did you participate in the mindfulness exercise no what was the mindful oh you're not here for that no i don't think so i think so we're at the mandarin oriental high park london beautiful hotel yes um but you know all the flowers the bouquets on each table here are they real do you think they're beautiful and they are real have you tested that yeah they are real aren't they oh that one behind you actually oh yeah no that's real um but it is a beautiful hotel it's dressed beautifully we're here for our annual sort of um international women's day event which we've been doing for all my best part 10 years really since women have existed well not quite don't think we can claim that um but yeah no we're excited to be here we've had a morning of discussion but i'm mindful because they brought in them mindful mindfulness coach yeah yeah i think it was a transformational coach right um and she did a little exercise to get us started for the day oh you know i was here for that they're like touching your arms and activating your whole body and your mind yeah being grounded And I actually did feel good about it after a stressful train journey.

37:05I don't like to shut my eyes in an environment where there are lots of people. I don't think we should dig too deeply into that, Dave, and what's behind that. It's not a therapy session, is it? Okay, no. No. So here we are for, well, at the end of our International Women's Day think tank. As you said, we've been running something on this day for the last 10 or so years. you up here earlier with a few representatives from the women's sports sponsorship space talking about sustainable investment um how did it go anything that struck you in particular any uh any any key takeaways well i really enjoyed the discussion i'm always a bit conscious of it the fact that we were talking about women's sport yeah on international women's day i do know that sometimes can be perceived as a bit yes right that wasn't the intention it was more that we have been running a series of conversations around women's sport and this was part of that um ongoing discussion but what's happening today so we were really lucky we had lisa from visa and we had lou from cadbury and then we had laura who's in the marketing team here at the mandarin oriental group which is interesting because it's a different audience different fan base as they call it um But similar concept, right, about how to attract new fans, how to build a sustainable approach to a long term growth opportunity.

38:28And the things that I took away, we started the conversation by saying that we don't need to convince anyone in this room that this is an opportunity. So let's just take that as read. And what I particularly took away was that the brand's willingness to, well, the sponsor's willingness to genuinely participate in a collaborative approach to how they're activating women's sports sponsorship. So Visa talking specifically about what they're asked of in the run-ups of the women's Euros, like how they can practically demonstrate ROI internally by really leveraging the assets that the women's game has in football.

39:06But that's true of multiple sports. And Lisa was speaking specifically about sort of trying to really think about the incremental opportunities to demonstrate value and to drive value. and obviously that centers a lot back to the athletes um and specifically women's athletes having a voice in that and being authentic and I don't want to use the word but it is true and there was a lot of discussion around that but I particularly valued was it was one step deeper than some of those conversations I've heard before I I might say that because I was in the conversation but I think it's very easy for us to talk about what the opportunity is and how we should be really authentic and how well not we but the right side should be really authentic with it but actually they were really clear and concise in what they wanted to see and a lot of that was about being intentional about being brave about encouraging athletes to have a voice about actually how can they do that demonstrably day-to-day over the course of this year which is obviously a big year for women's sport and so i'm hoping everyone in the room really took away something tangible that they could then think about in their own world um we're going to hear from Liesl Jolly who is one of the speakers Liesl um is the um women's football lead in the visa sponsorship team we're going to hear her coming up on the podcast um shortly um something that struck me from the conversation that you had um was and again it's around this authenticity thing But the panelists kind of unpacked a little bit about what they meant by authenticity.

40:38And I think there is something going for women sports sponsors at the moment because at the top level, at least, women athletes are able to bring their, for whatever reason, they're able to bring their authentic selves to sponsorship campaigns in ways that male athletes are not accustomed to. team so I can't remember who it was was Laura or Liesel was talking about how women's athletes particularly women's footballers have been encouraged to think of themselves as ambassadors for their sport ambassadors for their club their country but also to be ambassadors for women in every kind of campaign that they do and as a consequence they show up as their whole selves for campaigns, you know, not just the athlete, the person as well.

41:34Which is a nice sort of view of what authentic means in a sponsorship campaign. I also thought it was very interesting that both Visa and Cadbury's Mondelez representatives talked about the process of either transferring rights that they have from the men's game into women's as and when it makes sense, but also kind of flexible relationships that they have with rights holders where they're able to take extra inventory for no cost as and when it becomes available particularly visa with their long-standing relationship with UEFA and actually it got me thinking because Lisa referenced the pretty seismic thing that UEFA did just before they signed visa in 2018 they span out the rights they unbundled the women's rights which actually happened at leaders that was the visa uefa unbundling conversation happened at leaders in 2018 and we were running our xx series yes a precursor to the diversity series yeah started as the game changers over 10 years ago became the xx series and that's where the unbundling conversation happened and then it was diversity series and now laura it's something else we've got a new name so um yes what a segue yeah that was that was an excellent segue i'm still getting my mind around it but we are really really thrilled and excited to launch the be the lead program and initiative which will replace and be the new era of what has historically been our diversity series over the last six years prior to that as you say we had the xx series which we partnered with uefa to have those think tank conversations a bit like we're having this morning about the value for partners and sponsors and how that could be of most value and actually that was we're not claiming the credit i am yeah i mean you don't have to but i'm not claiming the credit but i'm certainly saying that we helped facilitate conversation where that discussion around what was the research demonstrating in terms of having rights bundled together or not bundled together and i really remember visa getting that deal yeah and it being a massive thing that they had won that won those rights versus i think it's mastercard have i got that right yeah um so anyway fast forward we then rightly in my opinion put women's sport and the commercialization the commercial growth of women's sport on the main stage at leaders um at our events throughout the the world and actually looked at trying to drive inclusivity in terms of growing group of women in sport and black excellence community in sport and reaching those underrepresented people who wanted to work in the industry, wanted to have a pathway in the industry, but hadn't yet had it.

44:15And over that time, we reached over 2 ,000 individuals who hadn't otherwise been a part of the professional sports industry in that way and came to one of our events or experienced one of our skills programs or was part of that journey. Jovan, who leads that series, and I were discussing at the end of last year and thinking, how do we drive that forward? How do we move it into the new era? And that is now for us about integrating those communities of individuals into our established and existing calendar of events, whilst also enabling that access to be extended. So we are committed to offering over 300 places at leaders events throughout the course of 2025 to those communities with no cost or barrier to entry.

45:00But we will be intentional and determined to work with our partners and our audiences to integrate the conversation around inclusivity and sports across our programs. So that's in a nutshell. We're announcing that initiative today. We will be sharing more and asking people really to help us spread the word in terms of getting that opportunity in front of people across the globe so that we can continue to use leaders as a platform to drive that conversation. Yeah. So the new series is called Be the Lead. It's an exhortation to the industry, to those 2 ,000 and some people to stand up and be counted, to take the lead.

45:39It's a commitment from us to be the lead in this space as well. And yeah, let's see how it goes. Let's go, yeah. Let's see how it goes. Laura, let's go and have some lunch and let's hear from Liesl Jolly from Visa. Liesl Jolly, thank you very much for joining us. you are the women's football lead in the sponsorship department at Visa. Tell us what you cover within that role. So my role is looking after all of our different women's football activations across Europe. I manage the relationship with UEFA and all of the properties and events that fall under that partnership with UEFA women's football.

46:20I also manage our team visa player program so that's the roster of football female footballers that we that we partner with across Europe and then finally I co-created the second half program so I look at how we can evolve that program outside of UK into other markets and how we support players that join the program which is around the developing their their career pathways and how we support them off the pitch great is that Kaylee Greaves still at UEFA she's still there yeah is she still managing the women's program yeah she is but she's sort of yeah you know a bit more yeah yeah she's she's doing all of the marketing but we don't necessarily speak to her as much day-to-day anymore okay um so you're here with us at leaders for our international women's day event here at the mandarin oriental hotel the plush hotel here in central london you're up on stage earlier in a session that was about well there's about lots of things really but i think the central thrust of it was sustainable investment into sport from a sponsorship angle, really.

47:25These are obviously a very visible and now long-term supporter of women's sport and women's football in particular. You mentioned a white paper that you guys put together and released towards the end of last year. Tell us a little bit about that. What were the headlines from that? So that was something that we felt really passionately about. It was really important to pull together about demonstrating that supporting women's football in this case, but I think you could take all of those learnings to other women's sports, that it's not sort of purpose-led only anymore, that there are a lot of benefits from a commercial perspective.

48:03So commercial and purpose are not mutually exclusive. But some of them, from my perspective, the most interesting points that came out of it were the pain points for women's football fans. And I guess how those are barriers to either becoming a fan or kind of taking that fandom to the next level. And the first one was probably not surprisingly around the kind of limited access to games on broadcast. So I think there's a real opportunity for more brands to do more in that space, partnering with broadcasters making sure we signpost to fans how and where they can watch games so not just about buying tickets to go to watch matches in in stadia but also how they're watching on tv or online just to just to um i'm gonna say something awful now just to double click on that um you did talk about how you guys have worked with the zone in order to try and um make what they've got to offer a bit more visible to a few more people can you tell us a bit about how you have done that.

49:06Is it a case of sort of partnering with DAZN in order to make things free to air a bit more? Or is it a case of marketing campaign to drive people back to DAZN? Tell us a bit. So their coverage of the Women's Champions League was already free to air. But what we did was work with them to create a more accessible viewing experience for fans. So a bit more kind of community led. And what that looked like was the creation of an online fan zone. So alongside the broadcast of the game, so from quarterfinals onwards last season, there was also this fan zone experience. So enabling fans to communicate with each other in a safe environment.

49:45And part of that was led around a campaign we were running, which was to help tackle some of the online negativity. So it was about driving more positivity around the women's game across social. There was a real, again, probably not surprisingly, but for a lot of fans, there was a lack of knowing other fans. So they didn't have enough people to share their passion with. And what we found was that when people do have others who share their passion, the strength of the passion doubled. So I think this is another opportunity for brands, for broadcasters other people involved in women's football and and again i'm sure this translates into for other women's sports as well there's an opportunity to provide provide examples or instances for women's football fans to get together yeah whether that is in person with watch parties and and find giving them a safe environment to connect with each other and meet other women's football fans or whether that is online like we did with the zone with the fan zone experience.

50:48Yeah, passion enablers almost. Yes, very good. Something that did strike me, and I mentioned it very briefly just there, was the stat that you had that 53 % of women's football fans have only been fans for a period of three years or less. Yeah. And that comes with a lot of implications that we might not necessarily think about first. Can you say a bit more about that? Yeah, I think it does come with implications, but it does obviously also provide a lot of opportunities because there's a lot of people who are ready to be engaged and maybe just need help with that signposting that we talked about earlier.

51:24They might not know how they buy tickets or where they buy tickets. They might not know where to go and watch some of their favorite players. They might not know where to watch it on TV or online. So we've all got a job to do to help sort of promote the visibility and signpost to them. And it gives us a really exciting opportunity to communicate to a brand new audience, a brand new audience that are kind of there and ready to be tapped up. And finally, Liesl, it seems like we've got a really exciting year, year and a half, two years of women's sport coming up across lots of different sports. What's on the horizon for you and for Visa and what are you excited about?

52:05I mean, obviously, very exciting year this year with both the Women's Champions League coming up, the knockout stages starting very soon, but also the UEFA Women's Euros this summer in Switzerland. So really excited to see how the growth of the game will show up this summer. I'm sure there'll be lots of records broken compared to the Women's Euro in 22 in England. So that's really what I'm excited about, seeing more fans come on board, more fans supporting the players and more brands coming on board and hopefully seeing it as a catalyst to invest more in the future. Lisa Jolly, thank you very much indeed Thank you