How many franchise-based series can sport handle? Should teams and athlete be writing newsletters?

0:03Hello and welcome to the Leaders Worth Knowing podcast, the sports industry show from leaders where we talk about what's worth knowing in the business of sport this week.

0:13James Emmett:I'm the editorial director around here and my name's James Emmett.

0:16David Cushnan:And hello, I'm David Cushnan, content director on the show this week inside the Guardian's digital connection and monetisation model and what can be applied to sport. Why is everyone starting a sports league? And time for a swap as FIFA goes big with fanatics, ending its Panini era. This is leaders worth knowing. I don't like us doing it like that. Hello, James. Hello, David. How are you? Well, as you can hear, I'm a bit coldy, actually. Yeah, I thought you started a bit low. I wondered where you were going to go with that intro. That's just my current status. Yes. Well, it's busy, isn't it? You're living life at 100 miles an hour, burning the candle at both ends.

0:56I'm living la vida loca.

0:57David Cushnan:Are you? What's that mean? I just got kids. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah. How are you, David? Yes, I'm well, thanks. Lots going on, lots going on at Leaders, lots going on in the industry, the sports industry, and we're actually on our travels, aren't we, over the next few days?

1:17James Emmett:Yes, you go this way and I'll go that way. And together we'll have pretty much the world covered, right?

1:23David Cushnan:Indeed. You're... I'm going to India. Hopping to India. Yes, to work on the third edition of an event that we run in tandem with the Royal Challengers Bangalore IPL team. That's the 19th, Tuesday the 19th in Bangalore. Would you have guessed it? Of course it's in. Would you believe it? Would you believe it? Yeah, looking forward to that. I didn't do the last one, but I did do the first one. and yeah, should be a good lineup of senior figures

1:56James Emmett:from across Indian sport, Virats on the agenda. So there's guaranteed to be a room teeming with people. Indeed. Yeah, looking forward to it.

2:06David Cushnan:And you're off to, is it New York? New York City, yes. Off to have a look. Well, it's a busy old week actually in New York for the industry. Our friends and colleagues at Sports Business Journal have Tech Week. so you know I'll be delving into the wild and wacky world of sports technology it's also the sports business awards next week also be heading out there to do a sports of leaders club work as well with another another leaders club meetup and hosting another of our attention seekers workshops our private series for sports media and content types and if you are in New York and you would like to be in consideration for that, do drop me a line.

2:48David Cushnan:There's just one or two spots left in a very, very exclusive room. Honestly, those are some of my favourite things that we do to be a part of. And I am genuinely saddened not to be able to go to New York to do that one with you, Dave. They're fantastic little ants. Yeah, it's going to be a really good group. So looking forward to seeing everybody in New York. And we're going to attempt a podcast next week from those two places. so we'll see how that goes so stay tuned James, I was scrolling down the Leave Is Worth Knowing podcast feed the other day and I came across What did you stumble across?

3:26David Cushnan:Very latest edition which is a rather excellent interview that you did with Liz Wynn the Chief Supporter Officer at The Guardian Now, the first thing I noticed is that Liz doesn't work in the sports industry so it's a departure for us yes something slightly but one with some reasoning behind it yes yes slightly unusual uh for a couple

3:50James Emmett:of reasons one liz isn't directly involved in the sports industry too um it wasn't a traditional sort of podcast interview uh basically liz was a liz win was a speaker at an event that we ran in march called leaders meet innovation which is effectively um a private invitation only c-suite only event most senior people in sports uh gathered there it was all behind it was two days of programming all behind closed doors Chatham house rules etc no media no recording what gets said in the room stays in the room etc so it's a really good environment for sharing and you know what we broke those rules uh by getting Liz in to basically repeat what was said but she delivered a presentation on effectively monetizing digital the guardian way um and it received rave reviews loads of crossover lessons for the assembled sports industry there a real case study of success in mission driven fundraising basically revenue raising through digital customers digital all readers in the Guardian's case.

5:07And it went down so well that we thought we would get Liz on to deliver an audio version of that on the podcast, which she did. It was a bit strange for me, obviously, David, because I was sort of facilitating it. But how did it come across as a listener?

5:24David Cushnan:Really well. And the way that Liz described it was audience monetization and the power of direct connection. And she described the transformation of The Guardian, obviously, first and foremost, a newspaper, 205 years of history as a newspaper, but has built out into a much wider media entity over the years, and particularly in the last few years, has undergone this transformation in its fortunes, really, and its digital fortunes in particular. And she described what she has been involved in as the chief supporter officer as how audience and community and purpose all come together to drive direct and sustainable revenue streams and there are some obvious parallels there I think for sports that you were sort of gently teasing out as you went through the conversation loads of really interesting bits in this and And I think what was really fascinating is that, of course, there's a big data component to all of this.

6:30David Cushnan:Collecting, understanding, making sense of and, you know, generating actions off the back of an enormous amount of data. You know, who is reading, how they are reading, when they are reading, why they're reading and being able to make decisions based on that. And of course, that will be very familiar to anybody listening who is involved in managing a fan base of any sort. but equally if not more interesting I thought was the various behavioral science practices and principles that they have undertaken and engaged in at The Guardian to you know to ultimately to change behaviors to either create new habits or sometimes break habits to get more people reading, but ultimately contributing and paying more.

7:28Yeah.

7:29James Emmett:Lots of transferable lessons, as you say, for all sorts of different organizations in and around the sports industry. Anyone who has an online presence and goes to people that they would consider to be fans, you know, people who like their product, there are relevant lessons in there um for you um you talk about the behavioral science principles some really fascinating stuff in there all around um basically how to ask um well i think you said it actually james in the conversation where and when to ask exactly that and the realization that you can actually ask yes and and for that reason i feel like this should resonate most with the majority of sports organizations in fact those sports organizations that are not at the very top that do have specific fundraising campaigns at any point in their calendar year that do not have sort of gigantic broadcast or sponsorship revenues to draw on those organizations that rely on huge volunteer forces the benefaction of um you know generous donors from time to time there are so many lessons in here for how to resonate how to pinpoint what it is that's resonating for your digital audiences and then use that as a way in to ask for specific amounts of money towards all sorts of different campaigns.

9:06James Emmett:So loads of lessons there. A few of them, make the ask. First and foremost, do ask. If you've got people who subscribe to what you do and are happy with what you're providing, yeah, ask them to contribute to your cause. um second of all behavioral science principle anchoring um i think most of us are probably aware of what this is but the guardian uh does it very well it suggests um different amounts of money that you should be um giving if you want to give and uh it's the sort of second cheapest bottle of wine principle uh on the menu people will not go for the cheapest and they will not go for the most expensive so you need to sort of guide them to where they're going to go uh naturally.

9:56Another big lesson I would suggest is, you know, fish where the fish are at. Does that make sense? I'm not sure she said it like that. Put your fishing rod into the pool

10:09James Emmett:where the most fish are, aka go where there are spending behaviors. So The Guardian, one of their chief successes under Liz Wynn in recent years has been in cultivating support through individual readers outside of the UK specifically huge areas of giving in the US so 1.4 million supporters so digital people driving digital reader revenue out 1.4 million worldwide 60 of those people are outside the uk which is a massive success story for what is a very um sort of traditionally british publishing entity which obviously now does have a global mandate uh so yeah fish where the fish are i thought a couple of other bits that i thought

11:03David Cushnan:were really fascinating that she talked about was um when you asked her about where she looks and has looked for inspiration. And she talked about non-profit media, as you might expect, but also charities. And she talked about Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam, US political fundraising, which she clearly mentioned, but also just the, I suppose, the breadth of perspective that she has. And she is looking at any organization that is trying to engender loyalty, essentially. And she talked about streaming services and fitness apps and I think washing powder as, you know, subscription-based services these days, that there's always inspiration and ideas to be gleaned from others and from all sorts of sectors, which makes a lot of sense and is perhaps something for the sports industry to have a bit of a think about.

12:00David Cushnan:I thought she was also really interesting, and it's something that we think about a lot, James, when she discussed newsletters. newsletters and the guardian has a very sophisticated and um uh deep newsletter strategy now it's launched a lot of newsletters uh but for very specific reasons and uh this is a concerted effort and she talked about emotional affiliation not being enough you need a direct

12:26James Emmett:connection and to be able to activate it well yeah it's all well and good having um a sort of addressable audience of how many million around the world that you reach through various platforms but you need to find a way to move those people into your database and it seems sort of almost quaint now that newsletters are the principal mechanism for that but they absolutely are and there are some astounding numbers that Liz was able to draw and I think they went from around about a million or 900 ,000 people in the database to around about 8 million in the space of about 18 months through this newsletter strategy.

13:14James Emmett:Again, and maybe this goes alongside the emergence of Substack as an organization with genuine ambitions in the sports industry. there's i think newsletters are under exploited uh in in the sports industry certainly at rights holder level obviously in the media world everybody is aware of what newsletters do and how important they are but i think in terms of rights holder organizations i can't think of a good newsletter that um that a rights holder does no and i think the the key is being able

13:50David Cushnan:to make the distinction between a newsletter a quote editorial newsletter and a marketing mailing list very tricky for some people to discern isn't it it is and um i agree with you completely and i wrote that down it also got me thinking about i know i can see your notes it also got me thinking about athletes as well and again with the rise of substack whether there's an opportunity to build as an athlete as an active athlete um via a newsletter build a direct connection with your audience there's obviously social media third-party platforms but doing so in a bit more of a direct way um did a did a spot of light research on this so russell westbrook is somebody who's lent into this he's launched a fashion-based newsletter last year but there seem to be very few examples of active athletes doing this i actually think the example here in this in this world of individuals who are you know celebrities and stars is probably Dua Lipa.

14:47James Emmett:I thought you were going to say you and me.

14:49David Cushnan:No, well, we're in a little bit more of a niche, but Dua Lipa launched her Service 95 recommendations newsletter, sort of lifestyle, you know, food lifestyle, book club as part of that. And actually I was looking into it thinking, okay, is this the normal setup, the traditional, the well-trodden path now of set up a podcast and then set up a newsletter off the back of that. Actually, this was the other way around. The newsletter in her case came first and the podcast, the podcast that she's done followed afterwards. So I think there's an interesting example there. And it feels like an underexploited area, as you say, for teams, certainly, but also for athletes.

15:35Yeah, I do. So going back to a conversation that I had with the newly installed sports partnerships, lead at Substack. I don't think, and then his mandate is to drive sports organizations onto the platform in the first instance. There are one or two examples of organizations that have

16:02James Emmett:jumped in, but no one has truly nailed it yet. NASCAR is probably the best example of a sports organization that's jumped into Substack and therefore newsletters and is doing it in a way in a differentiated way basically what they do is pass the responsibility of producing something for the Substack around the around the executive organization not necessarily at a high level but in terms of the production nuts and bolts you might get someone who is involved in kind of operations like setting up the pit lane on, you know, essentially a window into my job is kind of how they do it. Sounds like my kind of sub stack.

16:47David Cushnan:You should subscribe. Definitely. I'm doing a little bit of dabbling in sub stack, as you know, James. You're a stacker. So I don't know if that's the phrase. Is that what they call it? A sub? No. But if anybody does have any recommendations or knowledge of active athletes who are on sub stack, it would be really interesting to hear from you to know who those people are. But yes, it was an excellent conversation. And I would say if you haven't listened to it, well worth listening to Liz Wynn in full. Bit of a masterclass this on how to plan and build and develop your direct connection with your audience.

17:25How to raise money and influence people. Yes, you might say that too. As ever, David, there's been stuff happening in the sports industry.

17:33David Cushnan:Should we take a tour? Let's do it. Shall we start with George Pine, who has been in the news this week because his Bruin Capital organisation has taken a minority stake in Barry and Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Sport. Big news this. I think we're going to be hearing more about this over the coming weeks and adds, of course, to George Pine's portfolio of sports organisations.

17:54James Emmett:I thought he said he was going to be doing pipes, not end product. But I would suggest that Matchroom Sport is more end product than pipes.

18:02David Cushnan:It's sort of the end of the pipe, isn't it?

18:05James Emmett:I suppose Maybe it's pipes as well as end product

18:07David Cushnan:Yeah, yeah UNA Sports Group has acquired the New York Summer and Winter X Games League franchises For a reported eight-figure sum The new X Games spin-off league is also in the process of trying to sell Summer and Winter teams In LA, Sao Paulo and Tokyo And BT has been named the official telecommunications partner of Euro 2028 and with it, BT's Gary Bansaw has taken a new role running that sponsorship as head of Euro 2028 sponsorship at BT.

18:38James Emmett:Beth Barrett-Wild has announced that she'll be leaving the ECB at the end of this summer's ICC Women's T20 World Cup, for which she is tournament director. She's been there for a good 13 years, I think. Gordon Ramsay Restaurant's COO Matthew Horvath is the new CEO at F1 Arcade, following the departure of Jonathan Peters. and Jen Coleman has joined Sky as head of sponsorship.

19:03David Cushnan:A short but sweet roundup of who's going where and what's happening in the sports industry. Talking of who's where, James, you were out and about, I think, this morning. Tell us exactly where you were and what you were doing. Well, David, I went to Brentford, the GTech community stadium, the ground. Sidebar, what a great little stadium. so i must i yes my first time there and i um do you know what david i listen to podcasts outside the realm of sport and one of the podcasts that i listen to is called um moon underwater and it's all about pubs uh and it used to be hosted by john robbins who unfortunately became an alcoholic so couldn't host the podcast anymore um but he always talked about um what he loved about a pub is when a pub emerges, it sort of reveals itself.

19:59You might be walking from a tube around a corner and then there's a hedge. And from around the hedge, as you walk a little bit further, you see the glowing orange light of the, you know, and the pub sign. And that is the perfect pub. And to bring it back to the GTEC community, it is a little sports ground that reveals itself in exactly the way that a pub should. You come out of the train station, you walk across the train track. And what's that? A little, is that a little glimpse?

20:30David Cushnan:Well, it's not a little sports ground. It's a little Premier League. Sure, sure. No, it's a major piece of infrastructure. Yeah. You walk through sort of anonymous grey, you know, mini skyscrapers in West London. There it is. Anyway, great stadium. Great stadium. And I went there for the launch of something called the Ultimate Sevens, which is a sevens rugby competition owned by or majority owned by BIA, the BIA Sports Group,