UP525 What Just Happened in 2025: The Story, Event and Person of the Sports Business Year

28:26And he represents something in that where it's gone from being something of a value creation to just extraction. And you're taking as much money as you can and leaving as little of benefit left. And that's what Buffett was getting. and you can't get a more capitalistic person than Warren Buffett. So he's quite a useful, even he is saying, yeah, you've got to be a bit careful with these banks and this finance stuff because there are downstream implications and the whole point is being lost. What you value isn't the same thing as, or what society values is not the same thing as what Wall Street and the city values.

29:13So without getting too sort of high and mighty, I think there's something quite interesting about the way it just made me pause with Paul the other day. So, yeah, yeah. What was I thinking? You know, I'd never heard of sport business before I got the job there. And it sort of became this thing. And people kept asking, what sport business? And you then started arguing about, OK, well, business can do this and, you know, has all these advantages. And sport is always particularly governing body sport is always couched as a sort of pondering local council type aura around it. And that's the way the money likes to frame governing body sport, whether that's true or not, because they want to be seen as the sort of thrillingly decisive new wave.

29:53But I think there's something in what's happened. And there are so many of these NBA Europe type projects bubbling away that after a while you think, what are they actually for other than just to make money for the investors?

30:07James Emmett:Yeah. James Emmett. I definitely feel like you're onto something there, Rich, because it's almost as if sports business folk, sports marketing folk, financiers, these days are sort of living in or they're propounding sort of the marvelization of sport. And what I mean by that is that modern day sports entities are a little bit like Marvel superheroes, which are absolutely everywhere, of course, in 2025, 2026, in that essentially they do two things. The day job, which is what they are before they put their glad rags on. And the day job is prosaic and boring and run of the mill. and then when they sort of spin up in a phone box and put their spandex on they are the brand and the brand is what financiers etc think about all the time that's what they're trying to monetize that's where they feel like the real potential is but these things are you know the marvel universe is all about stories these are characters and you need to have a good run of the a good sturdy solid sort of day job characterization if you're going to be a realistic and successful character and so you've got to focus on the bread and butter as well as the big shiny brand bit I would say does that make sense yeah it makes sense and I think just just to build Richard on what you were saying about what what it does to sport potentially I think there's a

31:47David Cushnan:couple of things and this is big long long term stuff but i think there is you could probably make the argument somebody could write the the dissertation on sport actual the actual sport is getting worse or less interesting more technical more skilled but possibly less interesting and there's a combination of things that would be responsible for that you know increases in technology this sort of quest for absolute perfectionism golfers all hitting it well over whatever it is now 400 yards is it 500 yards who knows f1 cars don't break down anymore and so you're losing some unpredictability people talk about football and you know back to the nba everybody's using the same tactics the tactics and i appreciate this is a lot of this is in the eye of the beholder so is it getting worse or is it just different but i do think there is something in that quest to absolutely package up standardize control the product that over time over decades could lead to the sport itself becoming less interesting.

33:08David Cushnan:I think the other byproduct is you've got, there's just way too much sport. There's just way too much inventory. Just as you were talking, I was just making a note just off the top of my head of things I've read about or seen. These new breakaways, these new startup leagues. And there's an international dance league that's being funded at the moment. There's a new European wrestling league. There's a new fencing league, the Hexagon Paddle, doing a World Series that was announced this week. I think there's a 10-pin bowling one. I think there's a curling one that's being developed. You've lost count of how many rugby sevens, potential new proposed series there are.

33:53David Cushnan:There's definitely several new basketball ones over and above the ones we mentioned already on this. so there's there's there's just so much being created and you know then you get into sort of supply and demand somewhere in your sort of mckinsey for sports scenario somewhere the level of data that's available you can find the data that makes the argument that yes there are x number of fans who would tune in buy tickets to go and see an international dance league but But is what's written in the spreadsheet actually the reality of the situation? And I think in a lot of cases with these lots of startups that we have seen come to life, there's a lot that don't make it.

34:40David Cushnan:And Grand Slam Track, we're seeing this just in the last few days, filing for bankruptcy in the US. And I think that just on that sort of, you know, a lot don't make it, there is, again, one of the things that stuck by me, we did a thing with at EY this year. just about how difficult the incumbent rights holders are to disrupt. And so it's quite often they will fail. And that isn't without consequences. So in a sort of free market, you would expect bad organisations to go bust. Now, that's such a naive view born of a sort of almost 1950s economic theory. So, well, look, these things are bad. They will disappear and be replaced by better things.

35:21Actually, what happens is that both exist in the same marketplace. and it doesn't happen quickly. So over, it can take years, it can take decades. And I fear for things like golf, if live golf, you know, and just that marketplace. It's like boxing. It's a case study going back to the mid 1970s, is that it ruins the sport as a whole because you've got these financial-backed entities going at each other. Now, of course, you can say, right, okay, that's what capitalism is, and that's what you're framing, that competition is good and it improves things. But when there is only a finite number of players, and I think particularly in, say, when you're getting to, say, women's football, women's rugby, women's cricket, it's very nascent, it's very fragile, and you're getting to a state where they need support.

36:14And if you're offering up new things, that will split the player base and it's going to be very hard to sort of reconcile those things. So I think the NBA is one story, but I think it's happening in every sport at every level. There's a part of me that says, yeah, great. OK, burn it all down. See what comes back up. But I don't think it works quite like that. And I think that the marketplace doesn't really, you know, the financiers don't really care whether it works or not. It's just a route to revenue. And some will work, some won't. But there will be consequences of the fallout because you are talking about quite sort of small player bases in some cases.

36:53Let's move on. Well, James, you've got FIFA Club World Cup as your event of the year. And I think there's probably an easy jump from one from here to there.

37:04James Emmett:Yeah, I selected this. I think it's a microcosm really of a lot of trends that are going on right now. and some of them we have already touched on but a FIFA Club World Cup obviously this is the first iteration of an expanded FIFA jamboree for club representatives from around the world and it took place across the US in the summer in June here are the trends that I think this is a microcosm of the US as a gold mine for soccer for soccer entities right now or the ripe old turd that's brought all the flies to the yard it's taking you quite quite by surprise quite take my breath away don't say i didn't prep rich uh global broadcast experimentation and also the trend for a sort of wobbly traditional rights market so fifa obviously had a lot of confidence in this competition that they would be able to to sell packages to their usual buyers they they over promised really to the clubs in the lead up to this competition it didn't come to pass they managed to wangle a creative agreement featuring Saudi Arabia and DAZN but DAZN are the the sort of global broadcaster for this and this is a model that a lot of the streamers are looking at DAZN's had a go at it they've got some some really very impressive numbers that they said they were going to achieve before the tournament and lo and behold did achieve um but interesting that they have tackled the very complicated prospect of being a global broadcaster of something also a microcosm for the thing that we're talking about earlier podcasters taking over the world and actually becoming youtubers they're not really podcasters so the rest is football the gary thing this was their first foray into becoming you know taking the show to a broadcast platform they were on DAZN with their show and that thing is now being replicated on Netflix for the World Cup.

39:17James Emmett:Kazza TV who we've talked about also broadcast this in Brazil absolutely the sort of poster boy for this new wave of broadcasters. We wrote about it in our newsletter last week, Rich. This is absolutely the apotheosis of something that I'm calling FIFA creep, which is FIFA as sort of battering ram against the boundaries that kind of keep the sport of football together and all the stakeholders there. So not only sort of land grabbing the calendar to have this expanded tournament and forcing through kind of restrictions and creatively regulations that made it possible for them, but also quietly doing things like extending the halftime break of the final to incorporate a Super Bowl style show.

40:18James Emmett:I don't recall any kind of discussion about whether that should happen. And definitely that is sort of tampering with the integrity of the game. And now obviously we're going to see these hydration breaks coming in at the World Cup. That Club World Cup was like the first, that was the first little creep towards that for sure. Yeah, and then also an individual level, obviously we talk about FIFA creep. It could mean an individual as well. and that particular individual is doing a great job of sucking up to Donald Trump and it is all too easy to scoff at that and to mock and to criticise in general what FIFA have done in the US, in North America with the Club World Cup and with the World Cup.

41:05James Emmett:But they're getting it done and for all of the other, Most of the other football entities who will sort of clutch at pearls and things like that around this, they're setting useful precedents all over the shop in terms of the, and your newsletter was very good on this last week as well, Rich, on the amount of extra broadcast inventory that's being created with these hydration breaks. is very useful in, again, a wibbly-wobbly media market. The broadcasters can extract more value for the rights that they're buying. It's going to be so difficult to row back from that. Yeah, I think it's really interesting.

41:49So let's call it the American swing. And one of the things that I was talking to Michael Payne about, his point is this is exactly what Infantino should be doing. They set up, you know, soccer in the US, Club World Cup with FIFA World Cup to follow. They are going to maximise the return from that market because it's the biggest market in the world. And this is its golden opportunity, the one that they didn't convert in 94. So Infantino's job is to manage the situation that he is faced with. than he is faced with Trump in the White House, with everything that goes with that. Now, and I get that argument, and I hear that quite a lot about, well, this money ultimately then flows to the game.

42:37And that's one question. You get back to why is FIFA so unpopular? You mentioned, you know, you talk to anyone who's not, I'm not talking about people in the sports business, and that's one layer, but people just generally. FIFA is in charge of the most popular game in the world. Why is it so unpopular? What is it that really annoys people? What is it that is about, you know, my person of the year is Infantino. And why does he wind people up? Is it something that he's doing that just goes against what they think FIFA should be doing? And again, it's, you know, the Peace Prize stuff where you think, OK, that's just nonsense.

43:16You know, that's just so it's too naked. It's too obvious. I think one of the interesting questions, though, is what Kirsty Coventry will be doing and looking at and thinking, OK, what am I going to do here? Because I'm going to have to go through this in the next two years. I've got an LA Olympics going on. That's going to be a political hot potato for obvious reasons. And how do I deal with that? And is there a difference between the IOC and FIFA is one question that springs to mind. is it cultural is it just historical in terms of the way in which the organizations have grown under blatter under dasler's influence going back years is there a culture there that is different that is it the governance question in terms of elected against no one all-powerful sort of stateless pallying up with whatever dictator or autocrat is looking to use football for a sports washing away so there's it's a really difficult one i've heard lots of times that we're about the ticket prices people you know this week i was talking to someone who's saying well they'll sell out so what's the problem this is a capital society why should fifa drop its prices if people

44:22David Cushnan:are paying 10 grand to go i'm not completely convinced it will sell out as in terms of totally sell out i think there are some i think that is a very tough ask in some fast nfl style stadiums when you have this bloated group phase with, in lots of cases, not particularly appealing matches between teams who simply will not be able to send that many fans. And I guess I get that there's, you know, many nationalities who are resident in the United States from all sorts of places around the world. But I do think that is not the work of the moment. just back back to your point around kirsty coventry i think that if you are the president of fifa or the president of the ioc at the moment you absolutely need a donald trump strategy and i actually think there is a case to be made that in both their situations giving the timings of their their big marquee events in the us both infantino and kirsty coventry are adopting exactly the right strategy for their organizations at the moment.

45:31Infantino, and I think there's something

45:34David Cushnan:a bit pantomime about that sort of FIFA as villain stuff. I don't see how you can be popular making the sort of kind of decisions that a governing body of a global game, not just a governing body that looks after football in the UK, for example. I think that's, you are inevitably going to run into challenges when you're trying to do stuff on a genuinely global basis. But I think Infantino cozying up to Donald Trump is probably the right thing to do. I don't think you get to become the president of FIFA, frankly, if you're not very smart and very savvy. So I don't think this is an accident. You can argue about whether he's taking it to extremes, but I think it's quite calculated.

46:21David Cushnan:And if it is, and he'll never tell us and we'll never know, but if it is, he's playing an absolute blinder because it's working, as James said. And Kirstie Coventry is doing exactly the right thing by saying absolutely nothing. There's no reason for her to speed up a visit to the White House, to the Oval Office. That moment will come when it comes. But wait, watch, see what FIFA does with Trump over the next six months, how it all plays out. And then you move into a very different type of event, an event that, as I think we've talked about before, is happening in democratic California so that the I think during an election cycle so it's going to be a completely different game and it might be that Donald Trump a you know a lamed up president at that point just isn't that interested isn't that bothered about getting involved and why why why involve him more than you need to at this stage if you're Kirsty Coventry when there's something as complex as as the Summer Olympic Games to organise.

47:23Right. I feel like I've done my person. So we talked about Infantino. Let's get to a person. And James, you've got Marina Storty. Tell us why.

47:36James Emmett:I think Marina Storty's had a great year. We could have had lots of different people here, but I think that what Marina Storty has done in her second full year as the chief executive of this new-ish entity, WTA Ventures, has been genuinely very impressive. And it is worth saying that when she was appointed to this position in back end of 2023, beginning of 2024, there were a few eyebrows raised. So she came from a broadcaster. She was at Sky for a long time and headed up the Now TV entity before she went to the WTA Ventures. And there were definitely a few folks across the industry who questioned, even if they didn't do it openly, questioned her ability to act as a genuine commercial driver in a new commercial entity for women's tennis.

48:36James Emmett:so this year he has built out a really impressive team at WTA Ventures which was always on the cards but it is now a very strong looking unit and predominantly female. Can you explain what WTA Ventures is? Yeah WTA Ventures is the commercial arm of the WTA so in backed by CVC. So it's co-owned isn't it co-owned by cvc by cvc it was split away from the wta i think in 2023 they are responsible for commercializing um the women's tennis tour so sponsorships media rights tournament fees etc etc um so she's built out this very impressive team which includes sarah swanson teddy even over who's a very impressive revenue getter and Jessica Chandler Lee who was very highly rated at Roland Garros.

49:33James Emmett:A fabulous new rebrand early on in the year, very smart, but sort of backed up that rebrand with some very impressive deal making. So one of the things people criticised Marina for, or questioned Marina for, was that she hadn't really done anything. She got the job and then immediately had the PIF deal so the PIF did a deal with the WTA as they did with the ATP but it wasn't Marina's deal that was done before she got there she took that deal and extracted more value from it by creating this sort of world first fund the maternity fund program across the WTA is the first professional sports league to have a fully comprehensive maternity sort of financed maternity policy and they if you're a sort of qualified WTA player you have access to very comprehensive rights through this this is backed by the PIF very impressive thing to do in an era where we're talking about the momentum behind women's sport there aren't actually that many women's sport entities that are laying down significant programs like this.

50:57James Emmett:She's done a deal with the Tennis Channel and just last week she has spearheaded the team that has delivered arguably the biggest sponsorship deal in women's sports history, signing Mercedes Benz on as the top partner for the WTA in a deal that is worth$500 million over 10 years. pretty good going well done marina and team okay i so it's been a while since i looked at wta and wj ventures so you've got pif obviously saudi sovereign wealth fund they are a sponsor or are they a co-owner of it they're a sponsor they're a proxy of one for the other the response and you've got cvc so i guess my question is about the wta more generally and i think as the market for tennis and golf is evolving so it's quite interesting to compare the pif how it's shown up in tennis in women's tennis compared to what it did with golf and men's golf and live golf because and the question i sort of asked it is different isn't it rich it is different and it's evolved and the question is would they do live golf again question mark is it you know given how much money they've spent, how divisive it's been.

52:19Now they've showed up and now they've got their own news channel. They've had a rebrand themselves. So I think PIF's role in the scheme of things is interesting. It has shifted in terms of its comms. And we're hearing all sorts of stuff about the way in which it's, you know, reducing the scope from Neom Super Cities down to, you know, the Newcastle left back. So it's trying to sort of put other expectations about what it is and what it's doing in sport. And that's been a story of the last sort of few months.

52:50James Emmett:I was just going to posit a theory on the difference between PIF's approach to golf and tennis. And I do not know this, but my theory is that tennis and a number of other partnerships that they have is strategic and measurable and they sort of the organization is moving forward with a plan and golf is a little bit more in the kind of chairman's choice field where Yasser Al-Ramayan is a it plays golf and enjoys it and that was that was a sort of deal that was done a little while ago well the I mean the amount of money they spent on live that's a heck of a chairman's whim that's like hundreds of millions don't know what the latest figure has been but the amount of money they've spent and lost on golf the question about women's tennis you know the wta and the atp is its future as the big get bigger as people want the best versus the best the the majors and the grand slams are in such an elevated position that unless they have ownership of that bit then it's always going to be a middle of the market entity however big mercedes write a check for it's doing a job for them and i get the you know what's women's tennis looks like we know it's global it's you know all of the questions that we always come out about tennis but you can't get away from the fact that it's in the middle of the market it is never going to be the best product in tennis, in women's tennis, because that's where the Grand Slams are.

54:29David Cushnan:Well, you've got these, it's almost a cliche now, but you've got these seven governing bodies or seven governing organisations in tennis, WTA, ACP, the International Tennis Federation, which has, you know, some role, some influence, and then the four Grand Slams. And you're right, Richard, there's a fact over the last couple of years that the, certainly three of the four Grand Slams, if you exclude Wimbledon for a moment, are getting bigger, literally, in that they're effectively adding a third week as a sort of fan week, qualifiers week, where they are sucking up more of the calendar, more of a finite period of time.

55:06David Cushnan:Wimbledon will go the same way in the next few years as it gets its expanded facilities sorted out. You've then got to acknowledge that the WTA and ATP are, I think, in several areas working a bit more closely together. Now, people have talked for years, for as long as I've been doing this, about the prospect of the ATP and the WTA merging and creating a sort of superstructure for the annual calendar, the outside of the Grand Slams calendar. And it hasn't happened yet. You know, complicated business may happen at some point, but there's certainly, I think, I pick up a mood of collaboration amongst those seven governing bodies that probably hasn't been there for a while.

55:51David Cushnan:They probably don't agree about everything. They are probably being, to some extent, united by organizations like PIF, organizations like CVC, who are coming in and sort of trying to, presumably in both those cases, there's some thought that there is more value that could be accrued through better organization, different organization, restructuring a calendar. But it's really, really hard. It's going back to the Federation question, I suppose. It's really hard to disrupt incredibly established tournaments, calendars, structures of sports in order to do something better, even if everybody sort of acknowledges, yeah, it would be better to sort of do a blank sheet of paper and start again.

56:40David Cushnan:the actual untangling of what already exists is almost impossible in a lot of these sports in a lot of cases in tennis I would say it's a prime example of that so James started with Marina Storty had had a great year she's done these deals and if I look at this from the lens of CVC so when you look at what's one of the stories I was thinking about of you know story of the year is sports co the the creation of cvcs housing together its its various sports investments which again is i think incredibly significant talks to my financialization question earlier in terms of what the money wants how it's going to then use its power and money to change what sport is at the top end of the sport as entertainment end of things now if you look and say right okay just on a sort of idiot's guide to cvc sports co you've got volleyball you've got rugby various bits of rugby and you've got the WTA and other you know sports and sport parts of investments housed together and the idea the rationale behind that which will be copied by the many funds that are sort of springing up in various sizes which is that they're going to be a centralization of the back office of those things they're going to then say right okay actually was it Marina Storty who has been at the front you know she's the front person for these deals but actually it's It's the CVC back office that's put this commercial programme together.

58:06And if WTA Ventures starts to thrive, you've got Simon Denyer in there, you've got Mark Elira, a lot of, you know, people with just heavyweights in the sports media and marketing world. If that is the play and WTA Ventures is being rolled out as the sort of success poster child of how this might work, you can start to see, well, yeah, that's bits of this. I'm hearing a lot of people plugging volleyball as a, you know, again, a nascent sport. And people come on this podcast and talk about that. Again, it's OK, I get it intellectually. I don't feel it. I'm not a volleyball fan. So people, other people say, yeah, it's working or no, it's it's irrelevant.

58:48But all of these things are, I think, part of it. But I think the WTA ventures, I think, is interesting because of the money behind it rather than in and of itself would be my conclusion.

59:00James Emmett:and do you know what Richard that's why Marina was my person of the year and it wasn't my story of the year I've not met Marina I'm sure she's absolutely fantastic and a great executive have we lost control of the format slightly but I feel like I'm sliding I'm keeping hold of it there is a I'm going to finish off we've both got one I've got one to do and David I think you've got one to do I'm going to jump to mine because I've got the Caribou Cup final and it's an easy jump really from what we've just been talking about but we haven't mentioned you've said it four or five times now it's carabao it is carabao unless is it carabao or caribou it is carabao i don't know if that's true i think caribou is is like a sort of is it the cow of the sea the caribou i'm pretty sure it's carabao the energy drink i know it's an energy drink but i'll get us a can of caribou we've won the doesn't everyone say that we've won the cow of the sea

59:59David Cushnan:cup this year terrific now who was playing slow plodding cow of the sea is what a caribou is so long ago richard who was playing in this final so it's liverpool newcastle newcastle won my point being it was a a moment because newcastle had won something for the first time in ages and it was quite an interesting um this is another thing about the pif yeah okay so the money is behind you know where we are now in the sports washing question and we haven't got time to go into that whole palaver but I think it was quite a moment how do we respond to success with Newcastle is it something we think brilliant fantastic away the lads as the Geordies say or do we say do you know what this isn't anything to celebrate this is there is a bigger game being played that we all very aware of but I just thought the Caribou Cup was a was an interesting moment and one that we should ponder on because i think it's reflective of power and money in the in the game there was a very good book i'll point people towards oh fucking i've forgotten his name states of the game and it was by miguel delaney miguel delaney who was on the podcast earlier in the year recommend you seek that one out it's an interesting tale of newcastle united it was among many other things it was also the year when psg finally won the champions league wasn't it the sort of the Qatar project came to its yes you know to its peak moment I suppose so yes a year of milestones milestones makes your heart sing the one for the underdog yeah before we finish can I just just my person of the year can I just throw in uh Vikram Banerjee the managing director of the hundred who oversaw and I'm sure he would be the first to say that it these things take a village.

1:01:47David Cushnan:So lots of his ECB colleagues, Rain Group, Deloitte, the counties that were involved. But this really remarkable number of£975 million, the collective amount that the stakes in the 800 franchises went for earlier in the year with a bunch of really, in some cases, high profile investors from India, the Indian Premier League, Indian big business and the US, almost doubling, I think the target that he had laid out and a really extraordinary process, the actual auction process itself. And just the way that he and his team managed to spin up and energize the various investors and the competition for these franchises that haven't existed for a while or a big stake in the franchises that haven't existed for too long.

1:02:39David Cushnan:with no real estate involved, with little history behind them. But I think he has to take a lot of plaudits for the way that he oversaw that. And the work continues because I think this next year is the year when those deals are all now closed. And actually, we will start to see the influence of some of these owners. as in maybe they're trying to, maybe them trying to sort of change a few things from the inside now that they're involved in the game. But obviously a huge boon for English cricket as well and lots of plans for how that money will be redistributed, which we should keep an eye on over the next few years.

1:03:17David Cushnan:But yes, I wanted to throw his name into the hat because I do think that was a big story this year. It was a really big story. I think it's possibly one of the biggest, but I'm trying to remember what the name of the Manchester franchise is now. Is it the Manchester LI? Because it's so to do with Mumbai Indians. So the Mumbai Indians, is that not what Oval Invincibles were? So they are now MI London, I think. That's right. And yeah, the Manchester Originals. Are they superchargers or something like that? Yeah, so you can see the multi-club model alive and well in cricket as well as football. But you read through that list of investors and it is extremely impressive.

1:04:00David Cushnan:And they've all seen something in this. And I think it will be it will be very, very interesting to see how they try and or what they try and influence and shift now that they are on the inside. Yeah, yeah. No, I think I completely agree. I think looking back over what we've talked about, the stories of 26, I think we have sort of touched on some that we will come back. The 100 is an extraordinary story. It's an incredible business story. And as you say, it is still evolving quickly and it will move through the next year or so. I think there's a whole load of different things. I'm not going to start getting into predictions for 26.

1:04:40That's a whole different podcast. but the NBA Europe question the FIFA World Cup and the 100 I think are three stories that we'll come back into you know and look at time and again because I just think this is so interesting there's so many different sort of threads to it It's good isn't it the sports industry

1:04:58David Cushnan:it's never dull is it every year you think this is going to be a dull one and it never quite turns out that way It wasn't a case of you know looking back over 25 and think oh you know not much happened of any significance or you know of interest

1:05:10James Emmett:Do you know what we haven't mentioned at all? And that is, it was no one's moment or individual or event or whatever. And that is Netflix getting into sport in a big way. And the Jake Paul bits and pieces. Jake Paul Tyson, Jake Paul AJ. Yeah, I know.

1:05:27David Cushnan:And yeah. Yeah, I just find I've so little. I mean, the Netflix Warner Brothers thing is fascinating, but just it's so big and moving so fast. it's hard to have a view on it the other bit is you know we barely mentioned youtube which though that story sort of combines all of that but i think we cover that so often and so regularly that it was quite a it was quite nice to sort of not do that was my i because you saw i my first list had warner brothers down it had netflix it had youtube i thought oh you know what also i think the youtube thing like i think people in the sports industry have known about youtube for some time It just seemed to be the year when the rest of the world sort of woke up that this thing exists and is quite powerful.

1:06:12David Cushnan:And it turns out it's on everybody's TV screen as well, which I'm not sure should have been that much of a surprise. Netflix are buying up all the podcasts, of course. Richard, have you been in touch with the folks there about a distribution? Spotify, they're all over us trying to, you know, constantly saying, you know, we need to buy up. Well, they don't need to. Of course, they don't need to buy.

1:06:32James Emmett:They don't need to buy you, Rich. they don't need to buy an official partner they just hire sean he's the king maker and he can he can recreate the magic king maker you say king maker that's why he's not allowed on to he's not allowed near a microphone to make to say yes to that sort of that sort of he can edit himself in say yes yeah yeah if i let him near the editing controls right okay so we're there Happy Christmas to you both. Likewise. Happy Christmas. And we'll meet again in 2026. It was fun working together. I liked World, whatever this is called, What Just Happened. And we're going to do more of those on a more regular basis through the 2026 year in the sports business.

1:07:17But until then, David Cushnan, thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Richard. And James Emmett. Thanks, Rich.

1:07:24James Emmett:We forgot to introduce ourselves again, didn't we? Yeah, I know. All right. Thank you. Cheerio.