UP573 The Summer That Changed The Sports Business - Live

29:50Ten sports benefited, I was there, it was fantastic, it was fantastic. Weightlifting, just brilliant, never experienced it before, compelling. And that team of people were bold enough to say, you know, we're going to step forward and do that. They were limited by the budget they had. They were limited by time and all of those other things. What is the future? India will step forward and stage the next one. I have no idea, Richard, but I think a lot of it will be decided on relevance that goes into broadcasting, that goes into commercial partners. And that is not a unique challenge to the Commonwealth Games movement.

30:26okay so Beth let's get to audience and the big eventer so I'm talking here you know we're talking about events and our old friend the big eventer and what what that means now and did they turn up and are they the sort of people that I am assuming I'm a big eventer I turn up to sort of things you go to all the events I don't actually I go to very few events but I am a massive bandwagon jumper but who are they? Who is out there that is turning up to these events? Because we'll get to price in a minute and we'll come back to the World Cup and obviously tickets and pricing was very central to that.

31:04It's funny you say bandwagoners because that's what we call them actually. We don't call them big eventers anymore and they were a key audience demographic for our audience strategy behind the World Cup so we had four key groups that we were going after. Those who are existing fans of women's cricket So they were bucketed into groups called devotees, cricket converts, who are people who've come in through the hundreds and all format fans. So they're fans that are very much either existing women's cricket fans or very open to watching women's cricket. And then we did also have a bucket of big eventers, which I don't know how we did this, but we did some analysis and we worked out there's about four million of those that we could go after as a segment through our audience strategy.

31:43And they did turn up. So across our ticket purchase data, I think over a third of ticket purchases to the Women's T20 World Cup this summer were new to cricket. So they'd never bought a ticket to a cricket match before across any of our formats, male or female. They bought very late. So they were part of my sleepless nights and that very steep late sales curve that we had to go after. And they did look different to the overarching audience demographics, actually. So through the World Cup, we saw 35 % of ticket purchases were female. So that is our most, our highest female percentage of ticket purchases across all of our products.

32:15But then of that new to cricket purchaser, I think that was up around 45%. They were also younger. So it was a different demographic. So I think it does demonstrate the enduring power, I suppose, of sort of mega events, big events, to attract a new audience into the sport. I think the tricky bit is working out how we then look after them moving forwards and how we do make them stick around. And I think that was such a big part of our strategy was how can we make them really fall in love with women's cricket, with the team, with the players. So a big part of what we tried to do through the tournament this summer was really about educating about who the England women's team in particular were, because there probably is still a big awareness and visibility gap.

32:54And price, are they spending on tickets, but also all the other stuff as well? Yeah, absolutely. So I think that was another big part, actually, of our strategy, was around our ticket pricing strategy. And we saw some real positives coming out of that around really sort of the stretching, the elasticity of how much people are now prepared to pay for women's cricket. That was one of our big objectives for the tournament, actually, was to increase the perceived and the actual value of the women's game. So I think we've seen about a 14 % uptick on the average price of an England women's ticket going into the women's Ashes next summer, which is really positive for the growth and the commercial growth of the women's game.

33:28But yeah, I think we sold a higher proportion of gold tickets, a higher proportion of platinum tickets. They are definitely buying those, but we also had very accessible entry points as well. So I wouldn't be able to tell you on the spot exactly what category of ticket they were buying, But yeah, they did turn up at a decent scale at the back end of the tournament. Miguel, were you surprised by, I mean, the ticket price story was one of the big ones leading into the World Cup. What do you think about that? Was that just a sort of uniquely American moment that's going to happen? And is it something that you think is set now?

34:01Well, I think one of the really worrying things about it, and this has happened with a few things, right up to, say, the Balogun story, where it does feel like, and even the kind of the private sell-off one, it's FIFA, who are supposed to be the ultimate guardians of the game, the ultimate regulators, safeguards, have actually been the body who have been the most aggressive in pushing through a lot of kind of approaches or pricing or even regulations that we know a lot, say, of kind of club owners or commercial interests of football have wanted it for years, but have found resistance. So I think that in itself is actually why this World Cup could be a threshold.

34:40It's going to be interesting how 2030 is priced. I don't think it'll be as high just because the market's different. Obviously, some of this comes down to the strength of the dollar at that moment and all that. But obviously, as we now know, the entire World Cup, and especially the ticketing, was part of, even if it was indirect, a pitch about how much money the World Cup could make. but there was also something instructive I found when I was covering the ticket story around Christmas into January and obviously kind of this goes out in social media and a lot of American social media accounts were really quite aggressively defending their right to pay massive money for tickets which I found kind of and like this is something like myself and colleagues have discussed when we're writing about season ticket stories and all this sort of thing that you get like and obviously a lot of big Premier League clubs have a lot of America big American fan base now and they're really resistant to this, look you pay what the ticket is worth, if I'm willing to pay $10 ,000 it means I deserve to go which was a mindset I found incredible but you could see it to be fair in the crowds In the ground did you notice a difference?

35:48My obvious assumption is that rich people make things boring so that's It was a bit more diluted, like even so for the last four World Cups I've done Argentina a lot and absolutely whatever people now think of the team especially after the way the tournament went and the semi-final it is one of the great experiences of the World Cup to cover a proper Argentine crowd it's the colour of it the songs that's what you personally that's what I would associate a World Cup and also something crucially you don't get to experience that much they went in numbers as they always do but even that I thought was very diluted it was actually a bit comparable to Qatar when Führer went as well you could really notice that so I think generally atmospheres were dampened it was a bit different it wasn't non-existent to be fair but also even like from covering the kind of ticket story I know multiple accounts of a lot of England fans the top cappers and all this obviously there was a limited number of the cheapest category tickets which were blatantly brought in after protest and I know a lot of fans who would go to nearly every England game that didn't feel like a go because they just couldn't afford it let's just talk about ticket pricing because I get, I'm confused So when I, again, let's get back to Infantino.

36:59So there's a lot of things that when I look at Infantino and the decisions that he's made, I can sort of see where and how he gets there, with a few very notable exceptions. But the ticket question, it's his job to make as much money out of America as he can. But is that his job, though? Yeah. I mean, well, I don't think. So anytime you get on to FIFA about this, they say it's in our statutes to drive revenue for our, well, he's essentially describing shareholders. What do you mean? The member associations. It's not in the statutes at all. It's not there. Their only responsibility is for a sustainable game.

37:34It's not to just wring money out of it. The money that we're talking about going and feeding the pyramid, the fragility, all of that money is coming from an event like that. Which we also know is a vote-returning mechanism. It's a vote-returning mechanism, that money. It's a client-elastic system. The president raises the money. He doles it out. Oh yeah, of course. I mean, again, if we can, my point, I think, is that if you take Infantino out for a minute and it's hard to do and it's, you know, we've all got views. But I think it does get in the way of the questions a bit, because actually, when I look at that, I think, OK, there's a whole list of decisions that I think, OK, I can see that.

38:15that. I might not agree with it, but I can see how he got Club World Cup. Europe, overly dominant. The atrophy of the South American club brands and all the clubs around the world and the talent. All of that I can see. Europe's too dominant. Club World Cup. Okay. Might not agree with it. 48 team World Cup. Yeah, I can get there. I think that there's a sort of owning the ticket market, the secondary ticketing market was difficult because it's ticketing is a really shit business and no one's happy and if you are owning the secondary market no one loves Ticketmaster and so you're taking a reputational hit that might come back and hit you in the sponsorship market is one downside but again I can see that he's trying to stop leaks happening the Balagin red card the peace prize but again even then I'm thinking if I'm managing a narcissist in the White House I can sort of see how I start to behave a bit like Infantino I get close, I fawn over him, give him prizes it's difficult and it's a question coming to Kirsty Coventry in the next two years isn't it, how you deal with the White House.

39:28Isn't all of that just a kind of a mutation basically of what FIFA is supposed to be and what Infantino has allowed it to be because of course central to this is that I mean Infantino's role and this is true of Cefren UEFA as well who's probably escaped the attention in all of this although as he's failed to oust Infantino that I mean that role it's basically it's not just a president it's an executive president with kind of and it's quite a bizarre thing this is something we've written about a lot and I basically use the words in the book like you've got so much of the power of football specifically the power of the World Cup and the Euros to a much lesser degree the Champions League given that's more in control of the clubs but you're just handing the power that these two random blokes?

40:08I mean, who is it? Yeah, but again, that's governance. That's governance. That's not about, you know... That's governance, but why do you give them so much power? Yeah, I agree. John, what do you think? I won't put you on the spot and say, how does Kirsty Coventry handle this? But just give me your sense of what you've seen. Yeah, I mean, one comment on the FIFA World Cup, I thought the resale market was utterly fascinating. UEFA winning on both sides and the segregation question, which largely seemed to go unnoticed and unchallenged. I think as we look forward to LA, I mean, first of all, is to recognise two quite different organisations, the IOC and FIFA.

40:44The IOC generate huge wealth. 90 % of that wealth is reinvested back. We in the UK are an enormous beneficiary of solidarity payments, which largely goes unseen. There are more refugee athletes that are being supported in the UK than anywhere else in the world. And that's really the wealth that the IOC has generated. But undoubtedly, there'll be some challenges, some bumps in the road ahead. the games in LA will be the Hollywood games they'll be predominantly in one state it will be I think be Trump's final year as president and I just I think there's a sense of optimism that Kirsty Coventry's come in double down on neutrality across the board try to de-politicise if that's a word I think from our perspective control the controllables and that's all we can do I think there are lessons to be learnt from the World Cup.

41:35There's a big piece on immigration and getting people into the country and all of those things. But for us, you know, the Hollywood games and how they are going to be presented, I think hopefully will transcend some of the noise. Yeah, OK. I get that. Your job, BOA, Team GB, the money comes from the IOC, from the Olympics. The argument, and you've heard it many, many times over the years, is that that money has bred a culture which across governing body sport is is a disincentive to change again we get back to the public private question but actually how you alter that and i'm not saying take the ioc money away but if that does go away then the fragility of the you know which we all care about is completely decimated so how you inculcate and it is probably a business culture within the governing bodies?

42:28Yeah I think I'm an eternal optimist and would rather look forward than in in the rear view mirror. What I would say of having worked in the sporting system for more than 30 years enormous complexity, inefficiency both domestically and internationally, power and control across sports at multiple levels. We have a president who's fairly new who has given a clear mandate to modernise and I think that she should be given every opportunity to try and do that. Is that an overnight fix? No. But I think LA is a really big moment in time. The big shiny thing has to percolate down the whole of the system.

43:07And as we look forward with the games, I mean, Brisbane in 2032, first of all, it's a long way from London. It's going to be a very expensive games. But to support athletes to be their best, I think there needs to be not just modernisation, different mindsets. I am really optimistic about that. I'm both an optimist and a realist as well, Richard. And from an organisation, we're completely privately funded. We don't receive any public funding. So for us, it's really important that we continue to bring big brands in, that we continue to protect and grow our brand. But we can really step forward and be part of a conversation that without all addressing that fragility or ignoring the fragility, it's not going to do anyone any favours.

43:47And the other sort of well of money is sponsorship. Beth, I saw a load of very, very impressive brands clustered around the ICC Women's T20 World Cup. Yes, nailed it. It's only taken 18 months, Richard, but that's great. But tonight's not about it. Did they activate? Was it something that you thought, OK, was that part of the equation? All of the stuff about sponsors using their marketing muscle to reach new audiences, did that happen? I'm just looking in the front row here because I've got James who worked in the commercial team for the ICC on this. So I think the ICC have got a very impressive lineup of global partners across their men's and women's portfolio.

44:30A lot of those partners are also partners of the FIFA Men's Football World Cup. So I think there was a challenge going into the tournament in terms of getting capacity resource attention on the women's T20 World Cup. So would I have liked there to have been more activation? Absolutely. but I can understand the landscape there. There were also lots of new partners that came on board. So ICC did a deal with Kettle Chips and that was actually off the back, I think, of the Women's Rugby World Cup in 2025. So localised deals just for this market and they did do lots of activation. They had this amazing contraption at the final which was like a human claw thing about picking crisps out.

45:10But they did turn up and they did activate around that. So I think it was a shame, I suppose, in terms of the timing of the T20 World Cup going up against the FIFA World Cup. Because I think we would have seen a lot more from those partners. And I definitely know. So we actually presented to the ICC's commercial partners a year ahead of the tournament. And they were very, very excited about the opportunity. It's just, yeah, when it came to it, it probably wasn't quite the scale that we would have hoped for. OK. Any questions? We're going to just sort of go around the room. Matt Rogan. I didn't know you were here.

45:42Yeah, there you are. It's hiding from you. So it's interesting, the logo for this event looks a bit like sun. One of the things that characterised the whole of this summer... I did that in Canva, by the way. It was baking pot. And that had implications in terms of the way they planned drinks breaks in the World Cup. Implications for the day I went to the Women's World Cup was Roaster. It was interesting, the conversation about commercial responsibility, to support the participation game and some of the challenges at the grassroots. Because at the grassroots, I spent my weekend and the cricket pitches were wrecked by the middle of August, and the football pitches have no grass on them as the season starts.

46:23So just interested in climate as a theme, really, in whatever way you wanted to take it for your respective positions. I thought just to build on that, it was interesting, I thought that, so I might be wrong about this, but Kirsty Coventry's five targets, climate wasn't one of them. and I made the point at the time it felt a bit like a a list of priorities that was written with Donald Trump looking over her shoulder which might be a bit provocative but you get my point what do you think I think from an operational perspective during the tournament it was certainly a challenge I think it was one of those we did lots of like risk scenarios ahead of the competition in February at Lord's in a very cold media center and one of the scenarios we did was that there was an extreme heat event and I was very much like that's not going to happen it's in June, July, it'll be fine.

47:10Why are we even doing this? And then that did come to fruition. So there was a lot of, yeah, operational complexity that we had to bring in to make sure that we're mitigating against that for fans and for the players. Look, I think from a grassroots perspective, I think it's a very real challenge. I think on the one hand, because there's been so little rain, I think we've probably had the most fixtures played across the summer, which is a really positive statistic. But then, yeah, down my local cricket club as well, it's barren. So I think, yeah, as a sport, is something that cricket in particular is very alert to, given some of the climates and the territories that it's played within.

47:44And I think it's something that collectively, across ICC and individual governing bodies, that we each have our sustainability plans and they need to continue to be looked at and rolled out. Yeah, absolutely, Matt. Not something that we can ignore. I was in Birmingham at the European Athletics Championships on the night of the forest fires. And yeah, that really wasn't on anyone's risk register. and it just shows the complexity of running a major event. But the climate challenges that we face, I think there's a huge question mark in the future over snow and winter games. If you look at the quality of the snow in the Paralympics, this time in Milan or Cortina, it was very different to the Winter Olympics.

48:22But it's a challenge that we all face, whatever level of sports and the community sports impacted in summer. But if we reflect back to last autumn and how sports then waterlogged pitches and some of the challenges there, it's not going to go away. saying it's got to be on everyone's agenda. John said you can't ignore it, but again, FIFA sort of seemed to be in the sense that they probably would talk a good game about green responsibility. And my overriding impression from being at the World Cup or my overriding memory, really, beyond, say, Spain winning it or some of the football, would basically be sitting in airports.

48:55And with every single tournament now, look at the next one. The next one's going to... OK, at the moment, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina have one game each. We all know they'll get a group each. and it feels like more and more of it is increasing air travel which I know might be not necessarily the most substantial effect on climate given everything else happening but still, this is the footprint of these tournaments and FIFA in particular seem to be intent on expanding it. Nathan. Nathan Homer, this is probably for John but anyone can answer it obviously. I was talking about different stakeholder groups whether they're fans, whether they're sponsors, whether they're media.

49:31One of the things is, and you have to deal with this John I'm coming to you. You've got this fragmentation in sports, which everyone knows, you know, rugby's famous for it, but it came to me this week. I saw a letter signed by the three CEOs of SnowSport bodies in the UK. The idea that SnowSport has three different bodies across the UK just seems crackers. They're moaning about Ski Sunday. Know that. In terms of being efficient for the future, in terms of being able to engage fans, engage sponsors, engage me, and I've sat on all three sides of that table what sports got to do to make sure they are fit for the future it comes a bit of bets piece i was really late getting mine but one of the reasons the dcb alone sent me about five emails about four different things every week so it's it's that sort of thought how are you fit for the future to engage everybody i think it's a really good question nathan and there is no magic wand solution having worked in a number of national governing bodies and seeing governing bodies that were born out of community sports run by excellent volunteers but all of a sudden if I take my time at British Cycling and morphed into really complex commercial organizations and there are multiple layers of complexity I think leaders sports leaders need to step forward and appreciate there is more efficiency to be driven in the system so there's two ways of solving the financial challenge one is to go and generate more money commercial philanthropic whatever it might be the other is to create efficiency and i think there is efficiency in the system it needs leaders to step forward and be brave to have those conversations and the volunteer community some of the research i think it was sport and recreation alliance did a piece of research that looked at pre-pandemic post-pandemic the number of people that are volunteering and the drop-off it's quite staggering and it goes back to my previous point without that first volunteer coach how do people then find their way through the system yeah yeah actually on structure i must say it's one thing for all the concerns about what fifa and uefa are becoming it is quite a good thing that despite footballs like this is one of my concerns out of all this despite football's global nature it actually is under the one umbrella it hasn't fractured the way kind of boxing or cricket or sports have and but i do wonder how much that can actually sustain well there's a wall of money isn't there waiting to test that theory and in every sport and so one of the challenges again we've lived you know the live golf example is is a useful one because again it creates another body and how the calendar and all of those questions that are really difficult but very important how it sustains and how and who controls it is really hard Gary Link I think um a question I'd like to answer is that has it gone too far in terms of the commercialization we've talked about ticket pricing hydration break which obviously was to get more advertising spots, half-time shows, the actual World Cup final was a pretty poor game, you know, in terms of sporting memories of the summer.

52:32But I think it's just getting to a stage, you know, got influencers at the US Open that got no respect for the tournament and just there for their own egos, which isn't going to happen at Wimbledon, apparently. But just what you think is it's just getting too commercial. Where's it all heading? okay just take bits of that question as in the the hydration break what did you think I mean like the principle as with so much of FIFA as you already said the principle of it is fine especially given the heat we endured the application and the nature they arrived at the decision was the problem and obviously then like they were just applying it in games it didn't need a hydration break but it's funny just on the point about the outwork of final I was obviously at it and maybe my some of my emotions in this or influence the fact that I am half Spanish.

53:23But I will say I took quite a perverse pleasure in how FIFA and all the entities around it tried to make it this kind of, this event that felt so removed from what actual football is. But the football persists and you can have all that around it, all these stars, and one team will just try and make it an absolute dog of a game, a miserable match. And that's actually part of the beauty of football in some ways. But on the whole, yes, I agree, commercialisation is out of control. I think the one thing I counter to that is with regards to women's sport, like clearly that is the next big frontier.

54:00And I don't think we're at a stage yet where we could suggest that it's gone too far. So I think it's, I can understand, yeah, the context of the question, but I think that is that next big chapter for what we're trying to do in terms of growing the women's game. Gary also mentioned influencers there. and Beth what was the situation with the event, where do they play because he's right in that there's been in the last few weeks and there's a podcast coming out in the next week that deals with this issue in depth but he's right that there was the sort of noise, the weather around them is shifting and they sort of represent something don't they, they represent the culture difference between proper sports fans and people with ring lights and I'm not sure he's right about Wimbledon banning them though that's the other, that headline is a bit erroneous but what was your experience?

54:53Yeah so we did, I think there's a difference between influencers and content creators so we had What is the difference between the two? I've been told there's a difference between the two I think the content creators are very much around creating relevant content within their specialty related to the tournament which then just helps create visibility and scale for the Women's T20 World Cup in our regards into different spaces. And we did, there was a high footprint of content creators. The ICC have actually got a creator club that they rolled out, I think, for the first time during the Men's T20 World Cup at the start of the year.

55:29And then that did come through in the Women's T20 World Cup this summer as well. There were a lot of them. I think they were... Did it work as a thing? I mean, the idea being that they are bringing their audiences in. Yeah, so I think from what I've heard, I've not seen the final reports, but my understanding is that there'll be some pretty big sort of reach and engagement numbers coming out of those content creators where those eyeballs are so in different parts of the world so clearly there'll be a big footprint probably in India that's I guess relevant to the impact within the UK I'm also looking at Lisa Parfitt here on the front row because I think she was part of our sort of PR and comms effort around the Women's T20 World Cup and we did have some selected content creators working on that as well so yeah we did have them as part of the tournament and I think that is something that is just going to be part of major events moving forwards.

56:17But there were a lot of them and I think from my understanding with our media accreditation team and media managers, they were sometimes tricky to manage. Well, I mean, it does actually affect the reality of our job especially at the World Cup where we now know the FIFA courted influencers and sometimes in just the most basic sense, you're in a mix zone and there's sort of a rule when you're in a mix zone where you know if players are willing to speak they almost have this kind of unspoken thing where they'll stop two or three times and that's it. And we've had a situation where you're standing there in a huddle kind of waiting for someone to come by like there's some big story in the game and a player will stop for an influencer who just wants a photo or something like that or something he can put out and then they'll come by, sorry I already stopped over there and it does actually affect our work and obviously there's the element of kind of taking up space He just doesn't want to answer your question I'd stop for the influencer for a photo, you'll come in there with a microphone Right, any others before we, yes James Swanson, as Beth mentioned, I was working with the ICC during the ICC Women's T20 World Cup I oversaw the Kettle Chips Partnership so thank you for the shout out but also, Sam, you didn't mention Hello Kitty Yeah You had a significant role in this tournament, my question to you and also the other panellists us on the concept of women's sport audiences having worked at Arsenal and our initial strategy moving to the Emirates was focusing on key rivalries and that sort of milestone event concept and we struggled initially to sell women's UE for Champions League purely because the audience didn't know how impactful some of those teams in Europe were then women's WRL Cup 2025, once again, a huge amount of our organ segmentation strategy was focusing on that, Big Eventers, and Beth, you mentioned again, the role that the Big Eventer plays.

58:15My question is, do you think the impact of the Big Eventer from a ticket purchasing perspective across these big milestone moments, those of us who are across the women's sports space, we know audience show up for big moments, big rivalries, but they're not necessarily coming week to week do you think that audience segment is bigger than we think it is and do we think it's given a bit of a false reality to sustainability of the women's sports audience so will they come down the funnel is the is the question yeah yeah big question james um how long would that look that is yeah the core premise of our strategy around the world cup this summer which really was around trying to affect that long-term behavior change um for cricket fans and really creating that emotional attachment and connection.

59:02I think one of the things actually, and I should have mentioned it at the start, that I found interesting about this World Cup was we had totally underestimated the demand for India women through this tournament. So I think there's an understanding and expectation that when Indian men are in town, those tickets will sell out and it's a big event and they've got a passionate fan base. We underestimated the translation of that into the women's team now. so much so that I think we actually only sold 82 fewer tickets to India fixtures than we did England fixtures through the tournament so in terms of sort of trends and I guess rivalries and understanding of those things like that is a big thing that is happening now within women's cricket which I think will just help us scale and grow the global game moving forwards.

59:46Okay I was going to ask you about Arsenal actually about what's gone right at Arsenal in terms of the women's It seems to be, and whether it's... Sean took your mic away, so that was the downside of that. What's worked at Arsenal? Yeah, as a Spurs fan, it hurts me to say that, but there's something... Arsenal is always quoted as the success story of the club game in the women's football game. Yeah, I think because we've been in the game for 40 years, we have a competitive advantage. It started off as just the right thing to do, giving girls and women a safe space to play football. So we opened up our training centre at the time in 1986-87.

1:00:28Simply because it was the right thing to do, I don't think we thought fast forward and we'd be tie-swimmers of the Women's Champions League. We're very proud of that. So I think we have longevity. There was a bold and courageous move. Our source of relentless limousy of progress. So we opened our doors to Emirates. We didn't know where it would go. I think we opened the game against Spurs got a decent crowd post-pandemic we were quite chuffed with I can't remember the size probably around 10 ,000 something like that were pretty chuffed and we were just learning we tested and learned a lot and there's a lot to be said for Juliet Slott our former Chief National Officer who absolutely revolutionised the way we looked at and considered the way we sold tickets we targeted audiences And who are they?

1:01:17Because, I mean, again, I ask this question because is it the Lionesses fans that have chosen Arsenal? Because there's something about when we had people on from Sky Television talking about who is watching women's football, you get these two pictures. One is that Sky say it's mainly men. But when you look at the Arsenal ground, the picture, which is very powerful, is telling a totally different story. And the story that people on the commercial team want to tell about women's football is based on the Arsenal crowd, I think, because it's younger, you know, compared to the men's game, it's younger, trendier, more balanced.

1:01:55There's definitely a new audience there, that's for sure. I think what we really understood very quickly was it's not cookie-cutter from the men's game to the women's game. It is a new audience, so the things that they're looking for, the kick-off times, the matchday experience, experience, the F &B at the stadium itself is completely different and so we've again to use the phrase we've tested and learned a lot along the way and we've developed the Matchday experience with our supporters in sync with them, it's called Block by Block and Block by Block we are building things around the Matchday experience so whether that's the music that's played, whether it's the LGBTQ plus experience for our diverse supporters, whether it's the collaborations we do and the merchandise that we create it's done in collaboration with supporters so we're building something really really special together and I think there's a real pride and a real joy in that Ok, right listen, we're on a podcast here so it will be recorded almost a sort of comically large round of applause You three, thank you so much for your time, I really really enjoyed the conversation Thank you