This is the fourth and final episode of our series What's Sport Selling?

Created in collaboration with the Redtorch research and creative agency.

Today's guest is Tim Hollingsworth, who led Sport England for eight years, managing the £300m annual budget derived from government and national lottery funding. His tenure spanned COVID, energy crisis, and fundamental strategy reset via "Uniting the Movement."

 Over the past three episodes, we've explored how sport can drive meaningful social impact, tackle the global physical inactivity crisis, and unlock powerful business opportunities for the industry.

This conversation brings all of those themes together.

If you'd like to learn more about Redtorch, the independent research and creative agency dedicated to making sport more relevant, visit Redtorch.Sport. We thank them for their support. Much appreciated and what has been a really interesting and broad series.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Jen Topping and Jo Redfern are our guests critique the arguments around sport’s relationship with the creator economy, the control v chaos philosophy divide inherent in digital IP monetisation and audience building, and the PR battles being waged for premium advertising among the big platforms. Plus, the Beano.

Jen Topping’s Business of YouTube Substack newsletter is great, as is Jo’s Kids Media Club podcast. Both are broader than sport and all the better for it.

Plus:

The "Taylor Swift Data Fallacy" - This explores how top-tier creator success (like MrBeast's) is mistaken for average outcomes when creators transition to streaming, leading to unrealistic expectations.

The Data Reliability Crisis - Addressing the fundamental problem that much online engagement isn't authentic, with nearly half of internet traffic coming from bots.

Generation Z's "Creative Maximalism" - Examining how younger audiences have developed entirely new creative frameworks that challenge traditional media production.

The D2C Imperative - Why direct-to-consumer strategies are becoming essential rather than optional for traditional producers.

Creator-Led Sports as a Microcosm - Using sports leagues as an example of broader shifts in entertainment consumption and production.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

Our guest is Sam Sadi, CEO of LiveScore Group, and a regular visitor on Unofficial Partner.

Last week he announced a groundbreaking new partnership between the LiveScore sports content and betting platform and xAI, the Elon Musk owned social media platform's artificial intelligence company.

This gives LiveScore access to X's data/content APIs and xAI's technology for real-time sports conversations, sentiment analysis, and AI-powered engagement tools.

What happens next will tell us much about some of the big words we use a lot on the podcasts: personalisation, content, audience sentiment and engagement.

Don't miss it.

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday.

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport.

Our entire back catalogue of 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.