Today, we are joined by Ben Curtis, Global Brand Vice President for Rexona—the brand known as Degree in the US, Sure in the UK, and Shield in South Africa. Ben oversees the global strategy for a brand that Unilever identifies as the "cultural engine" of its Personal Care business group, making it the primary vehicle for activating their massive FIFA and UEFA partnerships.

As the marketing world prepares for the unprecedented scale of the FIFA World Cup in North America, we are diving deep into the strategic blueprint required to activate at this level. This isn't just a conversation about logos on LED boards; it is a masterclass in how a global giant moves a brand from a three-second-a-day consumer habit into a "culturally sticky" space where it can build a genuine emotional connection with an audience of billions.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Strategy of Confidence: How Rexona is leveraging the concepts of science, performance, and control to align with elite sport and solve the "problem" of sweat and odor on the world’s biggest stage.
• Managing Global Complexity: The challenge of maintaining distinctive brand assets (DBAs) across fragmented brand names like Rexona and Degree, and why the "tick" and the "it won't let you down" promise are the keys to global consistency.
• Activation at Scale: An inside look at the "House of Fresh" content studio, limited edition player-ambassador packs featuring stars like Vinny Jr., and the "world-first" in-game authentications being planned with FIFA.
• The Gender Balance: Why Unilever is giving equal billing to the Men’s and Women’s World Cups, treating the 2027 tournament in Brazil as a major commercial priority rather than a mere "purpose play".

For any executive navigating the geopolitics, logistical hurdles, and cultural nuances of a 48-team World Cup in the US, Ben provides a rare look at the high-stakes decision-making happening inside one of the world's most sophisticated marketing organizations.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

Bex Smith, is our guest today on Other People’s Money, Unofficial Partner’s sports finance series presented with regular cohost Matt Rogan. 

Bex Smith was captain of the New Zealand Women’s football team, appearing at World Cups, two Olympic Games, and enjoyed a stellar club career including winning German football’s triple. 

Crux Football is her investment vehicle for investing in to the women's club game. The organisation currently owns Montpellier in France and Sweden's Rosengard club. 

It is the latest firm seeking to make investments in multiple women’s soccer clubs. US businesswoman Michele Kang has established a multi-club ownership network, with her portfolio including the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) Washington Spirit, London City Lionesses in the WSL and French club Olympique Lyonnais Feminin.

Mercury 13, Monarch Collective and Sixth Street each has their own multi-club women’s sports organisations.

Smith has secured investment in Crux Football from several notable figures, including the former Netflix vice-president Cindy Holland and her partner, Anne Imhof, who were previously early-stage investors in the NWSL club Angel City. Also part of the group is Ted Knutson, the founder and chief executive of StatsBomb, and the global head of sport at EssenceMediacom, Misha Sher.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

What T20 Cricket Teaches Every Sport About The Race For The Global Fan.

Mike Jakeman joins Richard for Inside Edge, the business of cricket series. 

Guests: 

Finn Bradshaw, Head of Digital, ICC

Edward Fitzgibbon, Managing Director, NYZ Consulting.

Twenty20 cricket is one of the great product innovations in modern sport. Compact, volatile, accessible to anyone with three hours and a phone signal, it has done something fifty-over cricket never managed: it compressed the development timeline for nations outside the traditional power base. 

But here is the lesson other sports should be studying carefully: a brilliant product and a functional structure are not the same thing. Cricket has the former. It is still negotiating its way toward the latter.

The current ICC T20 World Cup is a further proof of concept, if any were needed. The shorter form has lowered the barrier between the established test nations and the rest. But the structure of the game, its calendar, and the allocation of central resources remains wedded to the previous world. So what are the lessons of this event for other sports as the race for the global fan intensifies? 

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

Barney Francis offers an insider's view of the sports media economy, drawing on his huge experience as MD of Sky Sports in the UK and EVP, Studios at IMG, the company's production business. The conversation spans new sports formats, piracy, streaming disruption, rights economics, the creation of The Hundred, the Premier League's move to in-house production, and the structural challenges facing rugby in the UK.  

1. New Formats: Additive vs Disruptive
2. Resilience of Incumbent Rights Holders
3. Piracy: From Nudge and Wink to Cultural Norm
4. The Netflix Value Equation
5. Rights Fragmentation vs. Consolidation
6. The "Home of" Strategy
7. Sky's Consumer-First Philosophy
8. Rugby's Structural Failures
9. The Creation of The Hundred
10. Premier League Production In-House
11. Remote Production and Efficiency

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

Richard is joined by regular Bundle co-hosts Yannick Ramcke and Murray Barnett. 

Yannick is General Manager of OTT at the streaming service OneFootball and Murray is founder of 26West Sport and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN.

Subscribe to The Bundle Bulletin, via Unofficial Partner's Substack Newsletter. 

Today's topics:

Advertising Renaissance: ITV’s Six Nations in-game advertising (worth 20% of total inventory value) signals broader inflation, with technology approaching real-time contextual capabilities.

Consolidation Through Equity Stakes: NFL-ESPN deal represents new partnership model where rights holders take equity positions in distributors, aligning incentives and reducing adversarial negotiation dynamics. Zero-risk structure for NFL (buyback options, increased stake rights) while positioning ESPN favorably for 2030 rights renewal.

Platform Monetization: FIFA/TikTok partnership marks inflection where social platforms transition from “free lunch” to paying eight-figure sums for content eligibility. Doesn’t guarantee content appears (still requires broadcaster agreements) but shifts value capture from platforms back toward rights holders.

Direct-to-Consumer Reality Check: Ligue 1+ executing “everything right” strategically (pricing, distribution partnerships, World Cup acquisition) yet still faces fundamental math problem - needs 3-4x current subscriber base to compete with licensing revenues from traditional model. World Cup deal “buys time but doesn’t solve core revenue problem.”

Regulatory/Political Context

The value of the cultural moment. Super Bowl to Winter Olympics foreshadow the LA 2028 Olympics political dynamic, with concern about navigating hostile Trump administration's view of Olympics as a woke party, versus FIFA’s successful Trump relationship management during 2026 World Cup preparations.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

Pete Fitzboydon, former CEO of Sussex County Cricket Club, reveals the stark financial realities facing non-Test hosting counties. With only 7 out of 50-60 annual playing days generating profit, counties survive primarily on ECB funding - approximately £3m of a £5-10m turnover. The conversation explores The Hundred's transformative impact, selling the longer game, and the future shape of English domestic cricket in a franchised world.

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.

Sid Lee Sport is the fame-making creative and sponsorship agency for brands in sport. Through exceptional creativity, deep sponsorship expertise, and flawless on-site delivery, they help brands, sponsors, and rightsholders unlock their full potential in sport - most recently picking up a Leaders Sports Award for their work with Lidl at UEFA EURO 2024.

Everything they do is driven by a culture of effectiveness - because in sport, performance matters. Not just on the pitch, but in the work too.

So whether you want to build buzz, connect with audiences, or do something that actually cuts through, Sid Lee Sport knows how.

Visit sidleesport.com 

Sid Lee Sport - where brands become champions.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

Sally Munday is CEO of UK Sport, one of the most influential positions in the sports industry. On Friday the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games begins in Milan-Cortina. 

How many medal will Team GB win? How much will each medal cost? And why does that matter?

UK Sport distributors around £100 million annually in public funds from the National Lottery and the Exchequer, supporting high-performance Olympic and Paralympic sports and athletes. For the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic cycle, they have announced a record £330 million investment, with around £11 million distributed directly to athletes annually through Athlete Personal Awards (APAs). 

Key details regarding UK Sport funding:

• Total Investment: Around £100 million per year, focused on "top end" elite sport rather than community, with over 860 medals won since 1997.
• LA 2028 Funding: A record £330 million is designated for the Los Angeles 2028 cycle, supporting over 50 sports, including new additions like Flag Football and Lacrosse.
• Event Hosting: Over £40 million of National Lottery funding was invested in a £150 million programme to host major international sporting events from 2013-2023.
• Recent Funding Shifts: While funding remains high, some sports have faced cuts, such as UK Athletics facing a potential 10% reduction in funding.
• Key Beneficiaries (Recent Cycles): Sports like Rowing (£24.85m) and Sailing (£23.9m) have received significant World Class Programme funding for the 2028 cycle. 

The money is used to support elite athletes with training, coaching, and living expenses, primarily aimed at achieving success on the world stage. 

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.

Sid Lee Sport is the fame-making creative and sponsorship agency for brands in sport.

Through exceptional creativity, deep sponsorship expertise, and flawless on-site delivery, they help brands, sponsors, and rightsholders unlock their full potential in sport - most recently picking up a Leaders Sports Award for their work with Lidl at UEFA EURO 2024.

Everything they do is driven by a culture of effectiveness - because in sport, performance matters. Not just on the pitch, but in the work too.

So whether you want to build buzz, connect with audiences, or do something that actually cuts through, Sid Lee Sport knows how.

Visit sidleesport.com 

Sid Lee Sport

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

Ryan Norys is the Chief Revenue Officer at Tottenham Hotspur. This is a candid conversation about the commercial fortunes of the club as it brings the front of shirt sponsorship to market at a time of genuine uncertainty.

Spurs finished 17th last season. Commercial revenue grew 40% in three years. That tension runs through the entire discussion.

Norys' journey to Spurs was via City Football Group, WME, the LA Dodgers and Miami Dolphins. Now he's navigating the post-Levy era, the post-Son era, and a Premier League shirt market about to be reshaped by the gambling ban.

Why do the naming rights to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium remain unsold, six years after coming to market?  

What do the London NFL games actually look like from the US side? 

• How commercial revenue climbed while league position collapsed
• The governance shift under Vinai Venkatesham and what it signals to partners
• Why Tottenham stopped actively selling stadium naming rights
• The honest assessment of life after Son Heung-min
• Local versus global fandom and what football clubs actually know about their audiences
• The view from Miami when the NFL comes to London
• Building value around what you can control when you can't control team performance 

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

THE BILLION DOLLAR RACE: WHO WINS SPORTS AI?

There's a race on. Bloomberg Terminal for sport. Sports Business GPT. The industry's operating system. Who builds it first?

THE LAST FRONTIER

"Once you give away that level of knowledge, it's gone. This is the last frontier before all your intelligence is gone." — Craig Hepburn

Live from Fuse UK, featuring Craig Hepburn (ex-UEFA), Richard Ayers (Rematch), Sean Betts (Omnicom), Andy Shora & Chris Woodcock (TFG Labs and 21st Group).

BIG QUESTIONS

Will sports bodies repeat the platform mistakes? Is your archival footage the new gold? What happens when AI commoditizes entertainment?

KEY INSIGHT: Data isn't spreadsheets anymore—it's everything. Your match footage trains robotics. Your highlights feed Google's models. Are you selling or building moats?

"Don't give it away. Build your own API layer. Make them pay for your oxygen." — Craig Hepburn

The optimistic take: live experiences become priceless when AI makes content free.

Who adapts fastest wins.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

What if we could fix the conference panel? You know the format—interesting people, good intentions, and about ninety percent of it forgotten by the time you reach the bar.

Chat_UP Live was held at FUSE headquarters in London. Rather than just another AI panel, we ran an experiment. Working with the team at TFG Labs, we built a custom AI co-pilot that captured the onstage conversation in real time, took in audience questions, and offered evidence-based responses that pushed the discussion in genuinely non-obvious directions. Think of it as a second brain for live events.

Did it work? Partly. Was it interesting? Very. This is test and learn in public—and we're sharing the results.

In this episode, you'll hear how we approached football club valuations with the system running behind us. If you want to interrogate the model yourself, there's a link in the Unofficial Partner Substack newsletter—but it won't be live forever.

Part two drops Friday, where we go deeper into the race to build the operating system for sports business.

A huge thank you to our friends and partners in this experiment, in particular the following people:

At FUSE: Helen Burford, Louise Johnson, Monica Conway, Zainab Zaman and Annabel Wilson, Lucy Basden Smith and Sean Betts.
At Twenty First Group: Blake Wooster, Andy Shora, Omar Choudhuri, Dan Zelezinski, Chris Woodcock and Conall Milligan.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

Welcome to The Bundle, our regular series on the sports media and streaming marketplace with co-hosts Yannick Ramcke, General Manager of OTT at the streaming service OneFootball and Murray Barnett, founder of 26West Sport and formerly of F1, World Rugby and ESPN.

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.

Sid Lee Sport is the fame-making creative and sponsorship agency for brands in sport. Through exceptional creativity, deep sponsorship expertise, and flawless on-site delivery, they help brands, sponsors, and rightsholders unlock their full potential in sport - most recently picking up a Leaders Sports Award for their work with Lidl at UEFA EURO 2024.

Everything they do is driven by a culture of effectiveness - because in sport, performance matters. Not just on the pitch, but in the work too. So whether you want to build buzz, connect with audiences, or do something that actually cuts through, Sid Lee Sport knows how.

Visit sidleesport.com 

Sid Lee Sport - where brands become champions.

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 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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