Show Notes
Season 3 of The Captain’s Table focuses on the movers and shakers of the sports industry. This week, The Captain is joined by the real Sheriff of British Sport, Jon Dutton — not of Yellowstone fame, but the current CEO of British Cycling and soon-to-be CEO of Team GB, the British Olympic Association. We learn about Jon’s passion for Rugby League, Rugby Union, and Cycling, as well as his unique leadership style that has taken him to the top tier of British sport. The show is brought to you by Fortnum & Mason and The Sponsorship Doctor.
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This week’s Goal Own Goal returns from the international break with Roger and Grant discussing German spies, upside-down Hull City footballers, the enduring magnificence of Ian Botham, and whether sporting greatness requires a little arrogance, swagger, and complete indifference to being liked. The mood turns darker as they tear into Manchester City’s legal saga, the Premier League’s credibility crisis, the prospect of a Super League, and the uncomfortable possibility that football’s most powerful clubs may finally have pushed the game past the point of forgiveness.
Roger Mitchell and Mark Oliver are joined by Nick Bourne of the ATP to explore the battle for attention, aggregation and the future of sports content. From his pioneering work at Copa90 and the rise of football’s creator-led media, to the lessons of Netflix’s Break Point, Nick explains why the next generation of sports storytelling depends on access, personality and player buy-in. They also ask whether tennis can escape its overcrowded calendar, create better incentives for its stars and turn casual viewers into lifelong fans — before examining who will control the next media bottleneck: the platform, the rights, or the audience’s first response to “what’s good tonight?”
Roger Mitchell and Mark Oliver are joined by Ben Morel, former Six Nations and NBA executive, to examine whether sport is reaching the limits of commercialization. From French football’s media-rights crisis and the fight against piracy to rugby’s crowded calendar, private-equity investment and the proposed NBA Europe league, they explore whether the future lies in bigger rights deals — or in better products, smarter bundles and giving fans a reason to watch.
This wide release of last week’s special live edition of Goal Own Goal goes from the FIFA Forward enterprise plan and the sheer chaos around Infantino’s latest power play to a properly sharp discussion about what football has become, who it is really for, and what happens when the game starts treating itself like a financial product. With Charlie Methven and John Colquhoun joining Grant and Roger, the conversation cuts through the buzzwords to look at the deal itself, the commercial logic, the dodgy politics around it, and the bigger question of whether the sport still has any sense of dignity left in the room.
Roger Mitchell and Mark Oliver are joined by Davide Tesoro-Tess, the strategist who helped shape Sky Italy, to unpack the biggest media question of the moment: what happens when consolidation, separation and vertical integration all start happening at once? From Comcast and Sky to RTL, MFE and the future of free-to-air versus pay TV, they dig into why Europe’s broadcasters are rearranging themselves, whether the real prize is cost savings or advertising power, and which deals are bold strategy versus survival in a market that is changing fast. Brought to you by 54.