Unofficial Partner Podcast
Unofficial Partner Podcast
UP524 Sleepwalking to Irrelevance: Content and fandom in the age of the For You algorithm
Richard Gillis is joined by Damian Browarnik from WSC Sports, the content and data platform working with over 650 clients including the NBA, NFL and La Liga, and Rich Johnson, sports marketing strategist and cofounder of End Product, formerly of Man Utd, New Balance and Social Chain.
The conversation explores how algorithms now dictate sports content discovery, why millennials remain the commercial core while Gen Z follows athletes over teams, and what winning looks like in an era of content overload. From Ronaldo's YouTube subscriber paradox to Ilona Maher's accidental growth hack for women's rugby, they examine who's thriving and who's drowning in the attention economy.
Throughout the episode we refer to WSC Sports 2025-26 Generational Fan Study. You can download the full report here.
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Hello there. Welcome. It's Richard Gillis here and you are listening to Unofficial Partner, the Sports Business Podcast. today we're talking about the for You algorithm and its impact on how sports organizations reach their audiences. The social media platforms. Have shifted from follower based to interest based algorithms fundamentally changing sports content strategy. TikTok pioneered the approach now adopted across all of the major social platforms, meaning that subscriber accounts no longer guarantee reach. This creates both a threat and an opportunity.
Niche sports can now reach audiences who never followed them, provided they can create content worth saving and sharing.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And you'll hear us referring to a report that's, uh, been done by WSC Sports, which is the generational fan study for 2025 and 26, I'll put a link to that in the show notes and it's a report that quantifies how different generations find, engage with and value sports content, i've got two people who know this world very well. Damien Brunick, he's Vice President of Account Management for WSC Sports and Rich Johnson is co-founder of End Product Consultancy. He's a digital strategist, formerly of Man United New Balance and Social Chain. Diary of A CEO, Steven Bartlett's Company. and if you like listening to podcasts like this one, you'll like the Unofficial Partner newsletter, which goes out on Substack every Thursday. So to get that, just search Unofficial Partner, and we will pop up. Look for the yellow box. And you will find us there or sign up via Unofficial Partner dot com. Damien, can you just kick us off,'cause is is an organization I know and I've heard, and I know they're prominent but I just need a bit of context in terms of where they fit in to the, sort of landscape.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:Yeah, so we, we tend to break it into four pillars. The first pillar is the content itself, where we help our partners to create better content. The second pillar is where we help our partners to create. Better experiences based on the content that we help them, to create. third is around fan data and how we help them to tailor the content and the experiences to their fans. And of course, the last part, but the most important one is how we help them to commercialize and, and monetize the entire, ecosystem.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Right.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:So that's really
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yes. Good. And you mentioned partners a few times. We've better name a few'cause they're big names.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:N-B-A-N-F-L Laga, ea, and so
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:So more than 650 clients globally.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So it's substantial and it's big and broad is the, is the point Rich. Same question again. A veteran of Unofficial Partner podcast. Now
Rich Johnson:Uh, yeah. Well, I think, think it's my
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:It is. And by the way, I recognize your sweater. I've got, that is a Callaway sweater, I've got one of those. I got one a good. We, last time I saw you, we were at um, the open championship
Rich Johnson:Of
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:it was a Callaway, we did the Callaway event, didn't we?
Rich Johnson:You know what? I saw one of the guys there wearing it. It might have been one of the um,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:me, was it? I wouldn't have been the, in the role model.
Rich Johnson:guys. It wasn't you, but it would've influenced
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:And I thought, that. So I think a couple of hours later, I'd, uh,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Well, it's again for people who are listening and not watching the, uh, the clip that it is a particular, I think it's a sort of Korean, it's their Korean market jumper. I think I, I, I probably almost got, certainly got that wrong, but yeah, so I wasn't, well, I'm a sort of anti influencer. They were, they gave it to me and I, they told me not to wear it.
Rich Johnson:It
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. So yeah, I interrupt with you. Sorry. I.
Rich Johnson:Yeah. Rich Johnson sports marketing strategy. So, uh, we work directly with brands and rights holders on, mainly commercial storytelling branded content and sponsorship activation yeah, and branding content strategy.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I always put you into a sort bracket you've got a particular specialism about athlete. Content and Stephen Bartlett is someone I always think of where when he pops up on my algorithm on a very regular basis, I always think of you. Why is that?
Rich Johnson:Well, well, I used to work, uh, it was pretty early Doors at Social Chain, which was Steve's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:right.
Rich Johnson:agency uh, that, uh, that he founded and had and, and you know, this is 10 years ago now. It's quite interesting. I was at New Balance before, new Balance Munch night before, but I was at New Balance in, uh. And I sort of saw this like scrappy startup of a load of kids, uh, in Manchester. And there was something about it that I just thought was really interesting and people were like, what are you doing? Why, why are you moving from New Balance to this agency that no one's heard of? but there was something there, you know, and I was actually, uh. Even I was a few years older, so I was sort of the dad of the agency for, for the first, uh, couple of years, which was, uh, quite strange considering I was only about 28. And yeah, Steve did a, did a great job there and then obviously now he's, I think, like found even more of his, uh, his specialism, which which is media and, uh, and investing. So. That's why. And then, yeah, the athlete stuff, I'm just fascinated, I sort of categorize it as like the new breed of athlete, creator I think it's parts of this proven to be true, but you know, is, is gonna be, uh, pretty significant over the next decade in terms of some of these athletes going from just household names and stars to creators and
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, I agree. And it's, it's sort of inarguable now, isn't it? It's something I used to argue about. I, you know, just for the sake of it. But now it's, it's even, I can't stand in the way of that trend, but I've got a load of questions it's a question of where we are in relation to the sort of algorithm or the algorithms and where companies are, and we are in this period of almost super abundance is a polite way of putting it. But, or it could be overwhelm, we're bombarded with content and a few questions to ask about who's winning. At the moment and what, what works now in terms of, the way in which we relate and work with, the platforms and, specifically the algorithms. I sort of find myself second guessing why I'm being served content of various types. So it's a sort of almost like a meta game, no pun intended, but there's a sort of game within a game where, I dunno, football, cricket, golf, American sport. And then there's randoms, like volleyball or, but, and I start, I think, I wonder why I've been getting that. Some of it is obvious and then some of it is really isn't obvious, but I'm just interested in what's going on and where it's headed. Damien, give me a sense. WSC, I've just done a report on, on this sort of thing. Gimme a sense of the sort of top line here, but there's a question about what are the characteristics of winning now in this world sort of algorithm driven content?
Damian Browarnik, WSC:I think before answering who's winning, let's try to understand who's playing.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:You have the millennials, you have the Gen Z. And I think out of these we need to understand. What are the differences? Because winning can be winning revenues or winning, winning the fandom. And these are two different things at the moment. Now the question is maybe back to you. why Are you getting the relevant pieces or the snacks or the bites? I think it starts with targeting you as probably the commercial core rather than, someone else that is trying to, to get pulled into the fandom. Overall, I think, and this is also what we ask ourself as part of the research is what is the current status of the fandom and where is this going? We're entering in 2026 and we tried to help our partners in really steering the way. And I think it is clear that while AI was used in the last couple of years different different people within the industry create more content. We probably now understand that it's not just for that, and we need to think we wanna win how, not to create the the content, but to create the relevant content. So winning in that sense means to create the relevant content for the relevant people, it millennials, be it
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay, so let's, let's, let's push, push that stage further then.'cause you've made that distinction between millennial. I mean, how old are millennials now? I'm not one. I'm Gen X. So I know incredible to even think about that, but what, what is it, how old are millennials now? I mean, I, and, and I'm trying to, I sort of lose track'cause I used to take the piss outta millennials and now I take the piss outta Gen Z and it sort of evolves over time. But millennials are now what? And, and I guess my question is what's, what's the difference in their behavior and whether demographics is the differentiator?
Damian Browarnik, WSC:So in general, I can say that uh, the difference lies in the habits and how they consume. And based on the report, you can see that millennials. 49% of them mentioned that they will watch Sports Daily and they will subscribe different OTT subscriptions. And at the same time, they also have the expectation to get everything more personalized. So we're talking about churn. they don't get it of 56%
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:like they're still spending money. The millennials.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:they are, yeah, they are the core of all the commercials, while the Gen Z are coming back to, to what you guys talked about is the athlete first rather than. The club or the team or it's, it's really more focused on the athlete itself. now I'm not sure if, if you feel the same, but from what we've learned through the report is, pretty substantial. The fact that you need to bring the commercial aspect. to the millennials while trying to lure in and bring Gen Z with the snacks. And actually, when we felt that the Gen Z used to have the highlights as the appetizer, this now became the main dish. This is what they are having for lunch. It's not only as an appetizer.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:worry is obviously that It's interesting you say the millennials are still paying for stuff.'cause again, going back to my previous point about, you know, if you, if you hang around long enough, I can create, there are sort of stereotypes that we used to have about millennials that appear to be sort of shifting.'cause we used to worry that they're not gonna spend any money. And now we are saying actually they're the center of this, they are paying for subs. And we've moved our focus onto Gen Z Rich, there's a few things there. I've got this question, which is how much agency I have over what the algorithm serves me. So again, it's not all about me, but I like talking about me. So it's quite just as a, as a route into conversations. But
Damian Browarnik, WSC:What one, just maybe just some definitions so we are all aligned. So the Gen X is more the 45 to 60. These are more the anchored, traditionalist, live first loyalty teams, routine driven. The millennials are the 30 to 44. These are really the commercial core. they want to see streaming first. They have different subscription, and they will probably most likely be converted in more commercially. And then you have the Gen Z, which is the 18 to 29. They are focused on athlete first, short form creator influence. You spoke about it previously about the creators. They want to consume the sport the creators. This is part of their expectation and this is not a nice to have.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay, so you both are millennials, aren't you? I can, that's, we can make that assumption. Is that right? You're not, is that right? Rich? You're a millennial. Yes. I'm not even gonna question which end of the millennial spectrum you're on.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:the hat.
Rich Johnson:gonna say, I think I'm slap bang in the middle.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So what do you think about this?
Rich Johnson:So I mean one of the main principles that I think is super important to understand and hopefully from a strategic level, when you're talking about. Algorithms and to your, you know, quest in this, this answer for why you get serve certain things. There's almost been
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I like a
Rich Johnson:Yeah, sure.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:sh.
Rich Johnson:we'll find your, uh, pot of gold by the end of this conversation. The, you know, we've sort of gone through like two phases of, of social and, and algorithms and what you get served. Like, from what, like 2010 to 2021, it was very much like, you got served based on who
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:And. That's great. Particularly within sports, it's fantastic because obviously we have. One of the advantages is we have an inbuilt fandom.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:And then the room on your feed is basically filled with you know, as a fan or a viewer, whatever, the room on your feed is, is then filled with the clubs, the teams, the sports, you know, all those kind of periphery interests that you might have. Now TikTok really kind of like changed the game on that, so, Say when that really kind of came to prominence. 2020. 2021, where effectively we we're now in this, we are now firmly in this interest
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:era, and that effectively means that you know, who you follow is. More redundant than it, than it used to be. it's why, you know, you can actually, you may have a ton of interests or that you've previously followed on your Instagram, YouTube, whatever, and you may just like never see them at all. Because ultimately, you know, now the all the platforms use this model now, like every single one. And they're, and you know, by and large, they're very good at identifying things that, uh, they think you would like. There is certain sort of like overpowered metrics now that will affect the behavior, like saves and shares on, again, all platforms, even screenshots now, you know, like, I dunno if you have a screenshot on that LinkedIn, but it
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah,
Rich Johnson:up on
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:it's pretty much all I do.
Rich Johnson:there.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:There are some, there are some days I don't do anything else.
Rich Johnson:Well, that's again
Damian Browarnik, WSC:Only on
Rich Johnson:great
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:No TikTok. I like, I, I'm, I've, yeah, you've got this interest based algorithm and essentially you're looking at the for you sort of thing here, aren't we? Rather than, so it used to be, again, I sound like my granddad here, but I remember, you know, when you go back to the sort of early. Iteration of social media, the argument was that you can curate your own feed and you would then follow your own interests. well, It's just stuff that I really like and I'm following these people that I really like. And actually, you are not getting the stuff you don't care about. the argument against that was that it's the newspaper argument, and I'm an old journalist, is that, oh, you don't, there's happenstance you don't bump into things you don't know about or you don't want to know about, or you didn't know you didn't know. Whereas in a newspaper, you would flick through and say, okay, well I, here's some foreign news. Then it's filter filtering into my world, whereas. The argument against social media was, no, you, you don't get any of that. And I'm now completely personalizing my feed. We've now gone away from that, haven't we? So we are not in that world anymore.
Rich Johnson:Your, your feed is being personalized. It's just by retention. And it's obviously how long you are spending to consume or, you know, each video or obviously, you know, a signal, a signal of positive intent like you're swiping through a carousel or something like that, or saving it or sharing it. So it's very much still being personalized. It's just you are, you, you've lost an element of the control.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:not sure you had the the option to control.
Rich Johnson:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:had the feeling that you're controlling something, but.
Rich Johnson:Well, I mean, and
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:that there's a, a, a great, like live case study is you know, Ronaldo launching his YouTube channel to great sort of fanfare at the start of the year, 70 million subscribers overnight, cetera, et cetera. But now he won't, even though he has all those subscribers, he's, you can tell by his views, he's not appearing on the feeds of, all those followers and fans just because of the views
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Right.
Rich Johnson:and, and because of elements of his, of his content strategy. So, you know, it's, that is, and there's plenty of examples of it, but that is in action. Now, there is a flip side to this, which is the opportunity for anyone. get eyeballs is there, and that's for any athlete. for any rights holder. Be be because you can, you can now actually get served on feed without someone even being aware of your existence before. So that's where there is actually also an amazing opportunity in, in this,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:and there's more to it if I may, but I think the fact that currently views are being counted. I mean on, the basic layer is you can stare for a second on
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:and this will be counted as a view. While in the past, you had to spend 5, 6, 7 seconds in order for it to be counted as a view. Now, let's ask ourself why, and the answer is this is how the platforms can generate more revenues,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:I mean. As long as you can count more views, you can generate more revenues. And I think what we need to look into is two things. One is something that I read this morning is that in Australia, I think they're going to ban access to social platform from the age of, uh,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:Right. Which will have a huge impact on sports. If this goes now
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Hmm.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:because many organizations are spending time and effort go out and they use these, let's say, hooks different social channels to bring fans. And as Rich said, now being driven and Ronaldo is a good example. fact that so many people left UUs. Moved to, uh, Ronaldo and his new team means that in his next stop, in his journey, fans will follow as well. Right? And if the club is not able to these fandom into their then it means that they will lose the game.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:We quite often focus on Ronaldo and we focus on the big players. One of the questions that you quite often get when pe, you know, on podcasts is people come on and they're worried about discoverability as this, you know, that's in a world of, abundance and, enormous amounts of content in loads of different spheres, not just in sport. You've got individual organizations that aren't. The Premier league that aren't the NFL, the the NBA and they're saying, what do we do here? What's the game for us? So it's not that the absolute elite'cause they're always gonna be okay. It's always gonna, you know, they're gonna have millions and millions of people that are, in their orbit. It's the ones that are just below that, which are really worried about this world.
Rich Johnson:Yeah, this is back to my point. it's actually the best time. For that and, and in fact, like niche is good. Niche is very good in this world. And it al niche also doesn't have to mean then that, uh, you ultimately need scale that perhaps you needed before. you find. And, and I think there are a lot of very interesting ways that you can monetize audiences and fandom, fandom now and, you know, monetizing online communities. But niche is great, like, because now again, you can hit feeds that you just weren't possible before'cause people weren't following. So actually to link to the WSC report, that rightly highlights in terms of the power of the power of athletes, that is. Where one of the biggest opportunities lie.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:So, just so I'm clear, rich, you are, you are talking there about the, so if I am a cricket board or a football, you know, governing body or a swimming governing body, it's trying to work out who is gonna pop for me for my sport. So you are using the individual athlete as a sort of Trojan horse into an audience.
Rich Johnson:In the same way that Okay, I I, I'm gonna use another top tier
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Johnson:so do apologize. But it's just a great, like, case study, you know, l Mayer and the cut through that she's had is like, almost like could and should have been orchestrated by,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:know, women's world rugby, but it wasn't, they just sort of lucked out. Like she's, she's like done the job for them and, and that is the great case study in terms of like what is possible How did she do it? Well, she did it through like this body confidence, get ready with me style videos that just actually pulled through the fact that she is also a, a rugby
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And only some of, I mean, again, she's, it is an interesting case study.'cause again, Damien. I am not a women's rugby fan. Okay. I'm not. I've got nothing against it, but I don't, it's not something I watch, but I do get serviced a lot of, of women's rugby. So, and, and she's very, has been doing something right, as Rich says. But it doesn't, only, some of it is about rugby. So there is something here about the sort of genres that, that she's appearing in, or you are, you are broadening away from the core performance of the sport into other adjacencies.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:The question for me is, how relevant was it for you? Because I feel that sometimes. You are being swamped with so much content that I assume is not
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah, I would say not very Is.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:and maybe, maybe exactly right. So I think the problem here is not fact that, you know, fans are, are drowning in content, but rather they're drowning in irrelevant content. And then you get. Bored, and maybe you click on it and maybe it's a, you know, a, a good hook, and then you'll spend more time. But I to believe that you'll not spend money on this kind of content while if they're able to create content that will be tailored you, this might change. Although you're part of the traditionalist. Uh.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Well, you're making a heck of an assumption there, Damien, about, you know, my, uh, I think there's a, I it's sort of I get you come down to, you've got the doom scroll scenario where, you know, you're just going through something will stick every now and then, but you are just, you know, and we've all been in that. Thing and we're trying to fight it and we see our kids doing it and we, there's a bit of it, which is you know, to the Australian case study, trying to legislate against it or whatever. And we all know it's not good for us, but we do it anyway. So it's an addiction at the center of it. But then that's the world now. there's a question about how much, again, agency I've got over that, but there's, there's also a, a bit on the other side of saying, well, how do I go about being relevant in that? you are saying about we are overwhelmed with irrelevant content. And I agree with you and it's trying to work out what relevance is because I've seen sort of, you know, strategy decks where people say we have to be in genres that are adjacent and we are gonna be on, you know, we're gonna take rugby into cooking, we're gonna take it into, you know, street art. We're gonna take it into various other places, all of which makes sense, and the hope is that people who are interested in cooking will ate back towards rugby in some shape or form. But actually the risk is irrelevant, isn't it? You're thinking of, well, you know, why have I got rugby in my, I'm a, I'm a cooking fan. I mean, I'm here for the baking and now I've got Elona may popping up and, cooking.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:The, the, the question is how do they monetize, right? So if we're talking about getting more eyeballs, and in that case, spray and pray,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:then. You have more eyeballs, which means that with a sponsor you can generate
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:That's one way of, monetizing
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:I tend to believe that will not generate enough revenues. While the second part of what you said, partnering with adjacent industries. This is where probably you tap into new fandoms, you are able to bring more people to watch the sport, but at the same time, I mean, you bring also sponsors that can relate more to what you are offering and what you are presenting. So I think it's probably a win-win in that,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of things that, again, pop out of the report is that one is the the difference in the algorithm. Again, I it, we talk about the algorithm, but actually it's a variety of them and I'm wondering if. Do we know the difference between say, you know, what the rewards that are given by a TikTok or YouTube or Instagram and are there the nuances there? you know, the word algorithm has become this monolith. So it's trying to sort of break that and say, well actually, am I rewarded and punished on TikTok differently than I am on LinkedIn or, you know, Other algorithms, do we know much about the difference between them?
Rich Johnson:I mean, there's certainly a difference between, the short form video platforms and like
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:I, I'd, I'd say the biggest differences know, the short form ones, which is obviously Instagram, but specifically obviously reels, which is
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:know, sort of the main currency there. Obviously TikTok and then YouTube shorts, they sort of behave in a, in a similar way. Obviously YouTube. terms of main feed again, is really an outlier based on it, know, being around long form, and again, that's, shifting and evolving in real time. If you take like the, average watch time, you know, across like YouTube or something on a video, it's like something like 11 minutes or, you know, the key trait that obviously they all share is. rewarding, content that encourages more time spent on app. So that means for short form, it means obviously completion For YouTube long form, it means completion, but it also means, session time, uh, beyond that, so, you know, has one video led you to another, led you to another for LinkedIn, which I think a lot of people are having many bug bears with at the moment, uh, around the, around the algorithm my interpretation and belief on there is it's down to value and, second party connections, not first party connections. How many second party connections can, can you reach? And that's probably also an interesting point in terms of when you go into analytics, uh, of a lot of these platforms and, and YouTube is, and TikTok are very good in terms of their, in terms of their analytics. It will give you how many non-subscribers or non followers are viewing your content. And often you'll find that's, more than the, the percentage is higher than the people who are
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:And again, like the higher that percentage, the more likely it's gonna be served to more feeds that are, that are inherently similar to you. So are different. There is nuances, but then in, it really comes down to kind of format in terms of a lot of way, uh, in regards to how they behave.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:And I think I wanna make a, a distinction on YouTube versus the others. I think YouTube has. Cracked the algorithm in that sense. able to offer short form, but also long form. and we also saw it in the report. This is really the, first place to do both
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:in, in a good way.
Rich Johnson:the other unique thing about YouTube, just in terms of on the short form platform, historic content is just like, just like never comes up, you know, there's a real shelf life on content of
Damian Browarnik, WSC:Yep.
Rich Johnson:YouTube is really the only one which will happily pull up a video from, you know, a couple of, couple, couple of years ago. it, it also does videos that you may have watched like 10
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:which I think is great'cause, you know, you just wanna dip back into it. And, and again, that's where, where it is relatively unique in that sense. And again, for. The sports industry is, I think, interesting for us where it's, you know, where you can sort of play a, uh, legacy role, uh, content can
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah,
Rich Johnson:role.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:I'm never quite sure. And this might be about LinkedIn, but it's also the others as well, about the, punishing of linking out of the platform which is really annoying because I started, you know, this is a long time ago before we, I started, did the podcast. I ran a blog. And that was all about, this is almost pre Twitter. This is how old I'm, but the, the sort of blog was all about links and comments and links and you would send people their way and we all, you know, and some of'em would come back, some of them wouldn't. But that's, there's been a wall put around that sort of thing, or you are punished a lot for doing that and. It's interesting, Substack, has emerged, hasn't it, over the last sort of couple of years. I mean, I've been on Substack a couple of years and their notes product, I'm never completely sure where I am with it. And it sort of feels like a bit of a hybrid and you know, I saw Care Starer appear on it. I thought, you know, fucking know it. That's, that's the end of that then. Yeah, don't bother getting to, you know, and you sort of think well. I don't it. You are sort of second guessing unless you're very sophisticated, like you guys, you don't, I don't have a very sophisticated idea of what I should be doing on each platform, which I guess is what digital strategy is now, but it's quite frustrating, isn't it, that sort of navigating the diff different incentive sets of each of those algorithms.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:That's exactly that. Then I think in terms of. the content you should create per platform. LinkedIn, in that case, is, is less relevant for the sports organizations. But I think overall it's, it's exactly that. How to tailor per platform, but not only per platform, but per the user segment. So that's another step forward.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And what happens with the private network? So again, the sort of behavior. has shifted from what I used to go on Twitter for. I now have my own WhatsApp group. I sort of share things and you get that impulse that has been trained into me now for 20 years of I see something or take a photo of something or screenshot something. I wanna share it with people. And now I'm doing that on WhatsApp rather than doing it on Twitter.'cause Twitter's been sort of weaponized in a way that I don't like. Okay. You know, it might, we can argue the toss about. X, but I used to really like it. I don't like it anymore. But I now push that into private networks. How does that play again, where again, when we, this is a sort of a micro example of a bigger question for the sports industry in terms of how they play and they've gotta take on trust that their stuff's good enough to get shared on private networks. But I don't quite know how you would do that. It feels like a different question. Yeah.
Rich Johnson:Well, that's it. That's, Where I mentioned the point before, and we, we make a big point of it to talk about it regularly, is you've got to make content that's saveable and shareable. It is a really overpowered metric, both for your main feed because it,, private communities are very, are are the most high trust communities that you have. WhatsApp
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:and Instagram, messenger or anything like that. It's, it's the most high trust community you have because what you are sharing, Richard, is a personal recommendation from you that the. An official partner group, or you know, a friend or someone in a, a rights holder will trust your opinion and trust what you have to say. And also that you're not gonna be like, oh, that's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Johnson:you talking about? You know? So it's a, it's a, it's a super high signal. And I think what, you know, there, there's a lot of sports activity now happening on WhatsApp through communities and, I was having a chat with, with Rob Pilgrim, who's just moved from YouTube to WhatsApp, uh, sorry, YouTube to Meta a couple weeks ago. And he was saying it's really interesting. You've got, like, you know, uh, KO's got a private community on there and, and she's really active there because. It's more of a safe space than social for her, which I think, which, which I kind
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah. Yeah. You get that, don't you? Yeah.
Rich Johnson:the community and hadn't really kind of registered that, and I thought, oh, that's actually, that's actually great. because again, you're not creating something new or Something different. So there's like two factors at play there. You've got the again, you've got this like high trust signal of intent and statement that people take from just like dropping something in there and then you've actually got it as this like place of community. I'm not sure they fully kind of opinion, I don't know if they fully like nailed the community product yet, but I think it's gonna be a really key piece of the inventory. what all this doesn't do is solve this constant battle that we have in the industry of like owned platform and, you know, owning data and all sort of stuff. It's still just like hanging in there to be, to be kind of relevant. but you know, it's, there's certainly no. No excuse to say that the tools aren't there and actually, arguably the tools are getting are getting better. So what you will about Yeah. or
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:things changing constantly.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:you think, rich, that this is another step towards the own and operated or the, the fan communities that sport organizations can around their product?
Rich Johnson:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, you know, again, the, the pieces are all there in terms of separately, like you take, again, what we were talking about there about WhatsApp, well, everyone wants community. Everyone's talked about community. Everyone wants ways for people to engage, like. Online and in private spaces. Well, you have that in, its like silo. Everyone wants a way to serve and be distributed content. Okay. We just spoke before, we're not really necessarily always in control of that, but we have large distribution and scale, uh, opportunities. Even things like actually when you talk about Substack, like obviously you know, in some of these like new newsletter platforms and, you know, email and newsletter has been dying for
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:Uh, you know, and, and, uh, sorry Richard, uh, but it's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:No, I, no, I say it's a bit like,
Rich Johnson:know?
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:you know,
Rich Johnson:You get
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:it's like
Rich Johnson:that.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:and cinema have been dying for 50, 50 years.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:And, and books.
Rich Johnson:And it's crazy and, and actually the beauty, the beauty of those, which, you know, you experienced Richard, is obviously they're totally algorithm free. So that's
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:And I think that's why a lot of people are bullish on, on things like Substack or a platform like Beehive or something like that. Because again, you come with the data play and then you can start to arguably get sophisticated about how you can monetize, monetize, audience direct to source, so once you've built together all of those components, my personal belief is for a lot of rights holders, and again. Richard, you spoke earlier around, like you talking about the tier
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:know, those are, that's probably the most sensible components to. And construct a, an ecosystem and, and have belief in an ecosystem around those pieces rather than try and like go it alone because I think we know how, how difficult, uh, that can be to actually prove the model and monetize and, you know, have all the fun shit that
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:You know, it's, it's, I I think the pieces are there.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:And, and taking Richard, what you said about the algorithms. I think WhatsApp groups and the telegram groups are cleaning the noise of the algorithms where you feel that you trust the, the person that shared, because you're part of the group and you do it voluntarily, right? And you say, now part of this group because
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Mm.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:and therefore. I want to listen to what he or she shares. This ties in with the athlete or the creator, but what it also mean, it means that they can monetize it and the direct sponsorship will probably be much more valuable there. Because of focus that this has in this group versus using it on the algorithms everywhere. And I think this is the change in mindset, and this is probably just a step towards the own and operated where this will be then brought into the ecosystem of. The sports, be it a niche sport or tier
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:it is sort of, it it feels like it always comes back to brand in the end. Do I trust them? is there anything there at the center of it, and now whether that's a superstar athlete or a, creator or it's. A football team or it's a league or a body, there has to be something gravitate around and then around which you can then start to then sort of play in these different communities. I mean, you, you won't be surprised that, you know, once you've got a podcast which reaches a certain level of prominence, you are not short of advice from people who are sort of, you know, saying You should grow this, do that. And if we'd have taken all the advice we've been given over the last six years, you know, and the platforms shift over time, but essentially what they're all saying is once you've got an audience, there are different ways of relating to them and Yeah, monetizing it. And the question you said at early on Damian, about the measurement of, Engagement of views and that's where, again, it's always happened. It will always happen. People will always try and over claim their audience and they will always try over claim engagement. And the platforms are very cynical about servicing. That need. And so you get a bigger and bigger number. And I think we're all addicted to massive numbers. People want to hear just as a sort of hygiene factor an almost absurdly massive number.'cause it means that, okay, you're of a certain scale, but actually what they want is the detail of, the engagement. And I don, I think we're sort of between those two. We can't wean ourselves off the huge number. At the top end, you know, and the funnel metric encourages that sort of the idea that you need this enormous number at at the at the top. the platforms are more than happy to sort of provide that illusion.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:And I think this is exactly where instead of creating more content, just for the sake of creating the content and bringing eyeballs, one should focus on creating relevant content and personalized content, because. At the end of the day, you can generate revenues through quality quantity in most cases. And that's, I think, a shift in, in the mindset of different sports organizations in the last couple of years. The belief or the hope was we can grow, we can bring more eyeballs, we can go global. see it with the different changes. Now with league, uh, with the MLS, with so many the, the really the amazing sports organizations, they need to somehow generate revenues in order for them to, to make a living. And it's going global and it has probably a ceiling and it's hard. And you need the creators, and you need the athletes, and you need to create relevant content and not just content.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Is that time of year where you get trends, reports in, but quite a, a few of them in are talking about more, is more, you know, we, we just need to generate more and more. Content and everything has to be sort of, supercharged. And again, it's balancing that with you know, this idea of scarcity and creating value from, again, that might be a sort of old marketing trope. Now, I dunno where we are with that, but you sort of sense there is still something in that in terms of creating something of value. That is not everywhere and that, you know, you, you are pulling people in rather than just delivering everything to everyone all the time. It's the sort of challenge of our age, I guess.
Rich Johnson:Because I think there is so many examples now of where you just, if we take our core sports, product of sports and many examples of this, but where like there's just total oversaturation of the physical on pitch product, football being a great
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:And the issues that come with that is then like, how do you thread. The story, how do you tell the story? How do you then like produce depth around it, which is also inherently what drives a lot of, uh, what drives a lot of this, and, one of the main things you should be striving for is, is depth. So you've got like that aspect in terms of the core, the core product. Then the challenge is balancing that with, well, if you've got a global product, how do you enable. people around the world to perhaps experience it. And I think, you know, something like Formula One, obviously tackles this like on a, on a regular basis in terms of filling its calendar and that sort of stuff. But, but I, I like the job that, that they do in terms of, as many people do in terms of creating this like, truly global sport that a lot of people can feel and touch and hear and and, and really kind of experience it. As far as like it comes to them when you, when you channel that down to, to content you know, at, at the end of the day, the is, you know, you, you basically have this, this window to work with. that's not gonna change the window of the sort of mobile phone screen. That's not gonna change. That is a zero sum space. So it doesn't always necessarily come down to more, but it's again, you, you mentioned the word before earlier, Richard, it's like, how can you make more content with relevance, be more relevant? How can you know like exactly who you're targeting? I think that's one thing we've often struggle with in, in sports is like the ICP and who is that? And probably'cause there's multiple, many, many more multiple ICPs that
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:ICP.
Rich Johnson:Ideal
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Okay.
Rich Johnson:target
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Rich Johnson:right? it's arguably many more than, than exist within. Some more like traditional areas of, of brand and, and content marketing. There's a certain element of reps that you have to do through content to actually understand what's going on and what content works and what hits and, what's working on feed at the moment. But then equally, yeah, I think, the most important thing is, is actually relevance.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:And, if I have to add to that, I would say that probably the next frontier isn't more content, but content.
Rich Johnson:Hmm.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:How to create relevant content for the fans that, that you
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:And the, quest is personalization, isn't it? We started off with me moaning about the algorithms and you know, what it serves up and I dunno whether it's been oversold in the past, but this idea that I'm gonna be delivered everything I need. When I need it we are not there yet by any means, and I'm just trying to, you know, there is a sort of question about what personalization will mean. In the near future because I bought a fridge. Do you wanna buy a fridge? You know that there, there's that sort of, you feel like the algorithm, again, I'm, you become more sophisticated about looking at the algorithm, judging it, why it's done, what it's done,'cause actually it might be that I just don't like myself or my own habits and these are just being reflected back to me and I want to be a much better, I want the, you know, it's annoying'cause it's seeing me as I am rather than the sort of poser that I present to the world. And so actually the, you know, the algorithm is really me compared to the, the one that I'm presenting.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:Your thoughts as a 24 years old are quite fascinating.
Rich Johnson:I, the, the, a lot of that, honestly. Yeah. Goes back to that again, your feeds are personalized now. I, I think again, it's, yes, there's a, it will get more personalized, arguably, but they are personalized now. I think a lot of it goes back to that point I mentioned before of like, you know, we are in this like zero sum game. And, I, I think of it as like a fan or like my personal, like sports diet, right? Is generally football, golf, darts when the time comes around. what else? I like watching the snooker, like when that town comes around, you know, a bit of like winter sports and stuff like that, and it's making sure that like. I get served that at the right time and almost then I don't kind of like some of the more fringe, areas of like my content, my sports content diet that I still get served that and they don't kind of just disappear slightly kind of over time, which is something that I get conscious of in terms of I can chew myself. Oh, I, well, I didn't know that was happening. At the weekend, I just, I totally missed it,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:two thirds of my algorithm is, dogs welcoming soldiers back from war? It's like a, it's like a, I think I must have sat through one of these things and I just am now bombarded on on TikTok.
Rich Johnson:Are they
Damian Browarnik, WSC:But,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Almost certainly ai. They are, they're, but they're just sort of to this heartbreaking music. And because I'm a, you know, I love dogs. I'm an absolute sucker for dogs welcoming back their owners from the, you know, in military uniform.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:I think it's, it's probably less about personalization in terms of what content you want to see. more how can you see ads and,
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:be it as short clips
Rich Johnson:Mm-hmm.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:and monetize it. It has nothing to do with the consumption of, oh. This is what I wanna watch. This is, now they know me. It's basically, you can talk about something and suddenly you'll, you'll be served with relevant ads or clips, but this is how they monetize.
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Well, listen, I will point people towards the, uh, WSC sports report. Thanks so much for your time. I really enjoyed that chat. I know we went in strange directions, but that was the,
Rich Johnson:I feel like it's part, part strategy session for you, Richard. You
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:these, this is essentially what Unofficial Partner is at this point. It's trying to, you know, and it's a therapy session as well, so I quite like, you know, it's, uh, I.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:Now we're going to watch dogs
Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner:Yeah, well now I've talked to you about it. You will get this stuff. And you know, it's, uh, I dunno where it started, but this is the, this is the fa fascinating thing about it. It's just trying to work out why, why, where did it go? Where did it start? And you know what it's like when you accidentally s watch something, you know, and you think, oh God, I'm gonna get a load of that now. Brilliant. Okay, rich Damien, thanks a lot for your time. Cheers. I.
Damian Browarnik, WSC:you.
Rich Johnson:Thanks for.