UP234 Spotify Barcelona WTF?

The most eye catching deal of this week was the announcement that Spotify, the music streaming company is buying almost the entire sponsorship inventory of FC Barcelona, including the shirt of the men’s and women’s teams, the training kit and a title partnership of the famous Camp Nou stadium. 

To get to what’s really happening here, we’ve brought together Tom Gray, Joel Seymour Hyde and Matt Rogan.

Tom Gray is a founding member of Mercury Prize winning band Gomez and a board director of PRS For Music. Tom leads a social media-driven campaign, #BrokenRecord which calls for more of the streaming revenue ‘pie’ to make its way to artists and songwriters. His submission to the parliamentary select committee is referenced in the conversation and is available to read here. 

Joel Seymour Hyde is Managing Director for Octagon UK, the sport and entertainment agency with offices in 22 countries around the world including FRUKT which has particular expertise across music, entertainment and esports.

Matt Rogan was a co-founder and former CEO of the Two Circles agency, and is now Non Executive Director and Senior Advisor in Sport. New book, 'All to Play For' was published in July 2021. 

As you’ll hear us reference, we recorded Matt’s contribution from a car park outside Wembley Stadium, so there’s a bit of road noise in the background. 

If you're interested in sports business analysis and comment, follow @UnffclPrtnr on Twitter and sign up to the UP Newsletter that goes to thousands of sports business people every Thursday. Sign up via unofficialpartner.com 

As usual, every episode of Unofficial Partner can be found by using the big podcast providers, including Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via your favourite podcast app. 

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.