I knew 'Serviette maths' would get attention.
From Martyn Ziegler's column on Saturday.
UP in The Times
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My Life in 2026
- See someone on Linkedin post an AI generated analysis of FIFA hydration breaks.
- Spend ten minutes finding a post I did on the same subject, only better, in December 2025 from which it may or may not have been nicked by the other bloke’s language model.
- Finally find my own post in the Substack archive but then lose the link to the Linkedin post and spend ten minutes finding it again.
- Paste the link to my post in the comments to establish provenance, with a pithy and passive aggressive reference to the ‘December 2025’ date of publication,
- Start to feel like a complete knob end (Knobend, Knob-End, discuss).
- Decide not to post the comment.
- Open a packet of Wotsits.
Is Wright right about rights?
The ProductWhy are Scotland crap? That was the ITV post match chat.
Ian Wright compared them to Norway.
And he linked national team performance to domestic league media rights valuations.
I can see the point but not sure he's right. Or at least, it's a bit simplistic.
There's a lot of links in that chain.
I've never seen a breakdown between average match attendance and media rights values - I assumed the latter is often skewed by local competition in the media market rather than actual quality of the product.
And what of the link between the commercial appeal of the domestic league and national team performance?
If you throw in this Sportico chart it doesn't make it easy to draw that conclusion.
'Serviette maths'
The BundleFrom today's podcast with Jonathan Licht, Sky's Chief Sports Officer.
0:00
/1:22
Cortisone v Dopamine
The ProductEmma Hayes on the difference between the experience of men’s and women’s football
@atouchmore This dopamine versus cortisol conversation might just change the way you think 👀⚽️
♬ original sound - A Touch More - A Touch More
Why does anyone care what the MCC is now?
CricketWe did a podcast that asks this question, which I think might be one of the most interesting marketing stories in British sport currently.
I grew up in a deeply unfashionable bit of north west London. Cricket was our thing and Lords was our Disneyland. So I love Lords but I've always assumed it was unrequited. The MCC stands for many things, not many of them related to the 21st century. But it now owns a Hundred franchise. Which is a festival of inclusion.
I put it to Katie Maier, CMO of the MCC, that there's another brand route. To forego social inclusivity, which is a crowded fight that MCC won't win. Instead they could own the privilege, here and abroad. Expensive, exclusive, patrician. You're Lord's ffs, don't fight it.
Her answer is brilliant. And quite revealing.
A big bit of the answer is on Jonny Bairstow's shirt. Barclays wouldn't pay to be associated with the men-only MCC of Plum Warner.
Use them as a proxy for banks and other big spending categories, and you get a weird dynamic. It's the banks that want to push sport's organisations to be more progressive. The Woke Bank. Why? 2008, the financial crisis. In their marketing at least, the banks have been apologising ever since. Bastard bankers and their bonuses etc.
The podcast is here:
