Unofficial Partner

'More trouble than it's worth': The locals are revolting

Good piece by Leo MacLehose of Fanzo on the smoke, mirrors and skewed economics that sit behind FIFA's fan festivals this summer.

"This is not a moneymaker for this town. In fact, it's probably more of a headache than it's worth." This is the quote from local councillor on the prospect of hosting an official World Cup fan festival.

MacLehose summarises the three point plan:

Invite more guests to the party - 16 more teams means 64% more games than we saw at Qatar 2022. More ticket sales and more eyeballs means more sponsorship inventory.
Retain all meaningful revenue -

Wedge Issues Live

Wedge Issues

We recorded a live podcast last week at MSQ Sport and Entertainment in Covent Garden, to mark the launch of At Last, Callaway Golf's new brand film, a way in to a conversation about the state of the golf business as we head in to The Masters, the first major of the season. The film captures the mood nicely.

A golf ad that doesn't feature the product...Bolshevism!

YouGod

What Just Happened

There's been a story running over the last year or so about the sharp uptake in churchgoing among Gen Z.

This excited religious types, who then projected their own theories on to the data in a rush to explain why.

The theory was based on YouGov research.

Turn out the data was wrong.

The Times understands that it

Is FIFA funny?

What Just Happened

The creator of W1A has a new thing coming out.

Hugh Bonneville moves to Miami as Fifa’s director of integrity, chairing a strategic operations group, “or Sog”.

From The Times:

At what point does satire become redundant?

Pull this thread and very quickly you get to Philip Roth country:

“You can’t write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent.”

He said this in the Nixon era.

Roth defined satire as "moral outrage transformed into comic art" and "a verbal

Are you Hamlet or Guildenstern?

Story

I enjoy talking with old pros. In this case defined as people who've worked in the industry for a long time.

Some of them have great stories; eye opening, jaw dropping anecdotes from their careers spent in and around the room where it happened.

My response is obvious: Come on the podcast and tell them.

Or, write them down. Publish them in a book, or a Substack.

Most don't want to do this.

They're worried about damaging their own or other people's reputations. Or they want a job and worry that they'll be seen as telling tales out of school.