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Unofficial Partner

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Betting, Gen Z, porn and women's cricket

A semi-regular threadđŸ§”on the podcast relates to why some sports and properties are popular as betting sports, and what happens if a rights holder purposely seeks to frame their sport to the gambling marketplace.

The follow on from this is how investors and private equity groups are very interested in this question. I find myself over using George Pyne as a case study, citing his enthusiasm for TGL, the screen golf series, as a betting platform.

From here, the conversation can jump quickly to the hypothetical of turning women's sport in to a 'betting sport'.

So I'm really interested in this great bit of journalism from Play the Game:

You have to read this. Really! Offshore betting companies with porn links are targeting women’s cricket❗ A new investigation by Steve Menary and Jack Kerr for Play the Game reveals that gambling
 | Stanis Elsborg
You have to read this. Really! Offshore betting companies with porn links are targeting women’s cricket❗ A new investigation by Steve Menary and Jack Kerr for Play the Game reveals that gambling operators linked to pornographic content access live data from women’s cricket 🔎 The investigation also exposes risks of match-fixing, player harassment, and the spread of betting markets into unofficial competitions. Catherine Ordway, PhD, an Australian lawyer, academic, and integrity consultant, says the convergence of unregulated gambling, live betting, women’s sport, and operators linked to pornography creates a perfect storm of integrity vulnerabilities. 💬“If betting operators also have associations with pornography and adult entertainment, legal or otherwise, it is not only going to undermine efforts to position women’s sport as safe, inclusive, and community centred, but it potentially exposes players – especially younger or lower paid women – to predatory approaches.” Also valuable insights from Steven Richardson and Aahna Mehrotra! Read the full investigation (link in the comments) 👇

Nikola raises another betting angle below, this time re Gen Z's appetite.

This touches on one of the UP Rules: Fan Engagement is a euphemism for betting.

Nikola Vuković, CFA (@nikolavukovic)
Sport has moved from gamification to gamblefication. It is no coincidence that millennials and gen-z are the generation of shitcoins, meme stocks, leveraged options trading and prediction markets. The worse off you perceive your circumstances to be, the more likely you are to gamble. For most, creating wealth has become a game of taking big shots with long odds, hoping to get lucky.

The Rugby Analogy

Women's football as Rugby

Bex Smith is the guest on Other People's Money. Crux Football is her investment vehicle that is buying up women's teams, starting with Montpellier and Rosengard in France and Sweden respectively.

Hear it here:

The shadow of rugby

In the following clip I say women's football is "sleepwalking toward replicating the mistakes of rugby".

How long have you got? Rebecca (Bex) Smith is the guest for Other People's Money, the Unofficial Partner series on sports finance, with co-host Matt Rogan. The subject is multi club ownership in
 | Richard Gillis
How long have you got? Rebecca (Bex) Smith is the guest for Other People’s Money, the Unofficial Partner series on sports finance, with co-host Matt Rogan. The subject is multi club ownership in women’s football. Bex’s Crux Football owns Montpelier and Rosengard, and the plan is further acquisitions. So what’s the thesis? Search Unofficial Partner where you get podcasts. Or go via the link below.

It's been 30 years since men's rugby union went pro.

It's an easy comparison to make. But I wonder if it's the right one.

Beware the pull of the comparison, or narrative fallacy as Nassim Taleb put it.

'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:

  1. 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.
  2. Retain all meaningful revenue - broadcast rights, global sponsorships, ticket income, projected to surpass $11 billion for this tournament.
  3. Distribute all costs - security, policing, infrastructure, operations - to host cities. Cities get the honour of hosting. FIFA gets the money.

See previous note on FIFA's behaviour in the host city bidding process for this tournament:

But wait...

The fan fest model assumes a massive travelling fandom. Expect more of these type of stories in the run-in.

Wedge Issues Live

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

YouGod
Photo by Akira Hojo / Unsplash

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.

Gen Z religious revival claim withdrawn over ‘flawed’ YouGov survey
A report claiming that more young people are attending church services has been pulled after the firm found its data was skewed by ‘fraudulent’ respondents
The Times understands that it was mainly the result of people overseas who were trying to claim the financial incentive offered for completing surveys; it found that the fraud was human, rather than being caused by automated bots.

See also: excellent piece on the right's islamophobia.

How Jews and Christians came to Muslims’ defence
What an open iftar revealed about Britain’s changing language on faith - and the solidarity now emerging in response

Is FIFA funny?

Is FIFA funny?
LOL?

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.

On Satirizing Presidents
An interview with Philip Roth

Roth defined satire as "moral outrage transformed into comic art" and "a verbal ritualization of frustration and anger".

Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History is really good on the paradox of satire, which includes a version of confirmation bias, when viewers interpret satire in a way that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs.

A famous example is The Colbert Report, a right wing parody beloved by conservatives.