Andrew Croker's guest appearances

Andrew Croker

Are You Not Entertained?

Unofficial Partner Podcast

The Sports Entrepreneurs Podcast by Marcus Luer

Barry Hearn

Steve Martin

Jeff Slack

Guy Kinnings

Ralf Reichert

George Pyne

Marcus Luer

Andrew Craig

Michel Masquelier

Brett Gosper

Elliot Richardson

Donald Dell

Murray Barnett

Manoj Badale

Kelvin MacKenzie

OwlTail

Back by popular demand. The Groundsmen mailbox was inundated by requests to follow up our chat with sports industry veteran - Andrew Croker. So we asked him back. In this show we talk about the 10 Deals that shaped the sports industry and what can we learn as the world of sport continues to be rocked by disruption and new investment in many shapes and sizes.

Back by popular demand. The Groundsmen mailbox was inundated by requests to follow up our chat with sports industry veteran - Andrew Croker. So we asked him back. In this show we talk about the 10 Deals that shaped the sports industry and what can we learn as the world of sport continues to be rocked by disruption and new investment in many shapes and sizes.

AYNE 508 - Andrew Croker Part 2

On this week’s Groundsmen Conversations - we are joined by Andrew Croker. One of the great characters of the sports industry over the past 40 years, this is a guest we have waited a long time to chat to. A joy to welcome him to our show. And well worth a listen. In association with Sportsdigita.

On this week’s Groundsmen Conversations - we are joined by Andrew Croker. One of the great characters of the sports industry over the past 40 years, this is a guest we have waited a long time to chat to. A joy to welcome him to our show. And well worth a listen. In association with Sportsdigita.

AYNE 504 - Andrew Croker Part 1

Andrew Croker, Chairman of multiple enterprises and one of the most outspoken sports Entrepreneurs hailing from the UK.  Fun and colorful deep dive into Andrew’s 40+ years in the industry from his days following his dad around Football club board rooms to successfully launching Perform, the Global Cycling Network and getting Hawk-Eye into Football.   Key Highlights How it started, back in ancient history in 1973, his father becoming the General Secretary of the English FA Opening doors and hanging out with his dad in Football club board rooms and socializing with everyone in sports Joining BSB (later BSkyB) as employee #4-5, drawing up weekly sports schedule Finders, Binders, Minders and Grinders.  He was always a “Finder” How sitting next to Sir Frank Lowe (Advertising Legend) on the Concorde lead to launching Orbit –  sports marketing agency    Next stop, Ian Todd asking him to start IMG Football Division together with Paul Smith    Sportal – massive rise and big crash  - missed the big sale by weeks – dotcom boom and bust story of the year 2000 Premier League international TV rights (IMG, Sport+, Fox/Newscorp partnership) –  working with new Sportfive as International Board Member and UK CEO How “Perform” idea was seeded and came together – group in Hamburg looking at Digital Production idea – Oliver Slipper – Premium TV  &amp; Inform team Access Industries (Len Blavatnik) comes into the picture – meeting Robert Louis-Dreyfus – and eventually cutting a deal with Len to merge Premium TV and Inform to form Perform Going public and taking it back private, from de-coupling Perform’s profitable B2B business from DAZN’s B2C business and the differences in business models and valuations Next opportunity arrives with Play Sports Group – Claude Ruibal, Global Head of Sports of YouTube at the time providing the “seed money” for the Global Cycling Network on YouTube (Chairman role) – great story from how it started and eventually sold to Eurosport/Discovery Network in 2019 Fascinating Hawk-Eye Football story (South Africa World Cup story and how we ended up in the same stadium in Bloemfontein)  and our thoughts on VAR (Video Assistant Referee) in football Oakwell Sports Advisory – Chairman Advisory Board – intersection between sports world and Private Equity His views on PE in sports, not mincing his words as usual – and a bit of Consultant bashing to top it off Final thoughts on why we both love the industry and can’t wait to get back out   About Andrew Croker Andrew Croker is a very well-known figure in the sports management and media business, with over forty years’ experience. He has worked with many of the biggest rights holders, media owners, agencies and sports brands in the world. Andrew was the first Head of Sport at BSB, the forerunner to Sky Sports, and started and ran IMG’s global football division. In 2007, as Executive Chairman, he co-founded the digital sports rights agency, Perform Group, now DAZN, the live and on-demand sports streaming service. He remains an adviser to Stats Perform, the leading sports data and streaming service. He also consulted to Hawk-Eye for ten years until 2019, focussing on the introduction of technology into football, and was also Chairman of Play Sports Group, which included the Global Cycling Network - the world’s leading community of cycling fans - until its sale to Discovery Networks in 2019.   Follow us on our social sites for the latest updates Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sportsentrepreneurs/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marcusluerpodcast LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sports-entrepreneurs Website: https://marcusluer.com Podcast: https://marcusluer.com/podcast To get in touch, please email us at podcast@marcusluer.com   Feel Good by MusicbyAden https://soundcloud.com/musicbyaden Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/_feel-good Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/bvgIqqRStcQ

Andrew Croker, Chairman of multiple enterprises and one of the most outspoken sports Entrepreneurs hailing from the UK.  Fun and colorful deep dive into Andrew’s 40+ years in the industry from his days following his dad around Football club board rooms to successfully launching Perform, the Global Cycling Network and getting Hawk-Eye into Football. Key Highlights <ol><li>How it started, back in ancient history in 1973, his father becoming the General Secretary of the English FA</li> <li>Opening doors and hanging out with his dad in Football club board rooms and socializing with everyone in sports</li> <li>Joining BSB (later BSkyB) as employee #4-5, drawing up weekly sports schedule</li> <li>Finders, Binders, Minders and Grinders.  He was always a “Finder”</li> <li>How sitting next to Sir Frank Lowe (Advertising Legend) on the Concorde lead to launching Orbit –  sports marketing agency   </li> <li>Next stop, Ian Todd asking him to start IMG Football Division together with Paul Smith   </li> <li>Sportal – massive rise and big crash  - missed the big sale by weeks – dotcom boom and bust story of the year 2000</li> <li>Premier League international TV rights (IMG, Sport+, Fox/Newscorp partnership) –  working with new Sportfive as International Board Member and UK CEO</li> <li>How “Perform” idea was seeded and came together – group in Hamburg looking at Digital Production idea – Oliver Slipper – Premium TV  &amp; Inform team</li> <li>Access Industries (Len Blavatnik) comes into the picture – meeting Robert Louis-Dreyfus – and eventually cutting a deal with Len to merge Premium TV and Inform to form Perform</li> <li>Going public and taking it back private, from de-coupling Perform’s profitable B2B business from DAZN’s B2C business and the differences in business models and valuations</li> <li>Next opportunity arrives with Play Sports Group – Claude Ruibal, Global Head of Sports of YouTube at the time providing the “seed money” for the Global Cycling Network on YouTube (Chairman role) – great story from how it started and eventually sold to Eurosport/Discovery Network in 2019</li> <li>Fascinating Hawk-Eye Football story (South Africa World Cup story and how we ended up in the same stadium in Bloemfontein)  and our thoughts on VAR (Video Assistant Referee) in football</li> <li>Oakwell Sports Advisory – Chairman Advisory Board – intersection between sports world and Private Equity</li> <li>His views on PE in sports, not mincing his words as usual – and a bit of Consultant bashing to top it off</li> <li>Final thoughts on why we both love the industry and can’t wait to get back out</li> </ol> About Andrew Croker Andrew Croker is a very well-known figure in the sports management and media business, with over forty years’ experience. He has worked with many of the biggest rights holders, media owners, agencies and sports brands in the world. Andrew was the first Head of Sport at BSB, the forerunner to Sky Sports, and started and ran IMG’s global football division. In 2007, as Executive Chairman, he co-founded the digital sports rights agency, Perform Group, now DAZN, the live and on-demand sports streaming service. He remains an adviser to Stats Perform, the leading sports data and streaming service. He also consulted to Hawk-Eye for ten years until 2019, focussing on the introduction of technology into football, and was also Chairman of Play Sports Group, which included the Global Cycling Network - the world’s leading community of cycling fans - until its sale to Discovery Networks in 2019. Follow us on our social sites for the latest updates Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sportsentrepreneurs/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.instagram.com/sportsentrepreneurs/</a> Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/marcusluerpodcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/marcusluerpodcast</a> LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/sports-entrepreneurs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/company/sports-entrepreneurs</a> Website: <a href="https://marcusluer.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://marcusluer.com </a>Podcast: <a href="https://marcusluer.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://marcusluer.com/podcast</a> To get in touch, please email us at <a href="mailto:podcast@marcusluer.com">podcast@marcusluer.com</a> Feel Good by MusicbyAden <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?v=bvgIqqRStcQ&amp;redir_token=Ig_Q9g5vHUNWPu2JUXjQ_XJeEEx8MTU5MjgyOTI0MUAxNTkyNzQyODQx&amp;q=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fmusicbyaden&amp;event=video_description" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/musicbyaden</a> Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Free Download / Stream: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?v=bvgIqqRStcQ&amp;redir_token=Ig_Q9g5vHUNWPu2JUXjQ_XJeEEx8MTU5MjgyOTI0MUAxNTkyNzQyODQx&amp;q=https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F_feel-good&amp;event=video_description" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/_feel-good</a> Music promoted by Audio Library <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvgIqqRStcQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/bvgIqqRStcQ</a>

Andrew Croker, ”Mr Chairman”

This week Richard and Sean head to the Wimbledon home of sports business legend Andrew Croker to talk about his life and career. It’s a story that boasts an extraordinary cast of extraordinary characters such as Rupert Murdoch, Mark McCormack, Horst Dassler and Len Blavatnik among many, many others, stopping off at the great landmark moments of the past 40 years, from the 1966 World Cup through to the birth of Sky Sports, the launch of the Premier League, the first dotcom and Frank Lampard’s role in the advent of VAR. This is the final podcast of 2019, so it’s time to wish all our regular listeners a very Happy Christmas, we really appreciate your support over the course of the year. We’ll be back in the first week of January for the first podcast of 2020.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 @UnffclPrtnrWe 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 300 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.  Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app.  If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.

This week Richard and Sean head to the Wimbledon home of sports business legend Andrew Croker to talk about his life and career. It’s a story that boasts an extraordinary cast of extraordinary characters such as Rupert Murdoch, Mark McCormack, Horst Dassler and Len Blavatnik among many, many others, stopping off at the great landmark moments of the past 40 years, from the 1966 World Cup through to the birth of Sky Sports, the launch of the Premier League, the first dotcom and Frank Lampard’s role in the advent of VAR. This is the final podcast of 2019, so it’s time to wish all our regular listeners a very Happy Christmas, we really appreciate your support over the course of the year. We’ll be back in the first week of January for the first podcast of 2020.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, <a href="https://linktr.ee/unofficialpartner" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter @UnffclPrtnr</a> We publish two podcasts each week, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/unofficial-partner-podcast/id1459630823" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">on Tuesday and Friday</a>. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 300<a href="https://www.unofficialpartner.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> sports business conversations are available free of charge here</a>. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series, you can reach us via the website.