Season 6 updates
Sports business coverage has never been more abundant. There are newsletters, podcasts, dedicated verticals inside major outlets, and entire media companies built around the commercial side of sport. The deals get reported, the numbers get published, and the announcements get picked apart within hours of news going live.
What most of that coverage doesn’t do is explain how it all actually works. There’s a difference between reporting that a sponsorship deal was signed and explaining what the brand is genuinely buying, why the structure looks the way it does, and what the activation reveals about where the real value sits.
Today I’m launching Sports Marketing, a new premium section inside Culture of Sport, built specifically to cover that gap. This is in addition to the regular free weekly content — nothing changes there.
I’ve spent years operating in this business, working directly on brand partnerships, sponsorship deals, and commercial strategy with teams, brands, and athletes. What that vantage point has given me, above everything else, is a clear view of the gap between how sport presents itself and how it actually functions commercially.
In my opinion, that’s where the most interesting analysis lives.
Take the technology partnerships that have reshaped F1’s pit lane over the past decade. A software company appears on the side of a car, the coverage reports the deal value, and the casual observer sees a brand buying visibility in a culturally relevant environment. What that coverage misses is that the logo is almost incidental. The real asset is the track itself, a live, high-stakes proving ground where the technology is being tested, validated, and refined in front of our eyes, something marketing language alone cannot replicate. The logo on the car is what gets the attention, but the credibility of proving that “our tech works at 200 miles per hour” is the point.
That’s not an exception. It’s how the best partnerships in today’s sport function, and it’s understood clearly by everyone inside the room when the deal gets signed.
If you’re building a career in the sports industry, evaluating brand proposals for the first time, or simply trying to understand why your favourite team just signed a deal with a company nobody’s heard of — this is where the dots get connected.
It’s the gap I’ve been covering through Culture of Sport, and it’s the gap that the new paywalled section is being built specifically to address.
The existing free weekly content covers the stories as they happen. Sports Marketing goes deeper, examining the overarching themes, structural patterns, and commercial concepts that explain why the industry behaves the way it does.
If you aspire to work in the sports business, this is for you.
If you already work in the sports business, this is for you.
If you’re a fan wanting a deeper understanding of the sports business, this is for you.
Sports Marketing is a premium editorial section inside Culture of Sport. It covers sports marketing, sponsorship strategy, and the commercial intelligence behind the campaigns and partnerships that shape modern sport. To receive these emails: