Hello and welcome to the Sports Pundit Newsletter,
Thanks to Brock and the Super League Netball team for their generosity to the Sports Pundit community ahead of their big event this summer, which saw Manchester Thunder storm to victory on home turf.
Speaking of big summer events… I’ve teamed up with the CEO of Dagenham & Redbridge, John Grabowski (a long-time member of Sports Pundit), to put on both a World Cup watch-along and an afternoon of programming relating to football media.
I’d love for as many of you as possible to join us on Friday 10 July 🥳
All profits will go to charity, and the line-up for both the Quarter-Final at 8pm and the panels preceding it will become clear over the next few weeks. Expect some big names from both the football and media world.
Here’s what’s coming up:
Launching the Sports Pundit Football Media Summit 🏟️
The FA and Snapchat launch AR lenses for World Cup 👻
Why Perk Chose Audi F1 to Accelerate its Objectives 🏎️
Let’s get into it!
ONE TO WATCH
On 10 July, Sports Pundit will host its inaugural Football Media Summit at Victoria Road, home of Dagenham & Redbridge FC, combining an afternoon of industry panels and interviews with a live World Cup Quarter-Final watch-along on the big screen.
Doors open at 4:00pm, with the first panel beginning at 4:30pm. The programme covers how football and gaming are rewriting fan engagement, whether creators or clubs own the modern football audience, and how sports organisations are turning digital audiences into direct revenue.
Featured interviews include John Grabowski, CEO of Dagenham & Redbridge FC and Kahlen Macaulay, Head of Sports & Media Partnerships at Snapchat, exploring how leading sports organisations are engaging with media and what streaming means for football’s commercial future.
From 8:00pm, attention turns to the big screen for a live World Cup Quarter-Final watch-along, with networking time built in between the panels and kick-off.
Tickets are £12 for the full event (panels, interviews, networking, and the match) or £6 for the match-only option from 7:00pm. Profits will be donated to SpecialEffect, a charity that uses technology to make gaming accessible for people with physical disabilities.
Why Dagenham & Redbridge?
Earlier this year, KSI bought a minority stake in Dagenham & Redbridge with a stated ambition of getting the club to the Premier League. The team is now managed by former England striker Andy Carroll.
That investment set the stage for the moment that put Victoria Road on a global media map.
In March 2026, the Daggers partnered with KSI and DAZN to stream their National League South fixture against Hampton & Richmond live and free on KSI’s YouTube channel. It was the first time a National League match has been broadcast this way, putting a sixth-tier English fixture in front of KSI’s 17.6 million YouTube subscribers (against a backdrop of more than 75 million followers across his wider social platforms).
Dagenham & Redbridge@Dag_RedFC
The @SportsPunditHQ Football Media Summit comes to Victoria Road on July 10th. Join leading figures from sport, media, gaming and the creator economy for an evening of expert insight, networking and exclusive discussions, before settling in for a live FIFA World Cup
4:33 PM · Jun 22, 2026 · 1.03K Views
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The Daggers’ DAZN partnership sits within the wider National League agreement that has positioned non-league football as a working testbed for digital-first distribution, free-to-watch global streaming, and creator-led storytelling.
This context is what makes Victoria Road one of the more relevant grounds in English football to host a conversation about football media right now.
The themes the Summit will explore, such as the rise of creators as broadcasters, the commercial case for streaming, and the changing relationship between clubs and platforms are exactly the areas this club is exploring right now.
The programming, which will see more speakers announced over the coming days, will end with an interview with John Grabowski, CEO at Dagenham & Redbridge FC, who has more exciting news to share.
GET YOUR TICKETS NOW
We are delighted to be launching the Sports Pundit Football Media Summit this summer at Dagenham & Redbridge FC’s Victoria Road on July 10th, combining an evening of industry insight, networking and live World Cup action.
The event will bring together voices from across sports, media, gaming and the creator economy for a series of panel discussions and interviews, before attention turns to a live World Cup Quarter-Final watch-along from 8:00pm.
“A lot of industry events are either invite-only or priced in a way that makes them difficult to attend for anyone without access to a corporate debit card, but I wanted this one to be open to all. We’ve deliberately kept ticket prices affordable to get a genuine cross-section of the industry in the room, and I’d love to use this as a chance to give back to you, the readers, as well as treat it like a bit of a summer party.”
“Whether you’re coming to learn from industry leaders, make valuable connections, or settle in to watch a World Cup Quarter-Final on the big screen, I can’t wait to see you at Victoria Road on the 10th July.”
Attendance will be capped, so please book your tickets asap. Regardless of who is in the Quarter-Final, it’s going to be an epic line-up both before the game and during.
HIGHLIGHTS
PWHL raises over $100m from Larry Tanenbaum and Ilitch Companies in first outside investment 🏒
The Professional Women’s Hockey League has taken outside capital for the first time, with Kilmer Sports Ventures (led by Larry Tanenbaum) and Ilitch Companies joining as strategic partners in a combined investment of over $100m.
The deal marks a significant step in the commercial maturation of women’s hockey, bringing two established sports ownership groups onto the cap table of one of the fastest-growing women’s sports leagues in North America.
World Boxing launches dedicated streaming service World Boxing TV with Joymo 🥊
World Boxing, the breakaway governing body founded in 2023, has partnered with streaming platform Joymo to launch World Boxing TV, offering live event coverage, exclusive content, and on-demand programming.
The move gives the organisation direct-to-consumer distribution infrastructure as it continues to build its commercial model independently of the sport’s established governing bodies.
Racing Bulls partner with Salesforce for AI-powered fan engagement 🏎️
Formula One’s Racing Bulls have signed Salesforce as a partner, with the deal centred on deploying Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 AI platform to unify fan engagement, data, and team operations on a single system.
The partnership is part of a broader trend of F1 teams using their commercial appeal to attract enterprise technology partners seeking high-visibility platforms to demonstrate AI capabilities.
Apple makes Austrian Grand Prix free to stream for US Apple ID holders 🏎️
Apple will make the full Formula One Austrian Grand Prix weekend (practice, qualifying, and the race) free to access for anyone in the US with an Apple ID who downloads Apple TV, covering the Red Bull Ring event from 26-28 June.
The move is a deliberate audience acquisition play, using one of F1’s most popular race weekends to drive Apple TV downloads and introduce new viewers to its broader F1 content offering.
The FA and Snapchat launch AR lenses for England fans at the World Cup 👻
Snapchat has partnered with The FA to launch a series of AR lenses for England supporters, available both on Snapchat and within the official FA app, including kit try-ons, player call simulations, and supporter lenses.
The activation, developed with Two Circles, is a timely example of how national associations are using platform partnerships to extend fan engagement beyond the broadcast into the social layer of a major tournament.
MSP Sports Capital acquires SailGP New Zealand team, completing full private ownership across all 13 teams ⛵
MSP Sports Capital has acquired the SailGP New Zealand team, with Olympic champions Peter Burling and Blair Tuke involved in the transaction, completing a significant milestone as all 13 SailGP teams are now privately owned and operated.
The achievement reflects SailGP’s deliberate strategy of building a fully privatised league structure from the outset, a model that is increasingly being watched by other emerging sports properties.
SUPPORTED BY DIZPLAI 📲
Your biggest fans are invisible to you. Here’s the proof…
The channels that give you the most reach give you the least data. The Anonymous Fan Index, Dizplai’s benchmark study, proves it.
Ticketing is the richest source of fan data, cited by 67% of respondents. Membership and loyalty programmes came in at 48%, social media at 41%. Broadcast audiences, where most organisations have their greatest reach, are the hardest to convert. 67% said broadcast viewers were their most anonymous fan group.
Supertri’s Chris Williams knows the commercial consequence of that. Relying purely on broadcast numbers, he says, leaves you exposed on your sponsorship proposition.
The Anonymous Fan Index sets out what closing that gap looks like. Download it free and use the Fan Revenue Calculator to put a number on your own opportunity.
SPORTS PUNDIT PODCAST
On today’s episode of the Sports Pundit Podcast, I’m joined by Jada Balster, CMO at Perk.
Jada is a B2B marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience across companies including Epicor, S&P Global, and Adobe. Today she leads marketing at Perk, the all-in-one travel and spend management platform formerly known as TravelPerk.
In this conversation, we explore how B2B marketing has evolved from a demand generation discipline into a brand-building function, and why Perk recently embarked on its biggest ever marketing investment through a company-wide rebrand. We discuss the role sport can play in accelerating brand growth, including why Perk selected the Audi Revolut Formula One team as its first major sports partnership, and how the company plans to stand out as Formula One continues to get noisier for incoming brands.
Timestamps
02:00 - Jada’s Career Journey
04:00 - TravelPerk Becomes Perk
06:00 - Rebrand Rollout and Metrics
10:00 - Why Sport and F1 Fit
15:00 - Choosing the Audi Partnership
24:00 - Integration Beyond the Logo
27:00 - Activating Across Channels
34:00 - What’s Next for Perk
🔍 Search ‘Sports Pundit Podcast’ wherever you listen, available on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube 🎧
Andy Marston is the founder of Sports Pundit, a community and media platform for sports and technology executives. Through a weekly newsletter, podcast network, lively group chat, and regular social events, he shares industry analysis and connects leaders across the sector. Alongside Sports Pundit, Andy leads Corporate Venture at athlete-backed venture firm, The Players Fund, where he works with high-profile sports IP such as Como 1907 to design venture strategies and drive innovation initiatives.
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