Ahead of the World Cup, Footballco’s Paul Rayment highlights ten standout podcast episodes featuring leaders from football media and marketing. The conversations explore the trends and strategies shaping fan engagement and commercial growth. Together, they offer a snapshot of football’s rapidly evolving business landscape.

It’s hard picking ten shows from more than 100. Each time I wrote this list I had to go back as I’d missed another great show. So, for anyone we’ve recorded with who isn’t on the list - don’t blame me, blame Mad Fest for giving me such a tight word count.

Google - Kate Johnson

As well as Google’s women’s football strategy, Kate discussed what the company had learned from the recent Olympics as, while the podcast is focused on football, we often find the there’s still much football can learn from other sports. We also got to discuss Kate’s own career and inspirational story with plenty of advice for other women in sport.

LISTEN HERE

FC Juarez - Luis Rodriguez

FC Juarez sits on the US and Mexico boarder, a fact alone that should make it one of the most interesting clubs in the world. Add in that the city was known as being the most dangerous in the world and you have a show that uncovers what it’s like managing and marketing a club in such a unique city.

LISTEN HERE

Spark Design Academy - Rob Warner

Rob was our first guest on the show but could possibly have the best stories of anyone. Having been a designer for Umbro and Puma he gave unique insight into shirt design, what it was like having his first task at Puma being to attach sleeves onto the notorious sleeveless 2022 Cameroon shirt and getting Hristo Stoichkov to approve the Bulgaria shirt.

LISTEN HERE

Fox Sports - Alexi Lalas

While the focus of the interview was the state of US soccer around USA ‘94 the real nuggets came when Alexi discussed Beckham joining LA Galaxy, which he was intrumental in as the club’s President. In his own words, “we were ill-prepared for the hurricane”.

LISTEN HERE

Simon Olivera - Building Brand Beckham

Another Beckham episode, this time on the man credited as creating Brand Beckham in the 2000s. From crisis comms to the tabloids vs social media and turning Beckham into soft British power, it’s all there.

LISTEN HERE

Stockport County - Matt McKie

So far, the most popular episode to date. Matt’s career in sport is packed with brands (EA, the IOC, Nike, Manchester United, etc.) but we focused on his non-exec role at County and how you create fandom for a club in the shadow of Manchester United and City at a time when player starpower is more important than ever. The short answer - community. The long answer: listen to the show.

LISTEN HERE

EA Sports - David Jackson

David has guested a few times now, but this episode was my favourite as it focused on arguably one of the biggest rebrands in football as FIFA became EAFC. While we focus on the visuals it goes far beyond into the commercial opportunities and challenges in communicating with fans.

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C.P Company - Lorenzo Osti

Football’s relationship with fashion is a regular theme on the pod, but our episode with CP’s President is a favourite. If you created an FCBP word cloud, ‘authenticity’ would be up there, and few fashion brands are as authentically football as CP.

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The Saudi Pro League - Mohammed Basrawi

This episode focused on marketing the Saudi Pro League beyond big stars like Ronaldo and Benzema and featured the league's GM for MARCOM and content. Shows on the SPL always do well, but with so much focus on the league’s acquisition of big-name players, it was interesting to talk about what else is happening in Saudi to grow the league in a country with a genuine passion for football.

LISTEN HERE

The Tabloids to Ted Lasso - How the media covers sexuality and gender in football - 

Sports Media LGBTQ, Stonewall and GQ

The final season of Ted Lasso had many naratives to wrap up, but one of them was focused on a player in the Richmond team dealing with the challenges of being a footballer and gay. What surprised me and others was how well the series managed that narative and how it was in stark contrast to how similar stories have been told before.

To mark this, we brought in the excellent Jon Holmes of Sports Media LGBTQ, Stonwall’s Erin Williams and culture journalist at GQ, Jack King to discuss not only Ted Lasso but how how the media handles conversations about sexuality and gender identity in football.

LISTEN HERE