The Deal Room Sport podcast is now in full swing - as the team return for another episode focusing on the world of Sport Sponsorship and Recruitment!

Radio icon Ed Nell hosts the powerhouse trinity of the Sporting Group International and Sporting Jobs brands - with Adrian Wright (Birmingham's best sport entrepreneur), Ian Dutton (the nicest man in football) and Harry Lynch (the sports recruitment G.O.A.T) all sitting down to share their experiences and opinions of the exciting yet crazy world of sport business.

In our latest episode, the team discuss meeting former World's Strongest Man Eddie Hall, the ever-growing presence of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) and how Sporting Jobs are helping Saudi sporting entities recruit top-level staff from across the globe.

The team round off the discussion with naming their choices for the greatest Premier League defender of all time.

Episode 4 is due to be released on the 12th November.

To find out more about the Deal Room Sport podcast, Sporting Group International and Sporting Jobs, check out the website and social links below.

Websites

SGI - https://www.sportinggi.com/

Sporting Jobs - https://www.sportingjobs.co.uk/

LinkedIn

SGI - www.linkedin.com/company/sporting-group-international

Sporting Jobs - www.linkedin.com/company/sportingjobs

Instagram

SGI - https://www.instagram.com/sportinggi/

Sporting Jobs - https://www.instagram.com/sportingjobs/

TikTok/YouTube

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thedealroomsport

YouTube -https://www.youtube.com/@Sportinggi

I've already said to the missus, I want to be world's strongest man in 2030. I've started

training already. I'm 10 potatoes a day. 300 grams of protein. I'm going for it, Ed. We've

placed nearly 30 people there this year in Saudi. The projects are the most exciting things.

If you look at football in the Saudi Pro League, some of the players that are moving there now,

but even the way the teams are sort of acquiring players is changing. Luke Littler hadn't won

that title. You know, something that I've avoiding him for a long, period of time. And as soon

as that final dart goes in and he wins, it's obviously all over the media. And the media

valuation that comes with that with someone like Luke is big and it's perfect demographic

for their brand and their product. It's episode three of the Deal Room with Sporting Group

International and Sporting Jobs. My name's Ed, I'll be asking the questions, but as always,

the expert analysis comes from Sporting Groups International, Adrian and Ian. Hello, gentlemen,

how we doing? How are doing, Ed? You good? Yeah, very good. And then of course, from Sporting

Jobs, we have Harry, how we doing? Very well, thank you, Ed. Now, Harry, you might be a little

bit redundant for this first part, because we're talking Battle of the Beasts. I feel like I've

got to address this elephant in the room, because I keep seeing pictures popping up on LinkedIn

of Ian and Adrian with a massive, massive massive man. What is going on? looks like a proper

lads holiday that what was going on? Oh, God, you didn't mention the Jorts. He didn't mention

the Birkenstaff. absolutely slammed for air in our official Photoshop. So tell us a little

bit, you're off in Malta. This is Battle of the Beasts then basically. Yeah, we ended up

flying out on a whistle stop tour to Malta. It was Wednesday to came back late Friday night

went to see the filming of Battle of the Beasts, which I think when he instructed the deal,

we kind of got a view of what we were going to be expecting. You know, there was a belly

flop challenge and there was, know, medley, it an eating challenge. But just to be in and

around, like literally the world's most strongest people and like compared to me, he was a little

short arse. He literally looked very small against them. It was a very, very kind of

overwhelming opportunity, but it was beautiful. know, the centre of Montlore on the beach.

You know, the weather was absolutely glorious. It was an interesting thing to see and I

was obviously in doing the deal and bringing it to fruition and obviously securing Dualbits

as the official partner um to sponsor the full event. It was good to get in contact with them

as well and meet them and just get um a firm view of whether there's further things they

can do in this kind of space or maybe other sports. Yes, Eddie Hall wasn't it? Former World's

Strongest Man, 2017 is when he won the title. He is an absolute man mountain as well, isn't

he? I mean, you're relatively tall, but you did look... Both of you look pretty horny.

mean, don't know about that. What measuring tape have you got? This is true, actually.

They'll probably be bit generous there, to be fair. Tell us a little bit about the deal then.

So what was the deal and how did it all come about? It came about, and this is an important

thing actually for us as a business. We leverage our network quite a lot. You know, it's really,

really important. We classify as kind of like T1s, don't we, across the group. And we build

relationships, not necessarily with people that are going to do deals, but people who can influence

deals and they can literally connect you. with other people within businesses, et cetera.

And that's exactly what happened here. A chap called Joe Housley, he's friends with one of

the guys that works at Camelot Films, connected the dots. We then um obviously had an initial

chat to see if we could help, see if we could support, love the concepts. I mean, I've been

a World's Strongest Man fan for a while, actually. I've always been fascinated by how these guys

and girls can just lift such heavy weights. anyway, awesome. Loved it. the whole concept

was they want to try and it's still a serious event, but they want to try and bring the humor

side out of the event as well and actually tell the story as to, you know, these guys aren't

just huge, unbelievably strong people. They've actually got a lot of intelligence. They're

very caring. They're very loving. They're just normal guys and girls that just, you know,

that just want to entertain fundamentally. And you know what? That's what clearly came across

when we were out there. Some of these world's strongest athletes are just really humble people.

You see these huge, huge specimens, but they're just lovely, lovely people. And yeah, Eddie

Hall was a great guy and we connected with him. continue that connection to this day.

And that's as a result of going out to Malta fundamentally. So who approached you first?

mean, did they come to you saying that we need a deal for Battle of the Beasts? Or did you

have a sponsor that you were like, we're looking for the right vehicle? It's like everything,

and I think we mentioned this in previous episodes. So what we would tend to do is we'll get under

the bonnet of what the rights holder is looking for, you know, what the objectives are, what

their brand values are, we'll look at the audience figures, social media following. demographics

of the sort of like viewership that they're looking to achieve. Is it going to be televised?

Isn't it going to be televised? Which territories is it going to be televised in? And then once

we've got all of that and much more as well, as we'll kind of as a group, we'll get together

and go, right guys, we've got this opportunity. We've got a huge pool of brands, which brands

are going to be relevant and which aren't, you know, and that's exactly what we did. We identified,

I think it was between somewhere between 15 and 20 brands that we've got a strong relationship

with that we know. what their sort of objectives are and when it comes to sports sponsorship.

And yeah, we went out to those 15, 20 brands. Just so happens that Jewel Bits came back

to us pretty quickly. It was right up their street, exactly what they're looking for. They

have brand Jewel, and obviously what this event is all about, is a lot of Jewel, lot of battles

to become the strongest person. It just kind of resonated with what they're looking to achieve.

as a business and the rest is history. know, was after that it was connecting Camelot Films

who were the film producer with Jorbitz bringing the two together and it was just from then

really it was like a match made in heaven. It's an interesting proposition because it sounds

almost like they're going a little bit like the American wrestling that they want that

personality side that show. It's that sort of crossing that line isn't it between entertainment

and sport almost. Do you think where a lot of things are starting to go now? Yeah, I think

from my perspective going out there, I've watched World Strongest Managing House over the years

and, you know, seeing the events and how they unfold and even the injuries, you know, there's

one guy that literally did the first event, which is called like the medley, literally

have to um take a boat out, row a boat out and then Come back so I rode back into shore

jump onto shore They've got three hundred kg chests after then put onto the back of what

this cart and then get back into the water and swim out and these guys You know, they're like

200 kg some of the guys I'm 200 pounds. Sorry, and they literally were having to swim out

into the ocean and there was guys that were literally drowning because of the weight of

them. But the whole thing around that what they've tried to do is there was a lot of humor

when we were, you know, certainly belly flop challenge, there was a female um athlete that

was drafted in to participate. And some of the things they were saying around her doing the

belly flop and whatnot was like, you know, it's quite edgy. I don't know whether they

her make the camera. em But you know, there was quite a bit of, you know, there was a

couple of guys that inserted some implements, stand there, their trunks as well. that made

things look a bit interesting. I think the kids that were in the arena and obviously watching

that. But they were just trying to get some kind of content really. And I think Eddie's

humor but also authoritarian approach. He's quite an imposing gentleman. We just shook

his hand and he was like, these guys came up to him while we were talking to him and he

just literally was like... wait there, know, we're talking to someone else and this guy

was like, okay, if someone tells you, well, strongly spanking move away, you move away.

But I think, look, what will happen is, as all these companies do, these film companies, the

edit will be unbelievable. You know, it'll kind of like, we'll be like, well, that didn't happen

or it did happen, but it wasn't quite like that. They will spend literally four or five months,

I think we were told, getting the edit absolutely bang on. And I don't know for a fact they're

going to sell that, be it Netflix or an Apple TV, someone or like that will take it up for

sure. It's interesting obviously you guys doing that deal, Sporting Group International, you

think sport and the question might be is that sport, is it purely entertainment? I'm not

sure where that sits necessarily. Do you feel as an agency that's something that you're going

to be looking into a lot more? I'll put a post out here, still in LinkedIn, more around football.

centric and the fact that I do, I think I said it in a previous podcast actually sorry, is

that I do think that sport entertainment are merging. You know, I think a lot of these sports

entities want to be more like media creators, content creators than anything else. If you

think about it, there is that much to watch across TV, mobile. They've got to, they've

got to create something that stands out from the rest. So I do think you'll find that actually,

yes, sport and the spectacle is always going to be there. That's always going to be the

pinnacle of what the viewership is going to want to see. But they're going to want to see

that entertainment factor as well. What more is going on? What behind the scenes stuff

can I watch that I'm not normally going to get access to? And I think that's really,

important to really grab the imagination of the audience. Eddie Hall as well has grown

to fame. more sort of past post his career has any like his YouTube following now I think

it's over a couple of million he gets 9 million 9 million he gets loads of views on his on

his YouTube and everyone want to see what everyone wants to see what he's eating every day everyone

wants to see his training schedule how his life sort of a role evolves around his training

plan I know his his little boys training himself isn't he and things like that and his diet

is fascinating to watch so again from a content perspective he's so Watchable. He's got a podcast

out now that I think I see a load of clips for He just captivating isn't it? I'll be honest

ever since I came back from Malta and I'm not afraid to say this is I've been following all

these guys all these athletes just literally watching what they do day in day out I've already

said to the Mrs. I want to be world's strongest man in 2013. I've started training already.

I'm eating 10 potatoes a day, 300 grams of protein. I'm going for it, Ed. I thought he bolted a

beer and I thought that. It always works as well from the content perspective, doesn't

it? It's like mountains of food and you see Eddie Hawthorne with top off and he's about

bending frying pans and all this sort of stuff. It works on the internet. what he's done really,

really well. He's used like... influencer so there's a girl called Leah Shukva. She's a

challenge eater. So she's got 40 world records where she'll literally, there's one of them

where there was a plate of mozzarella, 400 grams of mozzarella in two slices and she's got to

do that under a minute and I watched the video, if you get a chance to watch it, watch it and

literally there's like a silent pause in the room where she's like I hope everybody felt

the tension there. She said, I must admit I was struggling. But Eddie has literally, I've

watched some of his videos, he's got, there's a woman that's got the largest mouth in the

world, basically in US. Literally shoving stuff into her mouth and he's like doing challenges.

They're like taking bites out of pizzas in America and putting that on video. He's obviously got

Leah, he's just taking people that have got like quirks, things around like they're following.

So their followers become his followers and he's kind of just made sure that the alliances

got with like Leah as an example. He's doing something regularly with her. So it's like

Eddie and Leah face off with the burger challenge. everybody's just like, well, Eddie's people

are going to watch it. then all of sudden Leah's going to give benefit from Commercially though

as well, you could see so many brands that like want to, you know, if you were a big DIY brand

or something, you could see him being like used in so many different things. you like

even his clothing, his... supplements, nutrition, those sorts of things. You could just say he's

so marketable. There's lots of products out there that are beast associated. Interestingly

enough, we hooked up with Eddie as soon as we got back and we've actually agreed with him.

that we're going to be responsible for acquiring some partners for him. he's got like a he's

got a stable of partners at the moment. He's got a couple of own brands that he owns. But

I've already got some really good ideas of how I think you could synergize the strength of

the products, you know, that potentially would assist him growing his brand with companies

in many sectors he hasn't even thought about. So you know, he's gonna got guys crack on give

you the green light, you know, I'll pay you on success. I think that's really interesting

what you say about how he's collaborated collaborating, creating partnerships with other creators.

It's very much what you're doing really with sponsorship deals, isn't it? You're creating

partners to basically use audience for other people and kind of push them around. it's not

actually that dissimilar really, is it? guess. In terms of the actual deal then for that sponsorship

for Battle of the Beasts, is it a very similar deal that you might be doing with a football

club or is it structured very differently? I think there's a lot of synergies definitely.

know, at end of the day, know, a brand will want Like JorBits, for example, they want exposure.

So they'll want to use assets where they're going to get their brand on TV through various

different means, whether that be through Amazon, Apple, like Adrian mentioned. Obviously these

content creators, wasn't just Lea. I mean, at the events itself, had the likes of, they the

guy from Reacher, the 7'2". He's 7'2", isn't he? can't remember his name. The main character

in The main character, yeah. 7'2". I mean, he was like towering above Eddie Hall, you know,

which is six foot two. Then you've got another guy called The Mountain that's obviously regular.

You've got Tommy Fury that was there. So they're surrounding themselves by people that can generate

content, which that is only going to benefit the brand Julvets because they're going to

be, you know, obviously talking at the events, the brand is going to be in the background.

They're all wearing the t-shirts with the logos on the front of them. But then there's a lot

of activations. We went there on the Friday. It's where Gladiator was filmed actually in

Malta, it like the big Colosseum area. Fascinating, absolutely beautiful setting. But actually

there as well, Jorbitz were just doing a load of different activations with the audience

that were there. They were doing like a hanging challenge where whoever hangs the longest,

you know, they're doing the, I can't forget what it's called, but where you hold out the

hammer hold. I think I lasted about three or four minutes.

There's lots of different elements that go towards an overall partnership as well. They're just

a couple of bits and pieces, but it's similar with football. Football want exposure, they

want activations. Did you have a hand in any of the activations or do you ever get the opportunity

to suggest anything to brands like we've thought of this or? Oh yeah, 100%. I think that's part

of our expertise and is trying to bring an opportunity to life. So if we're talking to a brand, we've

got a meeting later on today actually, and it is exactly that. I've already thought in the

back of my mind, okay, well how can this particular brand and this particular rights holder...

work together to really create something that's going to capture the imagination of the audience

that they're marketing to. You know, so we've always got to be throwing out ideas, trying

to be a support mechanism really to a brand, to a rights holder to make sure that there's

a good marry up from a partnership perspective. And that's interesting because I think perhaps

the perception might be that you connect them, you sign the deal, and that's the end of it.

Goodbye, we've done our bit sort of thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's... probably is

the case when it comes to lot of agencies, if I'm perfectly honest. don't want to be like

that. And I think actually the fact that me and Adrian have gone to Malta, you know, after

the deal's done, we don't necessarily need to. We can move on, go to the next. But we don't

want to. We're actually very, very interested to see it come to life, to build further relationships

with Camelot Films and hopefully future Battle of the Beast episodes, to continue to support

Joel Bits and their journey and look at what they're doing. How can we support you further?

You know, Are there any other territories or any other objectives that you want to look

at from a sponsorship perspective? That's really important for us because without that relationship,

without that network, and we've seen the benefits of it. Agents just mentioned that we've already

been on jumps on a call with Eddie Hall. You know, the reason we wouldn't have been able

to do that unless we were, you know, shaking his hand, you know, looking at the whites

of his eyes, you know, just building that relationship. Yeah. Similar with the brand itself. And that's,

that's what we do. We did exactly the same at the PDC at the weekend. Well, I was going

to lead on to that because that's the next big thing. It's been a big interesting couple of

weeks. mean, very diverse in terms of the range of things that you've covered. So Battle of

the Beasts to PDC. Are they kind of interlinked in a way then? mean, how did that all come

about? What's that situation? I don't think they are specifically interlinked. They are

from a sponsorship acquisition perspective. You know, think Ian mentioned in the first

podcast that Gary Newbaud had connected us to Barry Hearn. to try and assist Max Roon

with acquisition of sponsors. There are various events, they've got World's New Couture, they've

got the darts. And it was quite clear for us that we wanted to break into that. Arena

because it is literally, if you look at darts 20, 30 years ago and snooker compared to what

it is now, know, I went, went to the semi-finals, I went to the finals, you I hadn't been to

darts probably for 10, 15 years. And it's like, still I remember, you know, people, everybody's

dressed up, everybody's having a great time. This was a Sunday night as well. And it was

just like, even me, was, you I don't drink and it was like, I was bopping around to like the

entrance music for the players and you know, put it my wife as well. She was like, Come

on, you're taking me to the darts. That is just and I was like, come on, we'll just go. Let's

just go and see what it's like. And she came back, she said, you know, I've had a really

good night. But the thing you've got with that, know, hire who's been acquired and put into

that arrangement, you know, they are leveraging a huge exposure from that event. And, you

know, they have an activation on the night interested in the guy who we struck the deal with. He's

probably one of the highest paid activators, you know, in sports sponsorship, because he

was actually on the stand on the night of the final. And he read references, he said, can't

believe I'm doing this, but I'm doing it because I want to do it. you know, that they will

be seen around the world. know, Luke Littler hadn't won that. that title, know, something

that I've been kind of avoiding him for a long, period of time. And as soon as that final

dark goes in and he wins, it's obviously all over the media and the media evaluation that

comes with that with someone like Lula, you know, is big and it's perfect demographic for

their brand and their products. So yeah, they are now. Have you seen those opportunities

rise then? Because we've talked about it with Eddie Hawke, that those personalities becoming

bigger. And it's actually more about them than it is the sport to a certain degree. And I

guess that's probably true in darts. And you look back, you mentioned snooker as well, Adrian,

that, you know, 20 years ago, they were they were focused on snooker, and then they do their

job and they go home. But there's so much more to it. Now it is that crossover, isn't it to

entertainment, which we've keep coming back to, I know, but that seems to be the big thing,

doesn't it moving forward? Yeah. And I think, you know, we're seeing the brands move with

the product. So it's just been announced that darts will actually be featuring in Saudi Arabia

in January, which we knew was coming. It's happened with boxing, you know, it's happened in football,

it's happening with, you know, Harry has done a lot of work in Saudi Arabia from recruitment

perspective on a multi-sport arrangement. know, Saudi's strategy is literally to, you know,

demand that kind of level of excellence around sport. And if that means I have to buy in.

the sport to get the eyeballs and create maybe a visceral economy or, you know, they're prepared

to do it. You know, they're prepared to put the money in. And I think where we are, you

we're fortunate that most of the sports that we consumed down there, we were accustomed

to and we've invented, you know, football, snooker, know, darts. They've all come from

our great nation, you know, so we've just been that used to having them on our TV screens,

whether that be once a week on matchday day or whether or not it's like every or every

minute. think that's going to be the challenge as well for Matchroom isn't it? I've just been

watching the documentary of Matchroom on Netflix which is amazing by the way. Really really

great and recommend anyone to watch it because it gives you a real good understanding of the

business but the people behind it too. Snooker and Darts are really kind of like there's a

lot of heritage to them you know Ali Pali isn't a massive arena I think you get 4,000 people

in there on the finals night. The Crucible, I think is like 1500 seated, but steeped in

history, know, lots of people have won the Crucible and value it as an arena. But I think that

switch to Saudi is that there's money all of a sudden, you know, they're offering a million

quid for a golden ball and a 147 and these sorts of things. And the same with darts. I'd imagine

that there's going to be certain things around crazy finishes and Riyadh season will push

those sorts of things. But it's that balance between keeping the heritage of the sport and

the people going to Ali Pali and the traditions with it. but also the big checks and prizes

that could occur in Saudi, I I that would be really tough for them to sort of navigate,

it? It's a nice point to bring you in, Harry, in terms of recruitment, because you must be

seeing that, I guess, from a recruitment side. The different kind of roles and skill sets

that sporting organisations now want because they're making that crossover into the world

of entertainment. Are you noticing that? Yeah, so Saudi's a great point for us. We've placed

nearly 30 people there this year in Saudi. And I think a lot of people's kind of... understanding

of it is that look, there's so many to be had their tax free salaries, but that's not necessarily

the the whole point here. I think the projects are the most exciting things. If you look at

football in the Saudi Pro League, some of the players that are moving there now, but even

the way the teams are sort of acquiring players is changing their profile and demographics

of players are changing. There's 10 amazing stadiums being built. Have a look at the

new stadiums that are going to be there for the World Cup. Look at the Aramco Stadium in

Kobar. It's going to be an amazing sort of journey there. And I think the big thing and

the reason that people are looking to navigate there is actually there's a huge opportunity.

Um, commercially when we're placing people from the premier league out there, they're not going

there for more money. They're going there for an opportunity to grow and build a commercial

department and leverage brands. then maybe in a couple of years, come back to the UK with

that book of contacts that they could use in the premier league and things like that. So

yeah, it's a hugely exciting time there. It has its challenges, you know, working in Saudi.

And I think. The time scales can be quite difficult. The visa and AQAMA process is quite difficult

at times and we're having to fly people into Bahrain to get a visa and getting family across.

We've had people that won't accept the job unless they take the pets across with them. These

sorts of things that are always funny about recruitment, but as projects go, the sort of

switch to multi-sport projects, big e-sports projects in Saudi, it's a hugely exciting time

from a recruitment standpoint. Yeah. And is that... different world in terms of the hiring

brief that you've kind of experienced or is it very similar? I mean, is there a standard

set process, hiring brief, we look around, or is it a whole different ballgame? Depending

on the client. There's a big push for Saudiization in Saudi. So initially, and what you've seen

over the last couple of years is that a lot of expats have gone out there and we've taken

them from like high performance Olympic environments in Australia, New Zealand, the UK. Whereas

now there's a real emphasis about finding the best Saudi national talent. Which can be difficult

because you won't find a paddle coach from a Saudi background because it didn't exist

there. But the best Saudi national Arabic speaking talent is really important right now. And we've

grown a huge network there after a lot of hard work in the last couple of years. Because that's

the interesting part, I suppose, really, that you go, okay, you put an advert out for a job,

but quite often it's not the people who are looking that you actually might be after. So

how do you make sure you find the right candidates? It's quite similar to sponsorship, really.

There's two big things. Meetings are really critical for us. in sponsorship. We really

want to understand our clients' wants and needs. And I think by going and spending time at a

stadium, visiting a training ground, visiting multiple members of a team, you can establish

what the culture's like, what the team fit is, what the objectives are of your client. Same

in sponsorship. But equally, what we're finding out there as well is that the brief can change

all the time. again, we've had sort of requirements across commercial, across partnerships, across...

men's football team, women's football team, and it's led by the clients wants and needs.

So at times they need Premier League experience or they need a head grounds person that's worked

in certain environments and certain climates. Whereas equally then at times they may be looking

for more of a cultural fit and a team fit in terms of we want someone that's really enthusiastic,

that's looking to come in and achieve this, is willing to learn and actually our team

isn't as big as what you'd expect in the Premier League, but you may have these things to work

with and different options like that. I always think fit and culture is critical for us,

I suppose, from a recruitment point. the other side of that, then, so if somebody's not in

a sport role at the moment, but they built up a good skill set, they're thinking, actually,

I'd love to change and are my skills transferable? How do they become that higher? How do they

get in that picture? Again, we need the right clients to be willing to see those sorts of

people. So we've just done a couple of CFOs, one in the Premier League, one in the championship,

and particularly in the championship appointment. They were, the club are really forward thinking.

They're really kind of looking for candidates that weren't from a football background. I

think sometimes, you know, if you've been Aston Villa's commercial director for 10 years, and

then you get the commercial job at Birmingham city for the following five years, it loses

its kind of credibility at times really, you know, whereas actually, if there's somebody

that's worked in a finance capacity for a really big conglomerate, big company that's down the

road, is aware of... the region and the sort of nuances of maybe working in the Northeast

or down in the Southwest, that's hugely valuable to a client. So again, it's led by us meeting

them, taking a really great brief, getting an understanding of the support that the team

around them is. So if the rest of the finance department are all solid with football backgrounds,

they've got their head and sort of geared around PSR and football finance, then actually they

could maybe afford this new CFO doesn't need to have. great football experience, but they

could have led a brilliant team of a multi-million pound organisation and have that sort of strength

to it. So if someone was looking to do that, and if somebody are watching or listening now,

I guess you'd welcome somebody reaching out to you going, look, I'd love to make that move.

This is my career. It's not sport related, but can you see something for me? Absolutely.

Yeah. I think it's really important that the industry needs to have fresh ideas and new

people in it all the time. You guys will probably vouch for that in football clubs. Sometimes

it's... People that have been there for so long and they get the next job because they've been

there and been at the club down the road. We want new people that have worked in maybe like

affiliated and associated industries, entertainment, know, stadia venues, events, those sorts of

things are natural kind of easy switches. But yeah, I mean, I just put two great commercial

people into a football club down south this week. One was a recruiter like myself, you

know, and I think what recruitment gives you is hard sales experience and they wanted somebody

that's going to go and Find them regional partners, you who's going to come and join our networking

club, our business club at the football club. Who's going to take hospitality from us. And

that recruitment sort of background that my candidate had was, well, really hard sales

experience. You know, he's been out, he's attended meetings, he spoke to lots of people and finding

things that are kind of associated and assimilated to the job. And I used to find, sorry to go

across, that when it came to recruitment, I found that if you did take people out of another

industry, so, you know, we've got someone in SGI at the moment, Taylor. He's our head of

sponsorship. I took him out of the car industry. He'd been very, very conditioned to a sales

environment. It's literally numbers game. I've done it with recruiters. I've taken people

out of recruitment and put them into sport. And I think the difference behind that is that

I do believe there's a movement within sport. If you're going on the upside, so if you're

going from one role, you've proven yourself at entry level, you've hit your KPIs. you've

proven yourself for three or four years in that or maybe less in that role, then you can move

up into maybe a high grade position. So I do think the transfer of skills across sport within

sport, as in people are still in it and working it, but bringing new people in with fresh perspective

was like a big thing for me. So whenever I was in a club, I always thought, you know what,

I'm looking for a hospitality sales executive. I don't want to bring someone from another

club because They're going to be used to the way they sell it, the way that and I don't

want them to be the way they sell it. It's the way we sell it and how we achieve our numbers

is based on a method. And having people that don't have any preconceived ideas is sometimes

a really good thing. My next question was going to be that on the surface, you might think

recruitment and sponsorship and partnerships don't necessarily sit together, but we've talked

about it in a previous episode and I think it's kind of proven today actually, they niche very

well together, don't they really? Yeah, 100%. You know, uh I don't You know, the process

is very, very similar. You know, it's a human based environment, you know, people buy from

people. Um, and as Ian has just mentioned about your bits, was no way on this planet, they

would have known anything about battle of the beasts unless we alerted them to it. And it

could be exactly the same for Harry. He might have a candidate sat in a football club that's

quite happy in what they're doing, but there's another £20,000 available because they could

potentially move up a level based on what they've done, their experience, background. And Harry's

saying, look, I'm backing you for this role. I think you should be considered for it. And

then Harry would sell the reasons behind it. I've looked at your background, I've looked

at your track record, hopefully your CV, you know, echoes what you've done. And I'm to

put you forward to my client because I think you're a really good prospect. So they're

very, very similar. I was going to finish on our final thing of we've got to work out

who the best Premier League defender is now really, because we've done the goalkeeper,

haven't we? Do you remember who we went for in the end? Who was it? Defender or goalkeeper?

Who was the best goalkeeper? It was David Seaman.

So we're building from the back then. Best defender we've got to go for. Adrian, I'm going to start

with you. Kyle Walker or Sol Campbell? Sol Campbell. Sol Campbell. Okay. Sol Campbell or Gary Neville?

Sol Campbell. No hesitation. Okay. Fair enough. Sol Campbell or Nemanja Vigic? Tough one. I

still think Sol Campbell. Sol Campbell goes straight. Right, Harry, on to you. Okay. Sol

Campbell or Vincent Company? Oh, that is difficult. Vincent Company. Vincent Company. Okay, Vincent

Company or Tony Adams, It just slightly falls outside of my era, but I'll stick with Vincent

Company. Vincent Company. Okay, last one for you then Harry. Vincent Company or Rio Ferdinand?

Vincent Company. Vincent Company. Oh, no hesitation. Okay, Ian, here we go. Vincent Company or

Virgil van Dijk? Van Dijk. No hesitation. All right. Van Dijk or Ashley Cole? Come on, Ian.

Ashley Cole for me is one of the best left backs in the world ever. to be fair, I'm going

to do Ashley Cole. Agonizing. Okay. And finally, this will be the winner, Ashley Cole or John

Terry? Good question that is, Isn't it? God, that's a tough one that is. Ashley Cole. Ashley

Cole's won it. Do we have agreement from... Both Premier League Hall of Famers, those two.

Yeah, happy with that. Any other honourable mentions that we've missed out? you think?

Paul McGrath. Paul McGrath. Unbelievable. Best central defenders Aston Villa have ever seen.

Martin Granger. oh think we're scraping now, we're reaching aren't we? Paul Martin if you're

listening I apologise. Yes sir Martin, he's a hard man, I'm worried now. Okay it's a nice

place to leave it. Thank you gentlemen, we'll catch up again in episode four but if you want

to reach out or find out more about what Sporting Group International do or sporting jobs for

that matter, do find them on LinkedIn. that way and we'll catch you in the next episode.