SportsPro Podcast

Former England cricketer and national team selector Ed Smith talks to SportsPro about the changing nature of leadership.

He explains how leaders must balance data driven decision making with human judgement and the need for human centric AI strategies.

He also discusses the importance of building strong teams and the value of formal education in leadership.

Ed Smith is the co-founder and director of the Institute of Sports Humanities.

The Commonwealth Games have faced one of the most turbulent periods in their history. After Victoria pulled out as host in 2023, uncertainty loomed over the event’s future, its relevance, and whether the traditional model could survive.
Now, with Glasgow hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games on a significantly reduced budget and a condensed planning timeline, Commonwealth Sport is positioning the event as the beginning of a new era, built around a leaner, more sustainable model designed to attract more host cities in the years ahead.
In this episode of the SportsPro Podcast, SportsPro reporter Josh Sim is joined by Commonwealth Sport chief executive Katie Sadleir.
She discusses the lessons learned from Victoria's withdrawal, Glasgow's rapid turnaround, the Games' evolving commercial and broadcast strategy, and why she feels the reset will secure the Commonwealth Games' future well beyond 2026.

Former New Zealand captain Bex Smith spent much of her football career playing in Europe and came away convinced that the structures underpinning the women's game were holding it back.
 
Now, as the founder and chief executive of the Crux Football multi-club group, the former Fifa executive is implementing an ownership model built on carving women's teams out of the men's structure to run them as standalone businesses.
 
In this episode of the SportsPro Podcast, Smith joins Head of Editorial Sam Carp to discuss the launch of Crux, the criteria shaping acquisitions of clubs like Montpellier and FC Rosengård,
and where she sees the biggest opportunities for revenue growth.
 
Recorded at SportsPro London in April, the conversation also explores the growing role of MCOs in women’s football, how Fifa and Uefa could incentivise more investment in the game and Crux’s ambition to scale to five teams.

Prem Rugby CEO Simon Massie-Taylor talks SportsPro through plans to make league more financially sustainable, grow the audience and take advantage of sport’s rise as an asset class.

Brad Ross worked on four Fifa World Cups during more than a decade with Coca-Cola, but he likens the expanded 2026 edition to having 104 Super Bowls in five to six weeks. Now, as managing director of global marketing partnerships at Bank of America, he is overseeing the financial services giant’s first-ever sponsorship of soccer’s flagship international tournament.
 
In this episode of the SportsPro Podcast, Ross sits down with Head of Editorial Sam Carp to discuss the strategy underpinning Bank of America’s World Cup debut and what opportunities and challenges the expansion of the tournament creates for sponsors.
 
Recorded at SportsPro London, the conversation also explores how the bank will activate the partnership across its 100 US markets, what it takes to cut through in a noisy tournament environment, and how it is tracking ROI.
 
There’s also time for Ross to reveal what it’s really like to work on a World Cup and share his key piece of advice for sponsors.