Natale is definitely a moment for optimism and goodwill. A wonderful time, in hopefully a wonderful life.
For many of us, December 24 (la Vigilia), is also the last day of the old year, and the best moment to consider the previous twelve months.
And what have you done?
Another year over, a new one just begun.
– Lennon/Ono
Today, therefore, is a good opportunity to reflect on the output of these Columns, what they have offered, and what still needs to be said, if anything. Not for vainglorious ego, but to professionally ask honestly if they are still adding any value to people.
Or even better, to quote Eddie Pepperell’s truth on the Confessional, “ask if some opinions are just a drain”.
Fake plastic trees.
When a room is really noisy, it’s probably wise to stop shouting yourself.
The content glut these days is bigger than people realise. The barrier to entry of publishing is now so low, supply so enormous, that reader choice is infinite. AI can now make anyone look half decent, and the digital platforms offer every distribution option you could ever want. People who could barely pass their English “A” level can today make a decent attempt at being Hugh McIlvanney.
That’s honestly where we are. A world full of Tom Yorke trees.
So why be another voice chasing the news cycle of events, in reality just clogging up the reading lists of people already time-poor? Ask yourself instead why anyone at all should invest time to read your piece when, with a quick google search, they can scrape the exact same knowledge from multiple sources in an instant.
Opinion has been totally commoditised.
Someone once said that the reason the first Walt Disney animation films were remarkably good was because the process was so human-intensive that Walt couldn’t afford many drafts and edits, and he was obliged to take time up front to get his storyboard just perfect. Now the opposite is true. Anyone can publish pap, as it’s so easy and painless to do. This is true for sport, but also in Hollywood and music, and it’s sadly going to get a lot worse. Smart operators are now buying IP libraries to likely put out endless AI prequels and sequels.
Watch the garbage that results from that.
If the industry upon which we opine stubbornly continues to ignore the “Principle of Scarcity”, that doesn’t mean we should also. You can’t out- produce AI to win the volume game, and therefore the only serious strategy going forward is Porter’s product differentiation focus.
Less is indeed more; it has to be, and that thought drives today’s Sunday Column.
Breaking news is editorially a losing hand.
Over-alarmist? Defeatist?
Past is always prologue and history always rhymes. Only the paranoid survive.
Those of us who have actually written a match report from a stadium, and dictated it down the phone line to a news-desk, know how hard that was. Under intense time pressure, when late incidents in the game could send you into raw panic. Great days, but now totally in the past. A product that no longer exists, and this is no different to what is now happening with sport-biz opinion.
There will soon be absolutely no added-value in getting a piece out on, say, Netflix buying Warner Bros, because it’s not going to be unique. It is a “match report” that everyone will have already seen, in reality generated from the same large-language-model that you too were about to use yourself. Breaking news in sports-biz, with a hot-take, is now a losing hand. You can’t beat the House called ChatGPT.
It is therefore essential today for us in Como to look back, through this very harsh paranoid lens, at the year’s work at Albachiara. To check if one’s own sell-by date is approaching, or even passed. Asking honestly who cares about our product, who would miss it, and why we even do it.
The “Why” question.
Some people are writing or podcasting for the simplest of reasons: to earn their crust. Very few are going to get rich on that plan, but good luck to them. Others do it as a form of marketing or personal-branding, and that too is fine. Maybe one just enjoys writing? A valid enough reason.
Or is it a legacy play? A message in a bottle for a distant shore, or a future generation.
This is most likely where we are now. Giving something back, didactically, from the rich experiences of both our careers.
Regardless, everyone needs to work out their own reason. PDQ. They really do.
Don’t tilt at windmills.
In all frankness at this point, no amount of growing “brand awareness” for Albachiara could ever compensate for the risk of being eventually seen as a predictable and repetitive windbag, especially when always raging against the machine. You can only say the same things so often before it becomes tedious. And a “drain”.
Cervantes articulates very well the risk of ridicule in becoming quixotic.
It doesn’t matter if you’re right when you sound like a broken record, and just because you can scribble well doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
To that exact point, our contrarian view, our shibboleth on sport, is well known. The podcasts are eight years old, the book two years, and these columns started in 2022. So people by now must understand very well from which core thesis we always opine. Do we still need to say all this in 2026?
Probably not. Maybe there is now even a certain coolness in quietly retiring from the battlefield, and watching it all play-out. One senses that 2026 is going to be a humdinger of a year for “macro”, and not in a good way.
Product differentiation resides in the human story.
There was all this same angst last Christmas.
“Don’t be the golf-club bore. Get out of the game in time. Do them more irregularly.”
In fact the Columns in 2025 only started at Easter and became fortnightly. The inertia was finally broken by a friend’s request to write about “boomer blues”, social nihilism, and looking for an answer that was perhaps here all the time. A piece on political science and theology, more than sport, but it got the ball back rolling.
On reflection, that essay about an extraordinary human, and its positive reaction well beyond sport, set a tone. A clear editorial shift to the “macro” and the philosophical, where It was becoming obvious that the “Trump Turn” and the “Everything Bubble” would indeed influence everything, including sport, profoundly. As it has.
That drift is most obviously seen with the new Confessional podcast, because when things all seem to make less and less sense, you inevitably focus on the uniqueness of the human story in the abstract.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.
– The Third Man, Orson Wells.
That’s somewhat comforting because for sure we aren’t short of warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed this Christmas.
Themes for Great Cities.
Once we got going in April, the Column output this year followed some distinct patterns,
*
Two articles (Papa’s Got A brand New Bag and Castles Made of Sand), built on all the predictions of Sport’s Perfect Storm, and (for us) the seminal article on the rise of YouTube in sport from late 2024. All this started to fully play out in 2025, as we’ve seen broadcasters withdrawing from rights deals with impunity, and sports pay channels themselves considered decaying assets. The media sector is as expected being battered around, from pillar to post, between evolving business models and hardball politics. These were both credible articles, and this objectively is a great line:
“The share of digital eyeballs owned and reachable by old broadcasters and Sport PayTV is reaching a tipping point of irrelevance.“
The new platform playbook is emerging for all but the top premium rights, and some of the most visionary financial funds, like NJF, are seen already moving to buy commercial rights (of women’s volleyball in Italy) with a clear social-first monetisation strategy. The game in sport now is to find a lasting model that doesn’t depend on a big up-front cheque.
This theme and its implications IMHO doesn’t need to be repeated by us in 2026. The direction of travel is well established. The point already well made.
**
Plenty ink has been already spilt by Albachiara on how overvalued much of sport actually is, and how badly many people are spending their money. Two articles (Finding the Stop Loss and Landman) re-emphasised once again the material impact on sport valuations from the relentless excess capital being deployed in our industry. And how difficult getting a proper exit now is for investors. All this in a context where the fundamentals of every asset class in the world are stretched by market forces doped-up by debt and money printing (more of which is imminent). We also made a strong bear case for all this absurd AI capex investment.
“Liquidity” is the new buzzword in our industry. Or should be.
These articles are always very well received at face-value, but ultimately no-one likes a killjoy continually talking down the sector. Do people really need to constantly hear the opinion of a contrarian bear value-investor? Is it better to now wait until reality bites and all the malinvestment naturally unwinds? Because ultimately the future of the “asset class” of sport is now more dependent of the policy of Trump’s new Federal Reserve governor in May, than any op-eds of revenue multiples and franchise brand IP, from me or anyone else. Sad but very true.
***
Three articles, (Play it Sam, LIV Forever and Robin Williams) revisited the horrors of the selfish intransigence of sport’s incumbent monopolies, depriving the industry of the innovation it so badly needs. It is a sad truism that sport doesn’t do change, and the “old farts” will cling on for dear life till the final whistle. They aren’t ever going to be up to negotiate their own power, so why keep talking about it? Challenger leagues will continue to nibble on their carcass from the outside.
We’ve covered this general theme ad nauseam, and have done deep dives on football, tennis, golf and rugby. There may still be some value in talking about Albachiara’s direct project experience with challenger leagues, as investors and advisors. Confidentiality permitting. That aside, there is no more editorial juice, fun or glory in still slamming Gianni Infantino.
****
We looked behind the industry curtain with two articles,(The Prestige, and Hobgoblin), to highlight the often inconvenient political truths we prefer to ignore. How we sometimes hear what we want to hear, see what we want to see. And drink the Kool Aid that comforts us.
“The wow headline, the deals done with scarcely believable revenue and valuation numbers, the billions raised in private equity/credit funds. All applauded to the rafters because, at the end of the day, we want to be fooled into believing that all is well, and there is nothing to worry about. Deep down, our industry doesn’t really seek the truth, even though it is often hiding in plain sight, like in any good magician’s trick.”
Does one get rewarded by readers for ending their Age of Innocence? Is it essential insight to predict for them why Paramount is growing under Trump and why anything happening in Big Media now passes via The Donald? Is there any interest to hear about things like the Saudi/SURJ/DAZN/FIFA/World Cup realpolitik? Is this whole theme just all a bit too heavy for a sports column on a Sunday morning?
*****
Three articles, (Publisher is Dead, Meaning Amidst Chaos and Where Everyone Knows Your Name.) all lamented how our industry seems very willing to ignore traditional fans and formats, in the relentless pursuit of its only real KPI. Short term revenues. How the (personal) incentives in the industry all seem to encourage exactly that, and the damage it is now doing. The obvious example is how the sector congratulates itself for splitting its storytelling over so many different subscription broadcasters, but the same epic fails are also in ticketing price hikes, dropping storied events like Imola, player exhaustion from endless matches in new tournaments.
Sport having no North Star beyond the top line is for me utterly damning for the industry and increasingly depressing.
These pieces resonate strongly and emotionally with what is called the legacy fan. There will always be opportunities editorially to tap into tear-jerking nostalgia, and AI as yet isn’t any good at that. But this is ultimately idealistic romantic poetry from someone (me) at the end of their career, without personal financial pressures, who can afford to ignore all the compromises of people working on the front line of sport every day. Realistically, the industry will continue at full speed trying to squeeze out every last dime, trampling all over the things that make it beautiful, and this too steals away any motivation to publish. You need to be in the right mood to write “Where have you gone Joe Di Maggio?” stuff. You always need a strong catalyst. Passion and emotion.
Like your own club utterly losing its way so badly on and off the field that you actually feel the need to rebel,and scream “not in my name”!
But eventually the best motivation always comes from something very human in our community, moving you to tears.
The Giant in the chair.
In these dreadful times we all desperately need someone to respect unconditionally.
On October 28 2018, I got a cold message.
I don’t think we have ever met. I am an ex-cricketer from many moons ago who used to fire down a few balls and made a career out of slogging. How much of your advice would $x get me?
The classiest and most sensitive out-reach I’ve ever received. And completely in line with the man I’m now able to call a true friend.
Chris Cairns.
We spoke about his vision for sport, and one needs to admit that Chris’s ideas informed much of the podcasts and Columns to come. AYNE started at this time.
Our conversation that first day ultimately drifted into talking about data and betting opportunities, and I sensed some embarrassment. An elephant in the room.
Chris, you were exonerated twice for all that, and in the eyes of the law you are an innocent man. I have no need to know anything else, and British justice is good enough for me.
He nodded kindly. The pain still clear in his eyes.
This is a man who, a couple of years later, suffered a massive heart attack and cancer, which all left him paralysed. The greatest cricketer his nation ever produced, a hero, now left in a chair. But not once did I see him moan, or feel sorry for himself.
The meeting at Canberra airport after the tragic events, when he picked me up himself, is one of the most profound days I have ever known. How he got himself out of the car to greet me. How he wanted to show that. The chat in the carpark. Extraordinary. A true example of grit, evermore rare in our world.
Here is that same man today. Still a giant on a cricket field.
In closing for 2025, this is the best way I have to share the true message of Christmas this morning. The love and decency of Chris Cairns.
That, yes, is a good story easy to write on a Sunday. Any given Sunday!
…
None of us know what is around the corner in this crazy dangerous world of ours. So follow your own star, to your own stable, to hear your own good news.
Have a happy peaceful time everyone, from Raffa, Jac, Vale and I. And may your God go with you in all of 2026.
We will see you at some point, when we have something specific and unique to say.
Buon Natale!
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