Sport should ask Archimedes about Leverage!

by roger mitchell | Mar 19, 2023

How many of our generation get frustrated when we try and tell our kids about past music, past cinema, past sport? Their eyes roll, and they humour us, when we talk with enthusiasm about them needing to see Citizen Kane, The Godfather, The Fabulous Baker Boys, to...

The continuing adventures of Stanley, Monique, and George.

by roger mitchell | Mar 11, 2023

  Previously on “99 Problems” … We were introduced to the McKinsey consultants, Stanley, Monique and George, meeting the English FA. For lovers of character arc, I’d read the below article before this one. The one when the FA met McKinsey...

Is “Sport as Brand” a fool’s errand?

by roger mitchell | Mar 5, 2023

In an earlier Sunday Column, we spent a lot of time musing about the effect of “brand” on the sports assets of Juventus and Ferrari. How the roots of a brand, in this case Gianni Agnelli, are often unseen and, I would argue, underestimated.  Here it is. Today’s Column...

Federations are Sports’ Maginot Line… expensive and useless.

by roger mitchell | Feb 26, 2023

When an organisation or company gets targeted by a financial “raider”, a Gordon Gekko, an activist shareholder like Paul Singer, a private equity fund, an LBO boutique, there are two competing narratives aren’t there? Either, They have it coming. They are fat, lazy,...

Ode to Pete Rozelle.

by roger mitchell | Feb 12, 2023

Following last week’s Column on Serie A financing deals, I got a couple of calls from people who used to run a league. A Sports Commissioner. There are not many of us who have done this job. Running a sports league is the greatest challenge to your interpersonal...