This episode is part of Experts in Sport’s “In Conversation” series, where we will be hearing from a wide variety of athletes, leaders, and entrepreneurs within sports, exercise, and health industries.
This episode tackles Matt’s career, creating and scaling businesses in the sports and entertainment arena, as well as the story behind his most recent book, “All to Play For”. He also discusses the process behind creating, developing, managing, and eventually exiting Two Circles.
During the episode, Matt shares the thought process behind founding the agency: “We couldn’t see that anyone in the sports agency market had the background or the drive to change the status quo, and so we put our foot down and set up Two Circles to do exactly that.
“The premise behind the name of the business was [due to] the sports and the fans sitting as two very separate circles, both frustrated they don’t know more about the other. Our job was to use data to unify the two circles as much as we could. Hence: Two Circles.”
Matt founded Two Circles in 2011, alongside Gareth Balch, leading the business as Chief Executive, before being promoted to Executive Chairman shortly after. The business grew exponentially, serving 100 clients, including the six biggest sports rights holders in the world.
Nowadays, he is a Non-Executive Director of the English Institute of Sport, Strategic Advisor for several businesses, as well as a member of the UK Sport Major Events Panel. He has been published by Harvard Business Review, even appearing in their 2018 'Top 10 Reads' series.
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The Experts in Sport podcast is a regular series that brings together experts from across Loughborough University with external thought leaders to discuss the latest research and hot topics in sport and academia with new episodes launched regularly.
ENDS