The first one is, given the massive success of Two Circles as a sports marketing agency in just a few years, if you could talk back to Gareth at the beginning of the story in 2011, what piece of advice would you give him? And the second question is, I'm interested in knowing which methods did you use as an elite runner that contributed to your success?

Super.

So, two-part question.

The second one's easy.

The lessons I learned as a runner and how applicable they are to me today is enormous.

So, there's lots of layers to that and I can give you lots of aspects to it.

One of them is to give and to take feedback really well.

Which business would you start today in sports and entertainment that is not your current model? Oh,

Because ultimately, it's been an incredible journey.

Yeah, it's been... it's so far so good we're 15 years young we're hungry for to become a good company one day and we're working hard to try and figure out how to get there um and look it's been it's been a wonderful and life-changing ride for everyone who's been part of it you know i started i was 28 when i started the business i didn't have any children i've got three nearly grown up you know on the way to becoming grown-up children and so yeah this thing it becomes a it's a it's my adult life essentially and for many of us it's been our adult life you know for Of the first 50 or so two-circlers, our internal two-circles historian, who's also one of our best two-circlers, told me a stat the other week that 37 of those two-circlers are still in the company today, which we're really proud of.

You kind of talked to that client retention point earlier and that people focus point.

As we're growing up together in the company, but then so many have joined us along the way.

I don't know.

There's so many iterations.

There's so many chapters we've been through.

this side of the building that they should get exactly the same on the other side of the building today.

Some really good celebrities.

And then I guess, like, they're investing into it and, and these, you know, Blitzer's invested, Blue Pool's invested, Mubadala's invested, Ares have invested.

You know, top-tier names, and there'll be lots more to come from across the, the sports and the business PE world.

And I guess what, what they like about it is that they, they see that this is a business that's been set up in the right way to maximize the commercial opportunities for the whole ecosystem.

And, and ultimately, I think they like the balance of power between the league and the teams, and the, the ability as a team to generate, you know, a decent amount of revenue.

Out of the 13 teams that we've got on the start line ne- this weekend in Halifax, you know, five of them are, are profitable, which in a couple of years is amazing.

You know, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds own the Australian team.

Yeah.

Yes

... on the billboards here at Stamford Bridge, which is, um, important to, to recognize and see in the way that it's celebrated by the current holders of the Club World Cup.

I think there is a, um, I think there's a stark difference in the fandom attitudes amongst, um, the heartland of the European football nations and the rest of the world's attitude towards this.

I think the rest of the world, which represents significantly more people, and even more GDP, and even more football fandom, uh, dollars, um, are really pro and keen for the, for, for a version of Club World Cup.

And, and then the clearly there's, um, those are in maybe the big five European markets where there's more different views.

I think, I think, uh, clearly football's gotta work through its calendar and figure out how that it stitches together a, the ability for all these things to rise, but AFC are a, a fantastic orga- organization doing great things.

They were really central to the success of, um, Club World Cup and, and supporting its members in their participation in the Club World Cup during, um, during the tournament last year and, and I think that we see, um, a, its ever-rising star.

Um, and, and Gareth, this feels to me like quite a significant, uh, quite a significant moment for, for both the club itself, of course, but actually Prem Rugby and a continuation of a, a little bit of a trend we've started to see for, for new investment in, in teams playing in it.

We're really

privileged to have Wimbledon here today.

And Wimbledon's partnership with IBM is as long, many years older than us, cumulatively put together, I think.

And so there's been great examples of that happening already.

So it's not beyond the wit of person to figure that out.

There's been too many failures in this noisy world where I was getting distracted by emerging technologies that felt like the future.

And then you back that horse to your point and it runs out.

all right, I can get on the train just to maybe get on or really on whatever

cloud that problem and i'd love it if someone came in and said actually just tell me the truth about this because then we can actually yeah

well you can actually really make a difference because there's yeah you know when someone might claim they've got a billion fans then they've probably got they've probably got a billion people engaging or interested in them at a lower level it's a definitional thing you know it's a definition thing we're all Yeah, exactly.

We were all consumers of Liverpool, for sure.

I loved watching the club on Sunday.

It was a real highlight.

I was also loving watching us make the Women's Champions League final, which I thought was special, but it was a wonder of our afternoons.

There's so much you can do on a Sunday afternoon.

whole media interpretation of the D2C