Why tribes are everything in sport, but growing them is no easy task November 20, 2025 Tribalism is key to fandom in sport but the challenge is commercialising and gorwing them, writes Ed Warner. To the Kia Oval for an exercise in tribe creation. Conscious that in most enterprises the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts, I have been working with the help of chairs across Britain’s sporting [...]
It’s time for BBC Sport to ditch the corporation and go it alone November 13, 2025 The BBC lurches from existential crisis to existential crisis, and yet fundamental questions about its remit and structure are rarely addressed during the frenzied bouts of self-flagellation that Britain’s public broadcaster indulges in at times such as these. Although its latest crisis – widely described as its greatest since the last greatest one – has [...]
Earps fiasco at least sparks much needed debate on culture of women’s sport November 6, 2025 Mary Earps has hit the headlines this week, and provoked a conversation about culture in women’s football “Things have escalated really quickly today, women pitted against each other. It’s gut-wrenching to be portrayed as someone you’re not. I know that the negative is what gets clicks, but it’s sad that’s the only thing being discussed.” [...]
Punk Padel and Tough Mudder: It pays for sports to buy into fun innovation October 30, 2025 I am happy to go down any rabbit hole, or country lane, in search of innovation in sport. Driving back from a trail race the other day, I passed a small sign tucked on a grassy verge in deepest Sussex. “Punk Padel”, it seemed to whisper rather than shout, as if conscious it was out [...]
In defence of sport’s blazers: Give them scrutiny, yes, but also empathy October 23, 2025 Spend a minute on social media during a major sporting event and you’ll find them: the keyboard warriors, the armchair pundits, the self-appointed arbiters of “what the fans really want”. Their target? The blazers in the boardroom perceived to be truffling for perks and who wouldn’t know how to find the nearest grassroots facility. While [...]
Here’s what the NFL can teach football about global expansion October 16, 2025 It had taken me 18 years and 40 missed opportunities in London before I got round to seeing my first NFL game in the flesh on Sunday: an attritional contest edged by the Denver Broncos at a packed Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that looked for all intents and purposes as though it had been flown from [...]
My dozen questions to get inside the minds of English cricket fans October 9, 2025 An invitation from the England and Wales Cricket Board arrives, forwarded by Middlesex Cricket. A survey no less, and one with a laudable aim – to find out what it would take to entice the respondent to take up or extend membership of their favoured cricket county. It starts with questions about age, gender and [...]
Capitulation clearing Russia and Putin’s path to LA 2028 Olympics October 2, 2025 Vladimir Putin’s path to Los Angeles 2028 is being cleared, his war on Ukraine becoming normalised in the minds of the world’s sports administrators. Last week’s votes by the International Paralympic Committee to readmit Russia and Belarus are, to my mind, a shameful capitulation and represent a triumph for the warmonger. All eyes now on [...]
Why Ryder Cup is commercial gold and other sports have failed to copy it September 25, 2025 If the Ryder Cup didn’t exist, could you create it today? After all, this is an event that bends an individual sport into a collective enterprise, is rarely won by the away team, and hasn’t produced a close contest for 13 years. It also sees a roster of golfers playing for love pitted against another [...]
Ben Proud’s Enhanced Games switch puts pressure IOC to use its $5bn September 18, 2025 Rather than wondering why Ben Proud would sign up for the Enhanced Games, it is better to ask why he wouldn’t. The British swimmer’s commitment to the competition with an “anything goes” attitude to performance-enhancing drugs is a wake-up call for the Olympic movement. Money, as ever, lies at the heart of the matter. Proud [...]
