Summary

• Serie A’s Data Land Grab: Why the league’s €18M acquisition of Fanta Calcio’s 7 million users is less about fantasy football and more about owning the direct fan relationship they’ve never had — and why the three clubs that voted against it may come to regret it.
• Formula E Tears Up the Broadcast Rulebook: Handing electric cars to YouTubers and letting Arcade Media (Media business behind the Sidemen) produce it their way generated half a season’s worth of views in 48 hours — but is Formula E building a fanbase or just borrowing someone else’s?
• The Influencer Strategy Nobody Saw Coming: Dick’s Sporting Goods opened 60 creator roles to coaches, parents and staff, not celebrities, and got nearly 11,000 applications. As AI floods feeds with synthetic content, real people with real stories are becoming the scarcest asset in marketing.
• Sport Is Now an Intelligence Business. But at What Cost?: Deloitte’s latest report confirms data is becoming core competitive infrastructure in sport. Ed and Jo ask the harder question: when personalisation goes too far, do we lose the shared, unrepeatable moments that make sport worth caring about in the first place?
• The Women’s Sports Media Brands Doing the Job Broadcast Refused To: The Gist, Just Women Sports and Good Game aren’t waiting for mainstream outlets to catch up — they’re growing fast, building direct fan relationships, and quietly proving the economics will follow the audience.
• Volleyball, Roblox and the Sleeper Story of the Decade: Volleyball sits top of Roblox’s most-played sports games, 44% of Roblox’s 150 million daily users are women, and female creators are already building audiences around the sport. The money hasn’t caught up yet — but the signals are all there.

Show Notes

• Seria A buys 51% stake in Fantacalcio fantasy platform
• Formula E’s EVO Session – Senor Frogs vs Quickstars
• Dick’s Sporting Goods Creator Varisty Programme
• Deloitte’s Sports Outlook 2026
• The Rise of Women’s Media Companies
• ESPN’s new Women’s Sports Sunday Show

Transcription

Ed Abis (00:02.936)
Hello and welcome to the attention shift. In the week that’s…

Jo (00:05.658)
Start again, start again. You were too early.

Ed Abis (00:09.264)
sorry, said it was recording. Are we ready now? Okay then, I’ll try again. Right, okay.

Ed Abis (00:20.782)
Hello and welcome to the attention shift. In the week that Serie A decided the best way to own Italian football was to buy the game fans play instead of watching it, Formula E handed the keys to the bunch of YouTubers and somehow generated half a season’s worth of viewing in 48 hours. Dick’s Sporting Goods got 11,000 people fighting over 60 unpaid jobs. Deloitte told the sports industry that Dacia is now more valuable than the game itself and women’s sports media showed up to the Olympics and did the job broadcast at 30 years to do.

and didn’t without further delay. You know the drill. Five stories, five minutes each. You ready, Joe?

Jo (00:57.548)
I’m ready. it just tripped off the tongue head. How many times have you practiced that?

Ed Abis (01:00.814)
A little bit of a stumble. little bit of 10 or 15. Right then, let’s go. So, first story. So, Serie A just bought 51 % controlling stake in Fanta Calcio, Italy’s biggest fancy football platform for 18 million euros. The platform’s got 7 million users of which about 3 million I think are paid users which generates 9 million in revenue pulling in 4 million profit.

That values the whole business over 40 million euros. Founders are staying on to run it, but Serie A now controls it and their betting fancy football is now essential infrastructure for them. Sponsors like Eni, McDonald’s and Bancom are already on board. But interestingly, Napoli, Fiorentina and Como voted against it, signing concerns over valuation.

Jo (01:50.618)
What were they worried about? It was valued too high.

Ed Abis (01:55.178)
I guess that’s the sense, yeah, that they thought they were paying too much money for it.

Jo (01:58.618)
Okay, thoughts. I think that’s absolutely bonkers. I think they’ve picked up a bargain, genuinely. You think about how, look at what the Premier League’s done with fantasy. You look at how fantasy is a massive acquisition funnel for even casual fans, not ones that necessarily go week in, week out or watch a lot of live football, but it’s something that they do, they do with their mates, they talk about it. It’s…

So it’s top of funnel and it’s big buy-in. But more important for me, it’s a way to have a sustained engagement with the fans. It’s direct to fan relationship building. that’s, hello, that’s what every big sport league is looking to try and do. I…

they’ve got it for a steal and I think actually given that a lot of sport is talking about data and asset classes at the moment I think 18 million euros is a bargain don’t you think? I it might end up looking looking quite a cheap cheap buy

Ed Abis (03:00.014)
Absolutely, they’ve essentially bought a first party data engine that they never had and they’ve got themselves in the game alongside the Premier League that’s got what 11 and a half million players playing globally. I don’t for the life of me understand why that question has been raised around valuation when this thing’s making the profit it’s making every year. It’s already funding itself in the future anyway and this like you said this gives for me gives Serie A

not just a daily touch point, but it’s a minute by minute touch point. These people who are playing this game are constantly engaging with Fanta Calcio that now Siri Ack can start combining all the different content and all the different access they’ve got with the game itself and start creating new content strands.

Jo (03:43.983)
Yeah, because it’s the kind of thing you go back and you check daily, if not multiple times daily. You track injuries to your players. You follow clubs that are not normally the clubs that you follow because of your game, your team. So I think there’s a level of investment in fantasy that is perhaps not being acknowledged here. It’s it’s depth and it’s…

passion, you know, it’s something that actually gets people really excited and chattering amongst themselves. So yeah, I think it’s, mean, you’ve got loads of creators, you’ve got people doing fantasy podcasts, it’s a content creation engine in and of itself. I think that it’s a proper smart buy by Syria. I think Fanta Calcio, it’s a big interface with their fans and they’ve decided they want to own a stake in it. And I think if…

Again, I’m sure there’s many reasons behind those three clubs objecting. Maybe they think that it was valued too high or maybe they wanted to do something individually, but I think it’s a steal. think it’s a really great move.

Ed Abis (04:49.298)
I think it’s clear that if data is currency, which it is, it’s a gold mine for them as they move forward. It really is. It builds them a content ecosystem now with an always on approach that is going to create infinite content opportunities, a whole ecosystem there. And you can see where we’ve seen, certainly in the UK, where Sky have got FPL graphics that start to build into the content. It allows…

Syria to start thinking more like maybe a media organization than perhaps they’ve been able to in the past because it’s been incredibly challenging for them such is the strength of the Premier League.

Jo (05:26.01)
Yeah, no, I agree. And I can’t see why it wouldn’t happen elsewhere as well. I don’t know about other leagues in Europe and what their fantasy football ecosystem is like, but I’d be very surprised if this wasn’t the last that wanted a stake in it.

Ed Abis (05:40.152)
So, well, I love it. I think it’s a great move. And I’m looking forward to see what they do with it. Shall we move on to the next story, Joe?

Jo (05:44.446)
Agree. Yes. Did you watch any of the partner, the Formula E stuff, the Evo sessions produced by Arcade Media, which is of course is behind the Sidemen? I thought it looked and felt really fresh. It was wrapped in a YouTube visual language that I think felt really exciting. Did you watch any of it?

Ed Abis (06:08.427)
I did yeah, I really enjoyed it. I mean for anybody who doesn’t know last weekend Formula E gave the keys to their electric cars to a lot of creators and said, yeah, go crash them. And some did to not insignificant expense, but what they were gambling on is that these creators would give a different angle to what Formula E is and allow them to reach a totally different audience. So you’ve got people like Cal Frase

and the fellas and cento frogs yeah yeah yeah

Jo (06:38.69)
Yeah, you’ve got Ritstar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, there were a couple of random ones in there, but I think they were in general, they were creators who had a genuine interest in the product. They like motorsport. So there’s a connection there. Kind of reflects what we talk about a lot in that, you know, people follow people, they follow creators or they follow athletes. So this is a way to bring those creators in, not just as…

kind of fans themselves and they’re invested and really excited to be having a go in these cars. But also again, more acknowledgement if we needed it that creators are a viable distribution partner in this sense. But, know, for me it was the exciting thing was you mentioned up top the views that it garnered then.

in two days equated to the views that they would have got over an entire kind of half seasons worth of content just in two days. So it works. I mean, would it work on a sustained basis? I think you’d probably see a bit of drop off. There’d be a high curiosity factor, but it really brought a whole bunch of new folks into Formula E that wouldn’t have thought to check it out. Had they not chucked Cal Frasie, Vic Star, and some of the Senor Frogs kind of fellas in cars.

Ed Abis (07:59.278)
So here’s a question for you though. Are they just outsourcing to creators to basically do their own job?

Jo (08:02.367)
Yeah, yes, and that was what was going to be my provocation, actually, yeah. Because if creators then are the ones that start forming the fan relationships between…

Ed Abis (08:09.655)
Ha ha ha.

Jo (08:18.596)
Formula E and the audience, isn’t that the same job that the broadcasters used to do? You outsource the fan relationship. So the risk then is that the sport just becomes the content for the creators to own. So yes, there’s a tension, but at this stage, I’m sure Formula E don’t really care about that. They care about the number of folks that tuned in to see creators driving those cars around and potentially they’re gonna come back again and again and it’s the start of an enduring kind of fandom.

Ed Abis (08:48.139)
Yeah, and look, in a of ways, I think it’s an evolution of creation of live content that you and I have been talking about for a number of years now where we’ve been, you know, bringing almost like that vlog style into a large scale production, which essentially is how do we flip a broadcast on its head and make it more conversational, more community orientated? How do we make it?

Jo (09:01.658)
Hmm?

Ed Abis (09:14.729)
as much about the personalities taking part in it as about the race itself.

Jo (09:19.428)
think that’s really important to point out. And if nobody’s watched it, they should go and watch it, because it didn’t feel at all like broadcast sport. And that’s because it was produced by Arcade. It felt YouTube native. And that was the real distinction from the graphics, from the access, from how, I mean, you think about how curated Formula One is, and it was the complete antithesis of that.

It was full access, was barriers down, it was authentic and you could tell and that came through. Now, that might feel atypical to older, traditional motor sports fans. It doesn’t feel that way to a teenager who’s perhaps tuned into this for the first time and for whom YouTube is their first protocol for any of their sports content. So I think it’s really interesting, want to watch that one?

Ed Abis (10:08.173)
And I think you can do that with Formula E, right? Because it’s a relatively nascent variant of the sport in a lot of ways. And what I really liked is I saw Formula E’s CMO, Ellie Norman, and she was really explicit in what she said. She said, we’re going to hand ourselves over to you. We want you to tell the story in the way you know best. And that’s not outsourcing that. That is fully integrating, working hand in hand, saying, we know we’ve got a great product.

and you’re great storytellers. Let’s put the two things together.

Jo (10:39.642)
Can you imagine other sports leagues or sports or federations going, we’re giving it to you, we trust you, you go ahead. No way, no way. mean, is why Formula E is to be applauded and amazing. yeah, I think that would be a stretch for many.

Ed Abis (10:51.949)
Wha-

Ed Abis (11:02.101)
In a sense, what I like about this is these guys turning around to NFL and flag football going, yeah, your move, because we’ve just one up you there.

Jo (11:10.2)
Yeah, amazing. Yeah, good stuff. Okay, right. Dick’s Sporting Goods. They hit the sports news this week and it was really interesting. It’s still on the theme of creators, but instead of paying a few elite athletes or a few massive creators, which to be fair, that’s what Formula E did, know, Vic Stark, Alphraise, Carburel, all of those are pretty big. They’ve gone the other way and this is really interesting because they’re building this distributed network.

of creators, but they’re going for people like coaches and parents and staff. Staff, think, is a really interesting one, because you look at some of the success that employees of EasyJet and Ryanair and KFC have had on social. So let’s talk about it. They’re challenging how brands think about employing creators. What do you reckon?

Ed Abis (12:01.216)
Dicks may have just changed how brands integrate with creators forever, how they’ve tackled this. I… They are… They will only bring people into the mix of this who show ultimate… I guess… Love for the brand and for the products it sells and how it goes about things. They do not want to pay for anything that looks overtly commercial. This… For them, it’s about organic…

and real stories and for that I think they need to be applauded quite frankly.

Jo (12:31.96)
Yeah, I think it’s a real, I love the phrase, zig when others zag and that’s exactly what they’ve done. They’ve decided that, I mean, any number of people will have a different kind of relationship with Dick Sporting Goods in the US, depending on what sport they follow. Again, it could be a coach, it could be a parent, could be a member of staff. So opening up.

this kind of storytelling network to any of those is gonna pay massive dividends because they’re gonna get so many interesting things coming from it. They were opening about 60 roles, I think. And you say there were like 10,000 applications or something.

Ed Abis (13:08.949)
Just short of 11,000 applications for it,

Jo (13:12.152)
So that for me.

Well, one, it shows that people have got stories about Dick’s sporting goods and what it means to them. So they’ve got a rich kind of vein to mine in that case. But one of the other things it’s worth pointing out, you’ve got celebrity campaigns and we’ve just talked about how it works successfully with Formula E and they do work successfully. But there’s two types of kind of creator success. And this one, I think taps into the second one because very often you find that engagement rates with

kind of real human stories, those that aren’t necessarily massive creators, but they tell human stories and they’ve got a very loyal kind of fan base.

that can be equally powerful. those real humans, that lived experience, yes, know, Dick’s Sporting Goods, I’ve got several kids, we’re in there every week as they outgrow this and they outgrow. That’s the kind of stuff that resonates with the people on the street that are gonna go into Dick’s Sporting Goods and spend some money next week. So I think that’s really, it’s another example of sports brands thinking like a media company, but not in that massive creator way, in a much kind of more distributed, more kind of real smaller creator

influence away.

Ed Abis (14:26.89)
Yeah, I think it’s another genuine move towards the integration of media marketing, authenticity. What I really liked is their influencer leader, Nicole Marcus, was really direct about this. And she said, look, as media feeds become increasingly AI generated, real people who actually use real products become a scarcity commodity.

Jo (14:52.975)
Yeah.

Ed Abis (14:53.388)
in marketing and she’s hit the nail on the head there that she’s… She wants a realness to how they go about doing this. She does not want to outsource their creator influence in marketing. She wants to make sure that these people… And it’s a little bit of a nod to how Red Bull have done so for all the years. Like, you don’t go to Red Bull, Red Bull come to you. They only come to you if they think that you genuinely…

Jo (15:00.954)
Mm.

Ed Abis (15:18.097)
like their products and services and want to be part of it, then they’ll work with you. If you feel like you’re just doing it for the cash, they don’t go anywhere near you.

Jo (15:24.634)
Yeah, and you know what? mean, producer Will has just put a stat in the note, so I don’t know where it’s come from, but 84 % of consumers believe a company’s reputation is influenced by employee personal brands. Well, that’s right. I mean, we can see it in other kind of, oh, is it Curries in the UK are doing TV ads that they might be actors, but it’s pitched as employees. So yeah, there is an element of that that I think, you know,

Ed Abis (15:41.931)
Yes!

Jo (15:50.969)
And when you think about it, sports brands, we tend to talk about sports broadcast brands or leagues, but actually, know, Dick’s is the same. You’ve got to think about who are your presenters? Who are your connectors with your audience or your customers? Who are your commentators and your creators? And that’s not just pundits or it’s not just athletes or it’s not just ex athletes. They can be staff and they can be fans. And there’s some really interesting ways to connect and get your story out there. So I think, yeah, great move by Dick’s Sporting Goods.

I, you know, let’s see who else replicates it. But I think if we were talking about formulary and we were talking about creators with massive follow-ins, we’ve got this nice counterpoint that Dick’s has gone the other way and it’s going for kind of 60 that are much more kind of human, real, normal people that go into Dick’s Sporting Goods that have got something to say about it. I think that’s fascinating.

Ed Abis (16:43.308)
Absolutely. So next story then so another week another report this time. It’s Deloitte You throw their hat in the ring So a new global sports industry outlook report highlights how sports organizations are rapidly evolving who knew AI is reshaping operations media and entertainment convergence and fun data economics are becoming core competitive infrastructure brands and rights holders Well, that was a mouthful trying to unpack that now just now said it and I’m son of postcard if anyone understands what that means

Jo (17:05.999)
Hahaha.

Ed Abis (17:10.304)
But essentially they’re saying that the pace of, I guess, technological change and the way that you can automate a lot of this, whether it’s through AI or other processes, is allowing people to personalise more and more the experience and that data is becoming monetisation as an asset class, essentially.

Jo (17:34.874)
I mean, we could probably say this week in, week out, there’s always another report, there’s always another story, there’s always another consulting group, there’s always, you know, coming out with a report saying, AI’s gonna transform sport and data is the asset class. I think we’ve got the message. Yes, sports is now an intelligence business. There you go, there’s a quote for you. It’s…

Ed Abis (17:41.642)
Yeah.

Ed Abis (18:00.923)
Yeah, and to try and sort of unpack that and explain what they said in their report there if they’re effectively saying that Sports organizations are no longer just sellers of content. They’re becoming co-owners of how that content lives Which is something that we’ve been saying, you know They should be thinking about for a long long time rather than outsourcing distribution without having any skin in the game other than just cash and Fundator they are now reclassifying this as as core infrastructure ultimately and it’s kind of

Let’s engage some fans and listen to them and, you know, see what they think and see what they want. Like, you know, again, talked about this before basics, but often it’s not, it doesn’t happen. And again, anyone wants to know more about that? and Joe talk about that daily base on LinkedIn. And then there’s that convergence of sports, media, entertainment, accelerating. And in a lot of ways, probably if anything, it’s being led by investor behavior. Cause the more people are investing in this, the more they’re going, well, how do I get my pound of flesh now? And ultimately they know that data is value.

Jo (19:02.742)
I I’ve not really got much to add to that. No, the thing, right, okay, I have got something to add to it because I think there’s a massive focus on data. And yeah, I mean, I’ve worked in media for 20 years, know, content, entertainment, media, that’s my bag. And alongside that comes data. When it becomes the focus, and I’m a little bit worried that it is becoming too much of a focus in sport,

Ed Abis (19:03.455)
But. But.

Jo (19:30.52)
Does it take the emotion out of sport? Again, is it another barrier to actually what people love about sport? It’s showing up with your mates, it’s winning, losing competition, and it evokes feelings. Do we lose that if we focus so much on zeros and ones and spreadsheets and how much value there is in that? Does it take away from what sports about?

Ed Abis (19:58.642)
If we personalise too much and focus it too much then ultimately how are we ever going to find anything else or if we’re always just fed, I think this is the problem with algorithms right, we’re always just fed the thing that the algorithm says this is your area of interest I’m only going to give you this but ultimately we are curious animals as humans we want to be able to see other things too and seek out more stuff too so actually yes it does start to sanitise the experience and take the fun out of it.

Jo (20:25.85)
because at some point we crave novelty but if the algorithm doesn’t give you anything new then that that’s bad and the other thing is this this hyper personalization that you see and read about a lot I get it it needs to feel like it’s been curated for you tick I’m behind that if everybody gets an individual experience to the point that it’s almost unique to you one of the big things about sport is mass communal experiences

you know, where were you when that goal was scored in the World Cup final? Who were you with? You remember those things. If it becomes so hyper-personalised that it is just directed at you, do we lose that kind of communal concept that binds sport? I don’t know. I don’t know the answer, but that’s one of the things that I do worry is…

We’re talking about AI, we’re talking about data, there’s a way to hyper-personalise. If you take it to the nth degree, that it’s so unique to you, where does that communal experience come from?

Ed Abis (21:27.007)
I agree. think if we are sent down that rabbit hole of I’m only going to serve to you things that you’ve engaged with before, the reality is we are interested in seeking out new stuff. We’ll just get bored with it and find something else. That’s just the reality of it. I think, I mean, look, we talk a lot about how we think that people should be thinking more about…

Jo (21:41.422)
Yeah.

Ed Abis (21:52.572)
data that they’re acquiring and what they can do with it, but not to the point of sanitizing it so much that the whole thing becomes boring and not very engaging. And that’s the worry.

Jo (22:02.203)
Yeah, and the risk is also it’s a volume play. It’s look how much data we can gather therefore we’ve got more value. Doesn’t matter if the data is useless or it’s not being used in a way that actually enhances what sport is about or the fan experience. You can have as much data in the world. It’s gonna be useless. Anyway, I doubt it. We should crack on to the next story.

Ed Abis (22:24.817)
Last story. So this is something that piqued our interest and what we will do as well is in the show notes, we’ll make sure we’ve got some links into some of the articles that we’ve read as well. So you can see where we, you know, where we saw these stories from and ultimately read a little bit more into it yourself as well. Because obviously we do realise that five minutes is not a lot of time to go deep on some of these things. But so look, there’s a new wave of women’s sports media brands starting to pop up now. So you’ve got Together, if I pronounced that wrong, even though it’s got an XR instead of the ER at the end.

Just Women Sports, The Gist, Good Game with Sarah Spayne, they’ve sprung up because ultimately, I’m going to say this as a male so I can, the male dominated sports media world has basically ignored that sort of female audience over a long period of time. So what they’re doing now is they’re not waiting for those mainstream outlets to catch up, they’re starting to build their own and it’s working so…

Milan Cortina Olympics have been the latest proof of concept where we’ve seen some of these female orientated media organisations going in there and creating content. What have you seen of this Joe? What do you like about some of this?

Jo (23:30.65)
What I like is that they’re able to say, do you know what, we’re not being served or we don’t think that women’s sport is being represented accurately enough or in a modern enough way, let’s face it, know, broadcast is over a hundred years old. So they’re like, okay, we’ll just go and do it because the barriers to entry and being able to spin up a newsletter, a social series, direct relationship with fans, you can do it.

You can do it with minimal infrastructure and minimal outlay. And actually, every single one of those that you mentioned is really good. They’re really good at what they do, how they package it, how they talk about it. And so, it felt, I mean, you know, when you think back to Sky Sports Halo and the disaster that was that particular short-lived experience, you’ve got the gist that’s got a million newsletter subscribers. They’ve just gone and done it.

And yeah, it’s a grind, but what’s really interesting is, you know, they’ve got athletes in there, they’ve got creator commentators. They’re basically building what a lot of traditional sports media is trying to pivot towards, and they’ve just gone and done it, and I think it’s really…

Ed Abis (24:41.896)
And that newsletter subscriber rate that they just have got, that’s a 50 % growth in two years. So that shows you the accelerated growth of women’s orientated sports and how content is presented around it and the speed that it’s growing as well. Like there’s definitely interest there. And it’s funny as well, I saw it popped up on the timeline as well that ESPN in the US have now decided to replace their Sunday night baseball game with women’s sports Sundays. So…

Jo (24:46.862)
Yeah.

Ed Abis (25:10.93)
In a lot of ways these female orientated media companies are popping up. It’s given a kick up the bottom to the traditional media companies that for a long long time weren’t necessarily making sure that women’s sports were represented.

Jo (25:24.408)
Yeah, fair enough, but there’s still a way to go, isn’t there? Again, thanks, producer Will, in the studio chat. None of Forbes highest paid athletes are women. So yeah, I mean, that tells you everything you need to know and the kind of salaries and sponsorship revenue that just women’s sport, the gist, Good Game with Sarah Spain are getting, will be way behind what kind of even…

Ed Abis (25:27.854)
god yeah.

Jo (25:51.32)
direct to audience male media brands get. So there’s a long way to go. But I think the money’s gonna come because it’s gonna follow the audience.

Ed Abis (25:57.652)
This

Ed Abis (26:02.154)
It’s got to catch up, man. And look, and I have heard naysayers saying that using almost like that Forbes list as a reason that women’s sports isn’t really cutting through. it’s like, wait a minute, like this has been a male orientated sports landscape for how many years? Like where women have always been underrepresented because most of the sports that exist have never had a viable women’s alternative to it. that’s like you look at, for instance, volleyball. Volleyball around the world is actually strongest in the women’s game rather than the men’s game.

Like that is one sport where I think there’s going to be huge growth over the next 10, 15, 20 years. And I think the fact that women’s volleyball is so strong and you’ve talked a lot, haven’t you, about how Roblox is doing a lot for the sport of volleyball as well.

Jo (26:32.186)
Mm-hmm.

Jo (26:39.609)
I agree.

Jo (26:47.098)
Volleyball is top of the top 50 sports games by a long way on Roblox.

Ed Abis (26:53.918)
And those are the consumers of the future coming through Roblox.

Jo (26:57.77)
hello, yes. There might be a newsletter published by me later today that talks about just that. But yeah. No, you didn’t. You seeded me up nicely. But to your point, of the 150 million daily active users on Roblox, a much higher proportion are women and girls.

Ed Abis (27:03.55)
I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that by the way. was…

Jo (27:15.962)
So about 44 % of users on Roblox are women. That’s much higher than in console gaming on the PS5s, on Xboxes, in AAA gaming that tends to be very male dominated. So you put that together with what we’re talking about. You’ve got volleyball, you’ve got that really popular on Roblox that’s got a much higher proportion of teenage gamers. It sits atop of the top 50 sports games list. You’ve just spoken about how popular volleyball is with women and you’ve got women creators on

YouTube that creating volleyball content. You put that together with these director fan female-led sports media brands, that’s exciting.

Ed Abis (27:55.977)
I think that is genuine where we could start to see some of this money going towards with the female athletes, because some of them as well, it’s not just how good they are at the game, but just the way they cross over to culture and lifestyle, fashion. As soon as the fashion brand start to realise the true skill that some of these top female volleyball players can have, that in a sense fuels the game itself and ultimately fuels the rise of these female athletes. And then you’ll see the halo effect potentially into other sports too.

Jo (28:10.467)
Yes.

Jo (28:19.364)
Mm.

Ed Abis (28:26.078)
For me, it’s incredibly exciting. Obviously father of a teenage daughter who I don’t think is that interested in becoming a professional sports person, knowing that she could be in a way that when we were growing up, it was really, really difficult, right, to her in a living of being a professional female athlete. I think that’s incredibly inspiring and I want to see more of. And what I was going to say as well, Joe, just because now I’ve called out this blog that I didn’t know you were doing, we’ll get producer will to put your sub stack also in the show notes as well so people can go and have a look themselves as well.

Jo (28:41.004)
Mm. Mm.

Jo (28:56.154)
Thank you. very nice. Very nice. Yes, that’s, yeah. I mean, I think we should dig into this a little bit further because I do sense that actually the economics, though they’re behind now, they’re going to start catching up. But the interesting thing is there’s an opportunity for women’s sports to build it in a different way without those structural, the legacy structures, I think, that sit behind men’s sport. So let’s just hope they…

Ed Abis (29:19.882)
I think what we could do is we’re going to have a new weekly interview series coming out which is going to be released every Friday unless I’m wrong where we’re already getting a few interviews in the can at the moment with people that we’ll be releasing but I think to get someone in the sports, women’s sports ecosystem to come and talk a bit more about this I think would be good so yeah we’ll come back on that think.

Jo (29:38.884)
So, yeah, definitely.

Jo (29:43.492)
We’ll do that, we’ll do that. Okay, we’re at time. So thank you for joining us. That has been this week’s episode of the Attention Shift podcast. That was Ed Abbas and I’m Jo Redfern. And don’t forget, if you want to ask us any questions or suggest topics for us to talk about, let us know. We are on hello at attentionshift.media and you can send us any kind of feedback you like as long as it’s positive. Right, thanks Ed. Have a good week. See you next week.

Ed Abis (30:08.042)
friendly.

You too, bye.