Beyond The Trophy

Imagine still paying for a stadium that was demolished 25 years ago.That’s exactly what happened in Seattle. And it’s far from an isolated case.Across professional sport, cities have spent billions of public money building stadiums for privately owned teams, often justified by promises of jobs, growth and regeneration. But the economics tell a very different story.In this episode of Beyond the Trophy, we uncover the business model behind taxpayer-funded stadiums: how billionaire owners use relocation threats as leverage, why cities keep agreeing to deals economists overwhelmingly question, and how taxpayers can be left paying long after the team, or even the stadium itself, has disappeared.The stadium looks spectacular.The deal behind it might not be.

In 2001, three men bought a dying fight promotion for just $2 million.It was banned, broke and dismissed as little more than human cockfighting. Fifteen years later, they sold it for more than $4 billion.It is one of the greatest business stories sport has ever seen.But behind the extraordinary rise of the UFC is a much more uncomfortable question.If the people who owned it made billions, what happened to the people taking the punches?This is the story of Dana White, the Fertitta brothers, and the remarkable deal that transformed a blood-stained cage into a global sporting empire.A story about vision, power, billions of dollars...and who really won the fight.

A tiny town. A struggling sports league. And a 33-year-old executive who persuaded some of the most competitive businessmen in America to do something almost unthinkable:Share the money.It sounds like a terrible business strategy. Instead, it helped create the richest and most powerful sports league on earth.This is the story of Pete Rozelle, the unlikely commissioner who understood something about sport that others had missed. Your biggest rival isn't just your competitor. You actually need them to survive.What followed changed television, transformed the economics of professional sport and created a model that still raises an uncomfortable question today:What if the secret to winning isn't keeping more for yourself?This is the story of The League That Chose to Share.

In 1977, cricket’s most powerful men made one mistake: they told Kerry Packer no.What followed was one of the most audacious takeovers in sporting history.Players were signed in secret. National heroes became outlaws. Careers were put on the line. The battle spilled into the High Court. And a sport built on more than a century of tradition was dragged, kicking and screaming, into a new era.This isn’t really a story about cricket. It’s about money, television, power, and what happens when the people running a sport fail to understand what it’s actually worth.The Man Who Stole a Sport is the extraordinary story of Kerry Packer, the rebel players who risked everything, and the two-year war that changed professional sport forever.

In 1919, the best team in baseball walked onto the sport’s biggest stage.Some of them had already agreed to lose.What followed became one of the greatest scandals in sporting history: gamblers, missing confessions, a rigged World Series and eight players banished from baseball for life. At the centre of it all was Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the most gifted hitters the game had ever seen.But more than a century later, one question still refuses to disappear.Was Joe Jackson a cheat who betrayed his sport, or a man destroyed by a system that had already betrayed him?And in 2025, baseball made a decision that changed his story all over again.SAY IT AIN’T SOA story about money, power, corruption, fallen heroes and the scandal that forced an entire sport to confront what happens when fans can no longer trust what they are watching.The game is what you see. This is everything you don’t.

Every free transfer in football carries his name.But almost nobody knows what it cost him.Jean-Marc Bosman was not a superstar. He was an ordinary Belgian midfielder who took on his club, UEFA and the system that controlled the movement of players across Europe.And he won.His victory changed football forever, shifting power from clubs to players and helping create an era of free transfers, huge salaries, signing bonuses and powerful agents.Billions would eventually flow through the door he opened.Bosman himself was left with almost nothing.This is the remarkable story of the man who broke football open for everyone else, and was broken by the fight that did it.

Bernie Ecclestone didn't just build Formula One. He rewrote the business of sport.From a used-car trader to the architect of a multi-billion-dollar global empire, Ecclestone transformed a chaotic collection of racing teams into one of the world's most valuable sporting properties. Along the way, he sold Formula One not once, but four times, amassed an extraordinary fortune, and became one of the most divisive figures in sporting history.Was he the visionary who saved Formula One, or the ruthless dealmaker who exploited it? This episode unpacks one of the greatest business stories ever told, and asks a question that still echoes through sport today: how much is too much to win?

Every World Cup. Every Olympic Games. Every stadium lined with global brands.We see the logos. We rarely ask who created the system behind them.Episode 5 tells the remarkable story of Horst Dassler, the man who transformed sport into the world's most powerful commercial platform. From the brink of Olympic collapse to the birth of modern sponsorship, this is the untold story of the deals, influence and ambition that reshaped global sport forever.Because sometimes the most influential person in sport isn't the one on the field.

Professional tennis generates billions of dollars every year.So why are some of the world's best players struggling to break even?This episode uncovers the extraordinary business model hidden beneath one of sport's most prestigious stages. From prize money and sponsorships to lawsuits and power struggles, discover why tennis is facing the biggest fight in its modern history.Because the greatest battle in tennis isn't always played across the net. Sometimes, it's fought in the boardroom.

For more than 77 years, one family has controlled an entire sport. Not a team. Not a league. An entire sport. They built it from dusty fairgrounds into a multi-billion-dollar empire, creating one of the most loyal fanbases in the world. But as the money grew, so did the questions. Who really owns a sport? And what happens when someone powerful finally challenges the people at the top?

Rejected, underestimated and thousands of kilometres from home, Craig Johnston arrived in England with little more than belief and an unwavering dream. In Episode 2, discover the remarkable journey of the Australian who refused to give up, fought his way into Liverpool FC, won Europe's biggest prizes, and later created one of football's most influential innovations. It's a story of resilience, sacrifice and the relentless pursuit of opportunity.

Real Madrid may be the biggest football club in the world, but nobody can buy it.In this episode of Beyond the Trophy, Andrew Bailey explores the unique ownership model that has protected Real Madrid for more than a century. Discover how the club's member-owned structure shaped its identity, why Florentino Pérez answers to the socios, and what football clubs around the world can learn from one of the most successful sporting institutions ever created.