Sport’s boardroom, backstage and bid-room briefing.
Leaders Worth Knowing Podcast is a sports business briefing built around access to decision-makers, brand executives and event operators. Its recent run moves from World Cup activation in North America to the Masters, the IPL, NBA expansion and the business of live atmosphere.
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Leaders Worth Knowing Podcast sits inside the working layer of sport: sponsorship plans, host-city politics, rights-holder strategy, event operations and the personalities who make those systems move. It is built for listeners who already care about the industry behind the match, the tournament and the broadcast. The format alternates between interview episodes and more discursive briefings from James Emmett and David Cushman. That mix gives the show both access and context. Recent episodes lean heavily into the World Cup’s North American build-up, especially the commercial opportunity around games in the US, Canada and Mexico. The podcast follows that story through multiple doors: brand activations from companies such as The Home Depot, host committee priorities in the Bay Area, Canada’s soccer legacy ambitions and Mexico’s wider sports market. It pays attention to scale. It also pays attention to friction. Cost, complexity, transport, safety, local inclusion and sponsor creativity are treated as central parts of the event, not background noise. Away from soccer, the show has a broad sports-business lens. One episode looks at the Masters as a contrarian media and marketing success, built partly on mystery and restraint. Another follows DJ Ski from music discovery into authenticated memorabilia and the careful engineering of atmosphere at live games. The show also ranges across the IPL, RCB’s sale, LIV Golf’s fan positioning, NBA expansion, sports ownership as status, and the impact of war in the Middle East on events and leagues. Its tone is conversational, dryly alert and comfortable with insider shorthand. The hosts can joke about travel and conference logistics, then quickly return to sponsorship rights, bidding presentations and boardroom incentives. The result is not a fan show. It is a map of sport as a marketplace, a media product and a civic undertaking. Listeners get the useful details: who is activating, who is bidding, who is selling, who is staging, and what pressures sit underneath the public spectacle.
Made for: For sports business professionals, sponsorship teams, rights holders, event operators and industry watchers who want context around major tournaments, brands and governing bodies. It also suits serious fans curious about how the spectacle is financed, staged and sold.
What sets it apart: The show combines trade-event access with plainspoken analysis, often capturing conversations recorded close to the people planning major sport’s next commercial moves. It is strongest when connecting sponsor strategy, host-city execution and the texture of live events.
The biggest names in the global business of sport sit down with Leaders Editorial Director, James Emmett, and Content Director, David Cushnan.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Executive interviews and informed discussion reveal the operational choices, commercial pressures, and institutional machinery behind major sport.
Leaders Worth Knowing turns sport into an operating question: how events, leagues, and organizations are financed, governed, marketed, and made to work.
From volunteer drop-offs to a rewritten Super Bowl pitch, you get the business beneath the spectacle.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
James Johnson's plans for Canadian soccer give this World Cup co-host conversation its clearest business thread.
David Cushman turns the World Cup host conversation toward Mexico and Canada, speaking with Club America COO Hector Gonzalez Inarritu before James Johnson takes up the business of Canadian soccer. Johnson gives the episode its strongest thread.
DJ Ski talks arena music and The Realist's authenticated sports memorabilia work.
DJ Ski brings his music background to a Worth Knowing conversation about sports business. The host introduces The Realist, Ski's company, which works with sports rights holders on authenticated memorabilia.
Event bids, welcoming visitors and the pressures that disrupt sporting calendars.
James Emmett and David Cushman talk with Zayleen Janmohamed about what a region must do to host a major sporting event. Janmohamed's account of her Super Bowl bid presentation gives the conversation its most personal moment.
A host committee CEO wants Bay Area residents to feel part of the World Cup.
The Bay Area has hosted a Super Bowl and is preparing for six World Cup games. James Emmett talks with Bay Area Host Committee President and CEO Zayleen Jan-Mohamed about what it takes to bring an event of that size to a region made up of many cities and counties.
A brisk sports business review with a memorable look at the work of keeping volunteers.
James Emmett and David Cushman start with a problem familiar to anyone who runs a sporting event: volunteers have to come back. An operations worker describes volunteers who arrived for the first day of a stadium event but missed the second.
Arsenal feeling, football detail, dry wit.
Football headlines, tested properly.
Arsenal analysis with matchday nerves intact.
Liverpool scrutiny without the soft landing.
Spurs tactics with the feelings left in.
Chelsea scrutiny with dry edges.
David Cushman recaps a week of sports business events in New York City, including the Attention Seekers Workshop and Force New York conference, with mentions of MLB and the Harlem Globetrotters.
James Emmett and Josh Humbler introduce a series exploring sports business region-by-region through IMG's global perspective, starting with APAC.
Leaders' Worth Knowing uses two Business of Soccer conversations in Atlanta to examine why Mexico and Canada matter as 2026 FIFA World Cup co-hosts.
This episode discusses US sports ownership as an honours system and strategies for activating sponsorships at the World Cup, with reflections from a business of soccer event in Atlanta.
David Cushman previews interviews with brand executives from Home Depot, Walmart, and Mondelēz about their World Cup activation plans.
This episode discusses the sale of RCB in the IPL, the engineering of atmosphere at sports events, and the fan-friendly niche of LIV Golf.
DJ Skee, also known as Scott Keeley, describes moving from hip-hop discovery and radio to sports DJing and authenticated memorabilia through The Realist.
The NBA could hand each existing owner a $500 million check if Las Vegas and Seattle expansion fees hit $15 billion.
Leaders editorial director James Emmett interviews Zayleen 'Z' Janmohamed, President and CEO of the Bay Area Host Committee, as she wraps up the February Super Bowl at Levi's Stadium and prepares for six FIFA World Cup matches this summer.
Leaders Worth Knowing uses Parkrun’s 12 million registrants and 21 years of participation data to frame the first half of the episode.
James Emmett and Josh Humbler introduce a series exploring sports business region-by-region through IMG's global perspective, starting with APAC.
James Emmett and Hilary Mandel discuss the sports industry in the Americas, previewing conversations with regional experts.
James Emmett and David Cushman introduce the Worth Knowing podcast, discussing their summer activities and the branding of cricket teams in The Hundred.