Sports Digital Advisory
Helping sports organisations unlock what their digital is worth.
I work with federations, leagues, clubs, broadcasters, brands and scale-ups who know their digital should be doing more — and want an honest outside view on why it isn't.
A career in sport.
Senior roles inside rights holders, a broadcaster, a platform and a scale-up — leading teams across EMEA, working with some of sport's biggest names.
About
Nick Shaw · Founder
Four sides of the table. /
One independent view.
I've built digital functions from scratch at ECB and RFU, helped activate landmark rights deals at Meta, grown commercial revenue at Sky, and helped scale Greenfly's business in sport. Mostly I've learned what actually moves things forward — and what just looks like it does. I set up Red7 Advisory to do this work on my own terms — which mostly means being straight with people.
What I sell isn't time or deliverables. It's outcomes, insight and judgement. I still work closely with people in the technology space — including Greenfly, where I'm an adviser — but when I'm working with you, my only interest is what's right for your organisation.
Why the perspective is different
Most people in this space have worked on one side of the table. I've worked on four — and that changes how you see things.
ECB · RFU
I rebuilt digital functions from the inside. I know what holds teams back, why it happens, and what it takes to change it.
Meta EMEA
I led sports partnerships across EMEA — IOC, FIFA, UEFA, Premier League, F1, World Rugby and more. I know what platforms actually want from rights holders.
Greenfly
I ran EMEA for a platform at the centre of athlete and talent content distribution — I've seen first-hand how the relationship between fans, clubs, players and the content they have access to is changing.
Global markets
Eight years inside US companies gave me sustained exposure to how the most commercially advanced sports organisations in the world think about digital value.
The career path
The problem
CLUBS · LEAGUES · FEDERATIONS · RIGHTS HOLDERS · BRANDS IN SPORTYour digital is working. /
Making it pay is the harder part.
The teams are good. The effort is real. But there's a gap between operational output and commercial confidence — and it's not a size thing. It exists at every level of sport, from clubs and domestic leagues to global federations. What's usually missing is the ability to prove, price and defend the value of digital — to leadership, to sponsors, to the board. And when that confidence is missing, value quietly leaks — year after year.
The numbers back it up.
Revenue sports could unlock by closing the digital gap
Morgan Stanley, 2024
Fans that sports organisations can actually identify
Dizplai Fan Index, 2024
Sports orgs using personalisation — vs 92% in retail
Morgan Stanley, 2024
The four conversations I keep having.
You're producing more content than ever — and less of it is landing where the value is.
Every team, athlete and partner is publishing in parallel. Fans see fragments. Sponsors see inventory they can't measure. Meanwhile, the biggest untapped asset most organisations are sitting on is their players — athletes are becoming media channels in their own right, and the organisations that work out how to create, organise, distribute and monetise content through their talent will unlock revenue streams that don't exist yet. The old model of centralised content out of a comms team isn't built for where this is heading.
There are more vendors than ever, and less clarity on which ones matter.
Every week there's a new platform, a new pitch, a new deck. Some of it is genuinely useful. Most of it is solving the vendor's problem, not yours. Knowing which bets to make — and which to wait out — is easier when you've sat on the other side of the table and seen how the pitch gets built.
Renting fans from platforms has a ceiling.
Platforms give you reach but keep the relationship. The next phase is about building something you actually own — an app, a product, a direct channel — without pretending social media doesn't still matter. It's not either/or. The organisations getting the balance right are the ones pulling ahead on revenue, data and fan lifetime value.
The job description has changed. The organisation hasn't caught up.
Digital used to sit in marketing, or under comms, or next to product. What it's now being asked to deliver — revenue, first-party data, fan experience, content operations, commercial proof — doesn't fit neatly under any of them. Most of the organisations I talk to don't have a people problem. They have a structure problem, a mandate problem, and nobody has quite said it out loud.
How I work
Honest enough /
to be genuinely useful.
I want to be useful — close enough to understand the real pressures, honest enough to say the things that are difficult to hear, and invested enough that the outcome matters to me. Some organisations need a big agency and a room full of people. Some just need a straight conversation with someone who's been around long enough to have seen most of it.
What you'll leave with
- Clarity on where the commercial value actually is — and what's getting in the way.
- A plan you can act on — specific to your organisation, not borrowed from somewhere else.
- An outside perspective — no internal politics, no sunk costs, no preconceptions.
- Confidence at board level — the right framing and the right questions.
What I help with
What I don't do
Implementation, project management or delivery. You're buying the thinking, not the doing.
In practice
What this looks like /
in practice.
England & Wales Cricket Board — Digital Transformation
Situation
Digital function was active but commercially invisible. No connection between output and revenue. Structured as a cost centre with no commercial mandate.
What I found
No measurement that meant anything to sponsors. No alignment between digital and commercial teams. A talented team with no commercial direction.
What changed
Rebuilt the function around commercial outcomes. Created measurement sponsors could rely on. Aligned digital and commercial teams. Gave the board a clear way to evaluate digital.
Outcome
Digital revenue: £10K to £1.8M per annum. Cost centre to commercial asset. Sponsors started asking for digital-first packages. ECB's broadcast rights roughly tripled in the same period — the digital work helped shape the value story behind it.
EMEA ARR growth at Greenfly — in under two years, working alongside a team I helped build from one to six.
Experience
A selection / not a definitive list.
Rights holders & federations
Clubs & teams
Brands & broadcasters
A selection — not a definitive list — of organisations I've worked with as clients or partners during senior roles at Meta and Greenfly. I've spent the last decade in rooms with some of the biggest names in sport and learned a huge amount from them. What I want to do with Red7 is bring that thinking to organisations at every level — whether you're a global federation or a domestic league doing more with less.
Work together
Three ways in.
You deal with me directly. No junior analysts, no account managers. I typically work with three to four clients at any one time.
Retained Advisory
Sustained change · Ongoing strategic input
For organisations navigating a transformation, sponsorship challenge or digital leadership question. Direct access to me.
Diagnostic Project
Start here · Find the gap
An independent assessment of your digital function — where commercial value is being lost and what needs to change. Most retained relationships start here.
Day Rate Advisory
Flexible engagement · Pay for the days you need
Ongoing access on a day-rate basis — a set number of days a month, or drawn down as you need them. Useful when you want senior input over a period without committing to a full retainer.
Every engagement starts with a 30-minute conversation. No brief needed.
Mentorship
Helping the next generation / find their way.
Honestly, this is the thing I get the most from. I've been an unofficial mentor to people throughout my career — helping them figure out their next move, back themselves, and grow into roles they weren't sure they could do.
I work with rising talent in digital, media and commercial roles across sport. No corporate mentoring programme. Just honest, practical guidance from someone who's been through most of it.
For organisations: If you've got someone talented who'd benefit from an experienced outside perspective, I'm available for structured mentoring engagements.
If you're early in your career and think a conversation would help, drop me a line. I always make time.
Get in touch →Let's talk.
No pitch. No proposal you didn't ask for. Just a conversation about whether I can help.
nick@red7advisory.co.uk