The Romans Sport & Entertainment: Three Years In

Three years into the successful launch of The Romans’ Sport & Entertainment department, Charlie Brown and Joe Burdon, Joint Heads of Sport and Entertainment at The Romans, discuss their successes, failures, and learnings.

Joe has been at The Romans for six years, while Charlie joined in 2021 to co-found the division. His experience includes working with ITV and running global partnerships for Manchester United.

The Romans’ Sport & Entertainment Division has grown from strength to strength, boasting a client portfolio that includes WWE, Formula E, The Jockey Club, Champion, Betway and Brompton.

Their campaign with Wiggle and adidas has recently been crowned Best Sports Campaign and Best Diversity Campaign a combination of seven times at major industry awards.

We want this to be a frank, concise, and candid summary of how we have grown from nothing to what we are now—working with some of the most exciting brands and rights holders on the planet.

YEAR ONE

Finding Our Space:

‘Raumdeuter’ is a nickname bestowed upon German international footballer Thomas Müller. It means “interpreter of space,” and what he excels at is what we needed to adopt when setting up.

In our favour, everyone has heard of The Romans; they’ve even heard of some of the most awarded campaigns that I (JB) worked on, from Virgin Trains to using vagina emojis (to raise awareness for cervical cancer). The creativity was never in doubt, and we have the trophy cabinet to prove it.

Enter Charlie, ex-Man Utd (insert trophy cabinet joke), whose sporting credentials and experience at a major rightsholder added another string to our bow.

Nobody was waiting for a sports offering to launch. Our job was to convince new clients that The Romans’ renowned creativity combined with the right sporting experience was what they needed. (We still believe this, by the way).

Client no.1

We cheated. We already had a client (and what a client btw) in the shape of WWE, the biggest sports entertainment brand on the planet. Even so, they bought into The Romans, not a new division. A decent client testimony is, we think, the most valuable form of PR and still a source of much of our work today.

YEAR TWO:

The Selectivity Scale:

In the TV show Entourage, Ari Gold says to Vinnie Chase, “You’re going to be judged not by the movies you do, but by the movies you don’t do.”

We shouldn’t have listened to Ari.

We followed our natural inclination…which was to take on every brief going as our desire to build a portfolio and establish credibility outweighed the luxury of selectivity.

Luckily, we quickly learned to be selective. With a smaller team, the opportunity cost of over-indexing on something unwinnable is too high. We made sure we delivered for the clients we did have, rather than over-reaching for ones we didn’t.

Playing to Agency Strengths:

We previously mentioned that we backed our creative muscle to win over clients potentially sceptical about our sporting body of work. While this is no longer an issue, as we have the clients to prove it, we needed to look at The Romans’ agency offering and how we could make this relevant in sport.

One of these strengths is diversity. Diversity in sport rightly continues to be one of the most important conversations taking place online, in the pub, in meeting rooms, and on the pitch. The Romans’ diversity policy and progressive recruitment approach meant that we felt we had the permission and expertise to deliver some best-in-class purpose campaigns –  one of which was the multi-award-winning ‘Hikers Against Hatred’ for Wiggle and Adidas. A campaign that half the agency helped shape and deliver.

Playing to Personal Strengths:

We both work in sport because we love it. Most people who work in sport probably do. So, when we suggest ideas to clients, they are sincere. If we find it interesting that there is a remote, Scottish pub you can only reach by boat or a 15-mile hike, then there is a chance that eight national newspapers will too. If we want to hear WWE Superstars’ favourite football tales, then so might the bulk of The Athletic readers. Storytelling should never be underestimated…the narratives around sport are what make it exciting.

YEAR THREE:

Scaling:

Much of what has seen The Romans’ consumer business thrive can be attributed to successful scaling, whether it be refined financial processes or finding a bigger spot at Soho Farmhouse for the summer party. When I joined in 2018 we were 20 people in one room, and now we are 150+ in four markets.

For the Sport & Entertainment division, our main scalability success driver will be delivered through the same relentless approach to quality recruitment.

Corporate Collaboration:

It’s never been more evident that sport cannot exist in a bubble – we all expect more from the stars, clubs, and institutions we follow. With that it mind, the introduction of the Corporate Division, lead by Sam Hodges (ex-Romans client, but also Twitter, BBC, Netflix and ITV) is another opportunity for us to offer clients an even more comprehensive service – whether it is corporate counsel, or simply the reassurance that the creative we share has been viewed through a corporate lens.

MOVING FORWARD:

As Wayne Gretzky once said, “you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take”. We sit here reflecting on three years of The Romans Sport & Entertainment having missed a few shots across pitches, process and everything in between…but also scoring a bunch.

The next three years and beyond are just as exciting for us, working alongside some amazing clients such as WWE, Formula E, Betway, The Jockey Club and Brompton, we continue to go from strength to strength keeping our DNA in the process.

At the same time, we continue to develop and strengthen services such as partnership activation, sports marketing and digital & social content alongside our heartland PR work as well as growing our global footprint with our offices in New York, Amsterdam and Dubai. Keep your eyes out for more in the future, we have some big plans.