Drew Barrand

SB Weekly - the sport business podcast

Drew Barrand, Marketing Director of the English Football League (EFL), is a featured interview on this week's SB Weekly.

The EFL is the world’s oldest and original league football competition and currently comprises the 72 teams playing in the English Championship, League One and League Two. Drew became Marketing Director in 2014 following stints at Pitch PR and Benchmark Sport, and originally started his career as a journalist specialising in sports marketing.

In the podcast Drew discusses why the Football League needed to be re-branded to the EFL, and what the re-branding exercise showed about your average rights-holder's inability to effectively market itself; how the rebrand can help boost revenues for the 72 clubs, and where huge opportunities lie outside the UK; what impact the EFL's new digital partners Realise and NeuLion will have; getting long-term buy-in in a traditionally short-term, sales-focused football industry; the challenges of getting cut-through in the saturated sports and entertainment market; and why the sports industry needs to be more honest about how slowly it is developing.