As New Zealand-based podcast Sportscafe expands to Australia, B&T catches up with the show’s Ric Salizzo to learn how it has leant into the market to create winning, long-term brand partnerships.
Salizzo, founder and co-host of Sportscafe, has brought the brand to Australia, taking a YouTube-first sports show built on storytelling, humour and deep brand partnerships into a new market.
Presenting the long-running comedy sports show alongside former All Black, Marc Ellis, Salizzo admitted the pair have noticed the media landscape “has shifted dramatically” since Sportscafe first launched in the 1990s.
However, he said one principle has remained constant: brand partnerships are only successful when they genuinely enhance the audience experience.
“If you’re going to work with a brand, then that relationship has to make the experience better for the audience,” he told B&T.
“We don’t work with an interruption model where you stop what you’re doing to sell something and then go back to the show. We want the brand relationship to deepen the engagement.”
It comes after the IAB Audio Summit in Sydney earlier this week, where industry leaders highlighted the importance of establishing strong brand partnerships for driving revenue, acquiring new customers, and achieving long-term brand growth.
Now operating as a YouTube show that also distributes as a podcast, Sportscafe has amassed more than 2.5 million views and downloads, driven largely by loyal audiences built through organic discovery and word of mouth.
Additionally, they have generated 56 million social media impressions and over 120,000 new organic followers.
But Salizzo says the digital environment demands more effort than traditional television ever did.
“Audience is everything,” he explains. “You can do great content that doesn’t really work if no one watches it.”
“In the old days you made a TV show and people just kept showing up because it was on at the same time every week. Now you have to earn every audience member every time.”
If the brand fits the show, the audience embraces it
From the outset, Sportscafe relied on brand partnerships to survive. When the original TV version launched, networks provided almost no budget, forcing the team to work directly with sponsors to fund the programme.
“We had no budget to work with,” Salizzo says. “So the only way we could do it was to work with brands. They provided the money for us to make the show.”
Long before “branded content” became a marketing ‘buzzword’, Salizzo says his team was already building shows around brand relationships.
“Five or ten years after we started, everyone started talking about branded content,” he says. “I was like, ‘Oh, is that what they call it? We’ve been doing this our whole lives.’”
However, he insists partnerships “only work when they feel natural to the audience”.
“The brand has got to fit the show,” he said. “We’ve both got to be looking to talk the same language to the same people. And by having the brand involved, the show’s got to get better — not worse.”
‘People actually connect us with the brand’
One example shared by Salizzo was Sportscafe’s long-running relationship with beer brand Steinlager.
According to Salizzo, the partnership became so closely associated with the show that audiences began to police it themselves.
“If I’m in a pub and someone sees me not drinking a Steinlager, someone will come up and say something,” he laughed. “They’ll say, ‘Hey, what are you doing? It’s not your beer.’”
“That’s how deep the relationship became – the audience connect us with it.”
For Salizzo, that level of brand integration is the ultimate goal.
“We want people to love what we do and love the people we work with,” he said.
While monetisation across YouTube, podcasting and social media continues to evolve, Salizzo says his team prioritises direct brand partnerships rather than relying purely on platform revenue.
But according to the broadcaster: “everything starts with the audience.”
“We have an audience-first mentality,” he said. “Everything we do has got to be for the audience first.”
“The first question I ask myself when I’m having these conversations is: does this make the show better for the audience?”
“If the answer is yes, then we proceed.”
Australia brewing with ‘good stories’
Now based between New Zealand and Sydney, Salizzo said the company plans to run multiple programmes this year, including local and global sports formats.
When asked what he thinks Australian offers, he responded: “rich storytelling opportunities”.
“I’ve always really enjoyed the culture of Australian sport,” he said.
“There are so many great stories here and so many great sports people to talk to. We’ve only done 10 shows so far, but we’ve already had a lot of fun.”
