International Sports Consulting

We operate where sport meets business - where talent, clubs and brands converge.

ISC is a multi-sport management, marketing and sponsorship business. We represent elite footballers, rugby players and Olympians, while advising clubs, governing bodies and global brands on navigating sport with impact and intelligence.

Founder and CEO

The Game Plan - The Sports Business Accelerator

This is your fast track to a winning career in the sports industry.

 A premium, 10-week intensive program meticulously crafted to propel aspiring professionals or career switchers into successful careers within the sports industry.

Start date: 8th September 2025.
Join the Waiting List obligation free for updates, tips and pre-cohort networking sessions.

Founder

Athletes by Design

Performance wear, co-designed with elite athletes.
By The Athletes - For The Athletes

UK Registered Charity (#1152812) impacting over 2000 children in person every week. 

DFY's mission is to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds realise their full potential. 

Using some of the best sporting talent in country as our programme coaches and ambassadors, our aim is to bring unrivalled coaching, leadership and mentorship both on and off the pitch. The values learned through the programme are transferrable to all areas of their life.

DFY: Becoming Unstoppable.

A podcast where we celebrate leading athletes and their achievements. But what we're really doing is pulling back the veneer of social media and laying bare the setbacks and challenges that tested their resolve. 

We sit down with Olympians, Premiership winners and record holders who have battled inner demons and career-threatening injuries, imposter syndrome and rejection. We explore their  stories of resilience, determination and luck that helped them overcome and emerge victorious.

Podcast Host

Robinson Sports Group

RSG is the holding company for Nick Robinson’s ventures & investments across sports management, media, brand partnerships, education, and philanthropy.

The group oversees:
⚽ International Sports Consulting (ISC) – Elite athlete management and sports business advisory.
🌱 DFY – A UK registered charity (1152812) supporting disadvantaged youth through sport.
🎧 Becoming Unstoppable – DFY’s podcast featuring stories of resilience, leadership, and high performance.
👕 Athletes By Design – A performance-driven athlete designed apparel brand.
🚀 The Sports Business Accelerator – A program developing the next generation of sports industry professionals.
📬 The Game Plan Newsletter – Insights on sports business, leadership, and high performance.
🎤 Public Speaking Engagements – Nick speaks on sports business, leadership, and high performance at industry events at Universities including Harvard Law School, Florida State, New York University and others.

Octagon

Head of the Octagon Football/Soccer division. Clients at the time included Daniel Sturridge (England & Liverpool), Suso Fernandez (Spain U21 & Liverpool) & Saido Berahino (England U21 & West Bromwich Albion).

Head of Football

AMI Sports and Entertainment

General Manager

As the founder and CEO of International Sports Consulting (ISC), Nick has over 15 years of experience leading a sports management, marketing, and sponsorship business across multiple sports. A registered sports agent with FIFA, the FA & the RFU, he manages some of the most talented and influential athletes and agents in the world across multiple sports.

Nick is also passionate about using sports as a tool for social change and empowerment. That is why he founded DFY, a UK registered charity that aims to level the playing field for the next generation by improving the opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and enabling them to realise their full potential. With the help of some of the best sporting talent in the country as their programme coaches and ambassadors, DFY provides unrivalled coaching, leadership, and mentorship both on and off the pitch. 

Additionally, Nick enjoys sharing his knowledge and insights on sports management and leadership as a guest lecturer at prestigious universities, such as Harvard Law School, New York University, Florida State University, and Loughborough University.

📧 For enquiries email: hello@weareisc.com

Smart decisions compound like interest.

But so do bad ones 

Most leaders think their biggest problems are bad decisions. In reality, it’s mismatched methods that's causing the headaches.

The best operators start by classifying the decision. 
Is the environment stable or volatile? 
Is delay costly or safe? 
Is the choice reversible or permanent? 

Once that’s clear, the right method, data, intuition, or consensus, becomes obvious.

Amazon’s “two-way door” rule is a perfect example. Most choices can be reversed, so speed matters more than perfection. 

Data works best when tests are fast and feedback loops short. 

Intuition works when novelty is high and information is weak.

Consensus matters when execution requires many hands on deck.

One more rule separates disciplined decision-makers from the rest: they grade outcomes. 

NASA’s flight engineers and Bridgewater’s management teams both log every major choice and revisit it after 90 days. Over time, they build institutional pattern recognition, the closest thing to compound interest in leadership.

💡 The takeaway: decisions compound when methods match context. That’s how leaders build speed without losing judgment 💨

♻️ Repost if you’re wasting time in meetings.

📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp insights on sports strategy and decision-making.

Nick Robinson

Sports Business Leader | Over $250M in Contracts | Charity Founder | Keynote Speaker | Follow for Insights on Sports Business, Leadership & High-Performance Mindset.

The decision multipliers

Before a human ever reads your CV, 

a robot has already decided your fate.

🎯 Every major club, league, and agency now runs applications through a filtering system such Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) - algorithms designed to scan, score, and shortlist.

I use screening questions myself. That's because sports jobs are so popular we get 200/300 applications for every position, and don't have the bandwidth to give every CV the time it deserves

So think that before a company or recruiter ever sees your name, the system has probably already made its call.

So that means most rejections are about readability. The AI can’t interpret creative layouts, missing keywords, or vague job titles.

🤔 The paradox is that Sports organisations want creative, emotionally intelligent people…
but the hiring tech rewards precision, clarity, and keyword alignment.

You might be perfect for the role, but if your CV doesn’t literally speak the same language as the job description, it disappears.


📄 My top tips for getting noticed:

✅ Mirror the job post - if it says “commercial partnerships,” use that phrase, not “brand deals.”

✅ Keep design simple - text, not logos or columns.

✅ Quantify results - numbers survive automation.

✅ Tailor, don’t copy-paste - AI looks for relevance, not generic sentences.

💡 A quick reality check.

The candidates who structure their CVs for both machine and human readability dominate shortlists.

So before you hit send on your next application…ask yourself:

👉 Would this impress a recruiter and pass the robot?

Because in 2025, both are part of the same team.

♻️ Share this with someone trying to break into sport.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for real-world insights on sports business.

How to get hired in sports

You’ll mistake consistency for failure, 
long before it looks like success.
Most quit before results become visible.

That’s because consistency doesn’t feel like progress while you’re doing it.

It feels repetitive, quiet, ordinary, and if we’re honest, a bit frustrating.

That’s why most people stop. 

Not because they can’t handle the hard parts, but because they get bored of the slow parts.

The workouts that don’t seem to have an impact.
The writing that no one reads yet.
The business pitches that go nowhere.

It all looks pointless… right up until the point it isn’t.

Reid Hoffman said the early years of LinkedIn looked flat on every chart.

No growth, no traction, just endless refinement. Then one day, the line bent upward… the classic “hockey stick” pattern 🏒

He called it “years of invisible work suddenly looking like an overnight success.”

It’s the same with a marble chipper

A craftsman can hit the same block hundreds of times with nothing to show for it, not even a crack, until one strike finally breaks the whole thing wide open.

The final hit may be what everyone credits but really it was every strike before it that matters more than anything.

In 2007, James Clear was just writing short blog posts about habits.

No audience, just quiet consistency.

Six years later, Atomic Habits sold over 15 million copies.

Because compounding always starts invisible.

The problem is that consistency tricks impatient people into stopping.

If you’re doing the work and it feels like nothing’s happening, you’re probably in the most important part.

💬 Keep showing up, you’re doing great. The results are just catching up to your effort.

♻️ Share this with someone who’s quietly putting the reps in.
📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for grounded takes on mindset, growth, and performance.

Lake Como has a football club Clooney would be proud of.
Here's how they build it.

When most clubs chase investors, Como 1907 built an ecosystem.

Their rise from Serie D to Serie A is a remarkable business transformation.
They realised their most valuable asset wasn’t their league position.
It was their location, their story, and their ability to connect football to culture.

💡 That’s what separates growth from scalability in modern sport.
You can buy players, but you can’t buy identity.

Como’s owners turned Lake Como, one of the most recognisable destinations in the world, into a strategic advantage.
They linked football with tourism, fashion, and hospitality.
They’re selling €275 kits through designer brand Rhude, signing global partnerships with Neuberger Berman, and positioning matchday as an experience, not an event.

And they’re doing it while keeping football at the core.
With Cesc Fàbregas and Thierry Henry involved, the sporting credibility matches the commercial ambition.

It’s part of a bigger shift in sport:
🧭 Clubs have become platforms for lifestyle, media, and regional storytelling.
💼 Fans are more than fans in modern football. Fans are valued visitors, customers, and investors in culture.

📊 The lesson for every sports organisation is to find what makes you unique and build outward from it.
Your geography, heritage, and community might be your most undervalued asset.

Because the next generation of sports brands will come from the best ideas.

♻️ Share this with someone who works in sport and thinks brand strategy is only for sponsors.

📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for deep dives into the business of sport.

From Serie D to a global brand

The next wave of sports architecture is here

And it's getting, quite frankly, ridiculous.

These new arenas are built like living ecosystems: powered by tech, designed for emotion, and wired for revenue.

⚙️ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has a retractable pitch that reveals a full NFL field underneath, and its own microbrewery producing 1 million pints a year on site.

💡 Allianz Arena’s 2,874 LED panels can glow in any colour, it even doubles as a massive art installation visible from space.

🌿 NEOM Stadium will sit 350m above ground, inside a vertical city powered entirely by renewables, with holographic displays layered into live matches.

🎟️ New Murabba in Riyadh will blend luxury hotels, adaptive seating, and AI-driven fan data inside a cube the size of a small city.

🏔️ And The Rock Stadium in Al Ain? It’s literally carved into a mountain.

This is architecture focused on garnering attention for sport in a new and unique way.

The world’s smartest clubs and cities are building venues that act as media assets, tourist magnets, and urban experiments.

They generate stories, data, and brand value that outlast the game itself.

📍The future of stadiums is certainly one to watch.

♻️ Repost if this kind of innovation inspires you.

📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharper takes on sport, business, and design.

The future of sports stadium is crazy!

Short-term focus kills long-term relevance.

Here’s how to fix it:

Most companies from a lack of balance.

McKinsey’s “Three Horizons” model is one of the few frameworks that still predicts long-term winners. 

The idea is simple: every business operates across three time horizons. 

H1 - The core that funds today;

H2 - The adjacencies that drive tomorrow; and

H3 - the future bets that secure the decade ahead. 

The challenge is executing the strategy without getting trapped in one horizon.

📊 The data is sobering:

A 2023 BCG study found 87% of executives say their companies underinvest in Horizon 2, the bridge between today’s profits and tomorrow’s relevance. It’s the space where Netflix once pivoted from DVDs to streaming, and where Amazon quietly built AWS. Most companies ignore that bridge until it collapses beneath them.

Leadership psychology plays a part too:
H1 rewards predictability; 
H3 rewards vision. 
But H2, the ambiguous middle, often lacks clear KPIs, so it gets neglected. Yet it’s precisely where transformation happens. 

McKinsey’s own analysis shows that firms maintaining a balanced 70-20-10 resource allocation outperform peers by 30% in shareholder returns over a decade.

💡 The takeaway: the best leaders engineer continuity. H1 funds survival. H2 builds resilience. H3 creates renewal. Ignore any one of them, and you end up scaling instability instead of growth.

♻️ Share this with someone who’s scaling but stuck
📈 Follow Nick Robinson for sharp insights on strategy, leadership, and growth.

How Great Companies Grow

Habits elite athletes live by:
Use them in your routine,
add a decade to your life.

🧪 Sport science leads on fitness insights and trends before the wider public.

Teams need world-class output from their athletes for 10 to 15 years. 

Here are some of the simplest to use in daily life.

🏃‍♂️ Fitness moves lifespan. 
A 122,007-person JAMA study linked higher cardiorespiratory fitness with lower mortality, with no upper limit. Raise VO₂ max by doing with the Norwegian 4 x 4 intervals and significantly improve your risk profile.

🐟 Omega-3s in real sport. 
In contact-sport studies, players who took EPA and DHA during the season had smaller rises in a blood marker of brain stress compared with placebo. The same dosing lifted their Omega-3 . Aim for oily fish twice a week for the optimal zone.

🔥 Heat and heart health. Frequent Finnish-style sauna use is associated with lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Many endurance programmes pair heat blocks with training for extra cardiovascular strain and faster recovery.

🔁 Stack two or three of these and you start compounding healthspan.

♻️ Share this with someone who treats fitness as optional.

📈 Follow Nick Robinson & The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator for sharp sports-business and performance insights.

P.S. Like this content? Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/em_7Vt_2

9 ways to live longer

🚨 FREE SPORTS ACCELERATOR ALERT🚨

Want free access to some The Game Plan sports business modules?

We’re opening to a select group of up to 10 people to test some new modules - for free, live and online, on:

📅 Tuesday 28th Oct 
🕕 18hr - 19hr UK time
Intro to Sports Management module

📅 Tuesday 4th November
🕕 18hr - 19hr UK time
Sports Management Foundation module 

This is your opportunity to experience The Game Plan - Sports Business Accelerator, our flagship sports industry education programme built to help you break into and build a career in the sports business.

If you want to get some insights into how the sports industry really works, this is your chance.

⚡ How to be considered:
♻️ Repost & comment "Game Plan" below to be part of the free test 

We’ll select up to 10 people to join the free modules.
💻  https://lnkd.in/eZCmDrWj

🚨📰 My LinkedIn newsletter is back!
Sports Business Hack of the Week:
"In negotiation, chronology is everything"

For real leverage in negotiation, approach your 1st choice last. The common misconception is to approach your most desired outcome first. But countles

Open article: Sports Business Hack of the Week: Negotiation Chronology  by Nick Robinson • 3 min read

Sports Business Hack of the Week: Negotiation Chronology

Want to win your negotiations? 

Then approach your first choice last

🚨 Your weekly guide to stay ahead: read it then use it 📰

📍Business hack of the Week: 

For leverage in negotiation, approach your first choice last.

Let’s set the scene:

Player A wants Manchester United. That’s his top choice.

The smart move? Start with Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester City first

Learn what the market says, build leverage, and walk into your top choice with power, not pressure.

📘 Comment “negotiation” below to get the free guide:

5 Sports Negotiation Strategies (with real examples).

Get the next edition before your competitors do, join the newsletter

👉 https://lnkd.in/em_7Vt_2


📈 Sports Business Trend of the Week

Jimmy Butler → San Diego Wave (minority ownership)

Butler’s move shows:

• Ownership over endorsement.

• Influence turned into equity.

• Investing while their brand is hot, not retired.

Same playbook as Lionel Messi:

• A cut of Apple TV+ MLS subscriptions.

• A share of Adidas profits.

• An option to buy into Inter Miami.

Modern athletes are learning how to own a piece of the game.


💼Jobs of the Week:

Senior Leadership:

Head of Academy Recruitment (Man United)
🔗https://lnkd.in/eGER_D76


Senior Manager, Global Marketing, Football (New Balance) 
🔗https://lnkd.in/easYVWsh


Mid level & Specialist:

Sports Sales Assistant, Talent communication (CAA)
🔗https://lnkd.in/eSDXH5RQ
 
Lead Marketing Strategist (Roc Nation)
🔗https://lnkd.in/eq5uibZv


Graduate & Early Career:

Internship DFB Campus Event Management
🔗https://lnkd.in/ecHqPxny

Marketing Intern (Fortuna Düsseldorf)
🔗https://lnkd.in/eJKM-BZQ
 
Internship in the Field of Media and Communication (Hannover 96)
🔗https://lnkd.in/e_h4fw6V

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