Planting our flag in the North: We're opening in Leeds
We’ve taken an office in Leeds.
It’s a deliberate move, not a pin dropped on a map, and it gives us a proper foothold in the part of the country where so much of British sport actually lives. Here’s why we chose it, and why we think Yorkshire is the right place to build from.
Why Leeds, and why now?
Leeds is the natural capital of the North. It’s one of the UK’s largest financial and legal centres outside London; it’s brilliantly connected by rail and motorway to Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle and the cities in between, and it sits at the heart of a fast-growing regional economy. For a business like ours, that combination matters: clients, sponsors and the brands we work with are increasingly headquartered, or seriously invested, in the North. Being on the ground here means we’re in the room rather than on the end of a phone.
But there’s a second reason, and it’s the one that made the decision easy. No region in Britain packs more elite sport into a smaller space than Yorkshire. From our new base we’re within roughly an hour of Premier League and Championship football, Test cricket, Super League rugby, Classic horse racing and Olympic-medal-producing training grounds. That density is rare, and for anyone in the business of partnerships and matchday hospitality, it’s close to ideal.
A county that takes its sport seriously
Yorkshire doesn’t follow sport so much as feel ownership of it. The roll-call speaks for itself.
Football
Sheffield is, quite literally, where the game began: Sheffield FC, founded in 1857, is recognised as the oldest football club in the world, and nearby Hallam FC’s Sandygate is the oldest football ground still in use. Add Leeds United and the roar of Elland Road, the two Sheffield clubs at Bramall Lane and Hillsborough, and Huddersfield Town — who under Herbert Chapman won three league titles in a row in the 1920s — and you have a footballing heartland with genuine pedigree.
Cricket
Headingley in Leeds is one of the most storied grounds in world cricket, the stage for Ian Botham’s miracle in 1981 and Ben Stokes’ even more improbable Ashes heroics in 2019. Yorkshire County Cricket Club has won more County Championships than any other county, and the county’s production line of England players — Hutton, Trueman, Boycott, and more recently Joe Root of Sheffield — is unmatched.
Rugby league
This one is pure Yorkshire. The sport was born in 1895 at the George Hotel in Huddersfield, when clubs broke away to form what became rugby league. Today it remains the game’s spiritual home, with Leeds Rhinos, Castleford, Wakefield Trinity, Huddersfield and the Hull clubs all carrying that heritage into Super League every season.
Horse racing
Doncaster hosts the St Leger, first run in 1776 and the oldest of the five English Classics, while York’s Knavesmire and its Ebor Festival rank among the finest race meetings anywhere in the country. Throw in Wetherby, Ripon, Beverley and Pontefract and the county has a racing calendar all of its own.
And the champions
Yorkshire keeps producing world-beaters. The Brownlee brothers, Alistair and Jonny, brought triathlon golds home to Leeds. Sheffield gave us heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill. Leeds-born Nicola Adams became an Olympic boxing trailblazer. The 2014 Tour de France chose Leeds for its Grand Départ, and the Crucible in Sheffield has crowned the world snooker champion every year since 1977.
A rich history we want to be part of
What ties all of this together is time. Yorkshire isn’t simply good at sport in the present tense — it has shaped the rules, the rivalries and the great occasions that the rest of the world later adopted. The oldest club, the oldest ground, the oldest Classic, the birthplace of an entire code of rugby: these aren’t marketing lines, they’re milestones in the story of modern sport, and they all happened here.
That history is also why the region entertains the way it does. Sport in Yorkshire has always been social — a reason to gather, to host, to do business over a long afternoon. It’s a culture that maps almost perfectly onto what we do, and it’s why a Leeds office felt less like an expansion and more like coming home.
What this means for our clients and partners
In practical terms, the new office puts our team minutes from the venues, clubs, and brands that matter in the North, and a short journey from the rest. It means faster response times, more face-to-face meetings, and local people who know the ground — literally and figuratively. For the sponsors and partners already investing in northern sport, we’re now a great deal closer, and a great deal easier to work with.
We’re proud to be setting up shop in a region that has given British sport so much. Leeds is our foothold in the North, and we can’t wait to get started.
If you’re in or around Yorkshire and want to talk partnerships, hospitality or simply say hello, our door in Leeds is open.