Ticketing sits at the heart of every football club. But do the people who run it get the respect they deserve?

In this episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets, host Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg sits down with two of the five winners of the TicketCo Ticketing Manager of the Year Awards 2026, Natasha Fitzgerald of Woking FC, who won the National League award, and Scott Smyth of Coleraine FC, who won the NIFL award.

This is a warm and honest conversation about what it actually takes to run ticketing at a football club. Natasha explains how she landed in ticketing almost by accident, after taking what she thought would be an easy admin role at Woking, and how she has since grown into a sales and events coordinator, working to turn Kingfield Stadium into a venue for concerts, festivals and a Christmas market. Scott talks about growing up around Coleraine Football Club from the age of four or five, and taking on ticketing alongside the retail shop as the club moved into digital sales and prepared for European football for the first time.

Carl-Erik, Natasha and Scott talk about what it means to win an award voted for by fans, the trust built up over years of match days, and the small moments that matter most, such as sourcing a lost ticket for a fan two hours before kick off for an away match in Finland. They also discuss the balance between digital ticketing and cash, the challenge of serving older fans who still want a paper ticket or a phone call, and the ambition both clubs share to make their stadiums useful beyond ninety minutes on a Saturday.

In this episode we cover the following topics.

• How they fell into ticketing. Natasha's move from an admin role into ticketing and retail at Woking, and Scott's path from ball boy and shop volunteer to running Coleraine's ticketing.
• Meet Woking and Coleraine. The history and ambitions of both clubs, including Woking's long history at Kingfield and Coleraine's approaching centenary at the Showgrounds.
• Playing in Europe. What it took for Coleraine to prepare for European football for the first time, under digital ticketing and UEFA rules.
• What winning feels like. How it felt for both Natasha and Scott to be voted Ticketing Manager of the Year by fans, and what it says about the relationships they have built.
• A ticketing emergency in Finland. Scott's story of sorting out a fan's lost ticket at the stadium gates in Helsinki, just before kick off.
• Digital ticketing for every fan. How both clubs balance digital sales with cash and phone bookings, so no fan is left behind.
• Turning stadiums into event spaces. Natasha's plans to bring concerts, festivals and a Christmas market to Kingfield Stadium, and Scott's growing calendar of summer camps and Halloween events at Coleraine.
• Funding stadium improvements. Scott on Coleraine's long wait for support from the Northern Ireland Football Fund, and the work already under way to improve the ground.

If you want to hear what it really takes to keep fans happy on a match day, and how two clubs outside the top flight are finding new ways to use their stadiums, this episode is well worth your time. Tune in for an honest and often funny look at life as a ticketing manager. Make sure to subscribe.

Guests. Natasha Fitzgerald, Sales and Events Coordinator at Woking FC, and Scott Smyth, Ticketing Manager at Coleraine Football Club. Host. Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg, Don't Forget Your Tickets.

Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo, hosted by TicketCo’s CEO and founder, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg, and co-hosted by TicketCo's CCO Clare Kenny. The podcast was originally launched under the name TicketingPodcast.com. To learn more about TicketCo, please check out our web page ticketco.io or visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticketco/

Every year, an estimated 40 million football seats across Europe go unsold. What would it take to turn that empty space into revenue, loyal fans, and a stronger club?

In this episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets, host Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg sits down with Jim McCarthy, founder of Impresario Strategic Growth Service in Pasadena, California. Jim's career stretches back to the earliest days of e-commerce, from managing Amazon's partnership at GeoCities in the 1990s to building Goldstar into one of the leading platforms for unsold live event inventory, helping more than 25,000 rights holders sell tickets to over 2 million events.

This is a wide-ranging conversation about what it actually takes to fill a stadium. Jim traces his path from the dot-com boom through two decades running Goldstar, and explains why he decided, after selling the business in 2021, to found Impresario and focus specifically on the roughly 1,950 professional football clubs in the world that are not among the top 50. He speaks candidly about the scale of the problem across European football, and why filling the stadium matters more than winning.

Carl-Erik and Jim also explore how ticketing technology has changed since the days before apps and APIs, why so many clubs have lost the art of personalisation they once practised, and why a ticket should be treated as raw material rather than a finished product. They discuss revenue per seat as the real measure of success, and why the conversation about unsold inventory needs to reach the owner's desk, not stay buried in the ticketing department.

In this episode, we cover:

• From GeoCities to Goldstar: How Jim's early years managing Amazon's e-commerce partnership shaped a career that would later take him into live event ticketing.
• Building Goldstar Events: Using machine learning to match fans with events, working directly with major ticketing systems including Ticketmaster, and turning unsold inventory into a business that lasted nearly twenty years.
• Then versus now: What ticketing technology could and could not do before apps and APIs existed, and why some of the old lessons in personalisation have been forgotten.
• Why Impresario exists: What Jim learnt from a year of conversations with club owners, and why 40 million unsold seats a year in European football became the problem he wanted to solve.
• Revenue per seat: How Impresario's Match Day Multiplier programme measures success with clubs, and why filling the stadium is, in Jim's words, more important than winning.

If you are interested in ticketing strategy, e-commerce history, or how football clubs outside the elite can build sustainable revenue, this episode is well worth your time. Tune in for a candid, detailed look at turning unsold inventory into full stadiums. Make sure to subscribe.

Guest: Jim McCarthy – Founder, Impresario Strategic Growth Service – jim@impresariostrategic.com
Host: Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg – Don't Forget Your Tickets

Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo, hosted by TicketCo’s CEO and founder, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg, and co-hosted by TicketCo's CCO Clare Kenny. The podcast was originally launched under the name TicketingPodcast.com. To learn more about TicketCo, please check out our web page ticketco.io or visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticketco/

How did English football go from one of the most dangerous sporting environments in the world to the most commercially powerful league on the planet? The answer starts with tragedy, and with a government that told football it had to change or face closure.

In part two of this special two-part episode of Don't Forget Your Ticket, host Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg continues his conversation with Dr. Giambattista Rossi, Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck Business School, University of London. Where part one examined the economics of superstar signings and the structural decline of Italian football, part two widens the lens to England and beyond: the painful history that forced English football to rebuild itself, the wave of American ownership reshaping the Premier League, the Saudi Arabian experiment, and the question of where the global game goes from here.

Giambattista is as direct in this episode as he was in the first. Why did Hillsborough and Bradford change everything about how English football is run? Why did the Glazers get it so wrong at Manchester United while Liverpool and Arsenal got it right? What does a conversation with the chief revenue officer of Ronaldo's Saudi club reveal about the limits of money without culture? And why does he see Multi-Club Ownership as becoming, in his own words, a bit of a curse for the sport?

For a podcast rooted in the commercial and ticketing realities of sport, this episode is where the argument lands. The Premier League's dominance was built on a deliberate reinvention of the matchday experience: who it was for, what it cost, and what it felt like to be there. That transformation carried a price, and lower-league clubs and women's football are now absorbing the fans the top end has priced out. The connection between ownership strategy, community identity and what fans actually experience in the stadium has never been more important to understand.

In this episode, we cover:

How the Premier League was really built: The Hillsborough and Bradford disasters, the Taylor Report, and the deliberate repositioning of English football from a working-class product to a middle-class one, and why understanding that history is the only way to understand the present.

American owners in England: Why the Glazers at Manchester United got it so wrong, why Liverpool and Arsenal got it right, and why Chelsea's new ownership was a total disaster on the pitch, despite deep pockets.

The Saudi Arabia experiment: Why Giambattista calls it a chimera, what a conversation with the chief revenue officer of Ronaldo's club revealed about contracts, culture, and the limits of money without infrastructure, and why empty stands at an Italian Cup Final in Riyadh said everything.

The real England: Why local clubs are the oldest monuments in their communities, why fans are increasingly turning to women's football for the atmosphere the Premier League has priced out, and what English football risks losing if it does not protect that connection.

The future of the global game: Why the MLS is on track to enter the top five, why collective bargaining agreements are coming to football, and why Multi-Club Ownership, for all its financial logic, is becoming, in Giambattista's words, a bit of a curse for the sport.

Whether you follow the Premier League, work in sports business, or are fascinated by how commercial forces and community identity collide inside football clubs, this episode gives you a clear framework for what is actually happening and where it is heading. If you have not listened to part one yet, start there.

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Guest: Dr. Giambattista Rossi, Senior Lecturer, Birkbeck Business School, University of London
Host: Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg, Don't Forget Your Ticket

Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo, hosted by TicketCo’s CEO and founder, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg, and co-hosted by TicketCo's CCO Clare Kenny. The podcast was originally launched under the name TicketingPodcast.com. To learn more about TicketCo, please check out our web page ticketco.io or visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/ticketco/