In this episode, we sit down with Sanjay Shivaram, Brand Licensing & Retail Director at Formula E, to explore how a motorsport series builds a gaming and licensing strategy without ever building its own game. As Formula E competes for a new generation of fans against every other entertainment option out there, Sanjay unpacks why the team has resisted internal pressure to launch a first-party title, instead choosing to grow reach and media value through partners like Ubisoft's Trackmania and, most recently, Roblox. Using the platform's Brain Rot event as a live case study, Sanjay explains what it takes to build something genuinely native to a platform's culture rather than simply dropping a brand in, and how physical activations like the on-site Gaming Arena feed back into a wider digital fan strategy. Sanjay also explores how Formula E measures media value and audience across a portfolio of licensed games, reveals the projects that didn't work and what they taught the team, and where Formula E's IP could go next. For brands and rights-holders in and outside of sports, it's a useful blueprint for how to prioritise reach over short-term revenue when entering gaming, and how to know when a platform partnership is genuinely building long-term fandom rather than just generating a spike.
00:00 – Introduction
00:30 – From strategy consulting to Formula E: how does that background shape building a commercial operation inside a sports series?
07:45 – Fans regularly ask for a standalone Formula E game. What's the thinking behind not building one?
09:10 – What did the NFT racing game in Season 7 teach the team about evaluating new opportunities?
11:35 – Without revenue pressure on the gaming side, how does that change who Formula E chooses to partner with?
19:00 – Why the team baked creative flexibility into their Roblox IP activation from day one
20:25 – What is Brainrot, and what made it the right fit for Formula E's Roblox audience?
22:20 – What did the response to the Brainrot trailer teach the team about which channels suit which content?
23:15 – How a brand can actually get discovered on Roblox
27:50 – Beyond player numbers, what does a gaming partnership deliver for a team or sponsor's media value?
31:10 – Why does the physical Gaming Arena remain Formula E's most popular fan village activation?
35:45 – Is gaming simply another distribution channel for Formula E's IP, or something fundamentally different from broadcast?
40:05 – Where does Sanjay see the biggest untapped opportunity for Formula E's IP right now?
47:10 – How well do brands currently understand the value of a gaming audience?
53:25 – What's the mindset shift that separates sports properties building lasting IP ecosystems from those simply accumulating licensing deals?