Andrea Ekblad leads Partnerships – Acquisitions & Content Strategy at beIN Media Group. Based in London, in the business’ central commercial hub, she looks after optimising rights-partnerships with beIN Media Group’s top 20 rightsholders such as the Premier League, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), LaLiga, The FA, Wimbledon and the NBA. She also works cross-functionally with key stakeholders – from Digital to Programming, Legal, Rights Acquisition, Data Analytics, Production and Communications – to centralise resources across 43 territories and to ensure all departments work together in order to optimise on beIN’s substantial portfolio of rights.

Andrea also leads all women’s sports and beINSPIRED projects which aim to inspire the next generation through beIN’s global platforms by showcasing the best women’s sports competitions on beIN SPORTS, creating more women’s sports content on both linear and digital, increasing on-screen talent, and developing strategic partnerships. Most recently she produced The beINSPIRED Podcast with some of the best female athletes in the world, like Pernille Harder, Nadia Nadim and Magda Eriksson. Prior to joining beIN, Andrea worked for the International Olympic Committee and FIBA. She grew up and graduated first in Budapest, then did another BA in London, and has also lived in Barcelona, Madrid and Munich. 

Andrea’s passion for sports started from a very young age: winning youth national championships in basketball in her home country of Hungary as well as being a captain and central defender for MTK FC, a women’s football team competing in the U20 national league. Andrea’s father and uncle also coached the Hungarian men’s national team and passed on their coaching talents to Andrea who coached the Oaklands Wolves and the U11 team to English National Championship title. A passionate advocate for gender equality, sport activism, and having a more inclusive and diverse sports industry, Andrea is constantly focused on using her role to positively impact the growth of women’s sports on various aspects, and to make sure her daughter Skye and bonus daughter Stella, – bonus daughter being a fittingly more inclusive term for stepdaughter – grow up playing in sold-out stadiums week in, week out.

In this episode of In Her Corner we talk to Andrea about growing audiences and fans of women’s sport, dealing the social and professional challenges of being a single mother working in the sports industry and the value of staying focused and rooted in your purpose in order to achieve your life goals.

You can listen to the trailer for Andrea’s episode using the player below:

Andrea’s full episode will be released at 1pm GMT on Thursday 26 November and will be available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major streaming platforms.

Podcast theme track by Wayne Urquhart  and Mix Engineering by Nick Murphy.