Leaders Podcast

TikTok's move into sports | The balance between commercialisation and maintaining authenticity | Benny the Bull and the Chicago Bulls' TikTok success story. Episode 92 of the Leaders Sport Business Podcast features a conversation with Harish Sarma (discussion starts at 8:47), Global Strategic Partnerships and Corporate Development at ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, for now at least, of social platform TikTok. TikTok is one of the fastest growing platforms in the world, with user numbers soaring over the course of the pandemic. As of June this year, TikTok's Monthly Active Users (MAUs) were estimated at 800 million. As the political rift between the US and China has deepened, Chinese tech firms have come under pressure from US authorities, none more so, perhaps, than TikTok. Just two weeks after Sarma joined us to record this episode, a hectic weekend of rumour, statement and politicking has seen President Trump apparently threaten to ban TikTok in the US, with ByteDance countering with an offer to full