Creative at Scale: Inside Fresh Base’s Growth Story

From high-pressure athlete shoots to multi-market productions across Europe and the United States, Fresh Base has quietly built a reputation as one of the most agile creative production agencies operating in sport today.

Founded by Gaurav Kumar, the agency has evolved from a hands-on production outfit into a nimble, scalable creative partner working with the likes of the NFL, Fulham FC, Arsenal, Williams F1 and Paddy Power. In the past two years alone, Fresh Base has expanded its international footprint, strengthened its internal team structure, and delivered social-first sports content at serious scale – including campaigns generating tens of millions of impressions.

In this Q&A, Gaurav reflects on leadership evolution, scaling without losing agility, working at pace in elite sport, and how Fresh Base is balancing innovation – including AI-assisted workflows – with human creativity.

Since our last conversation, how has Fresh Base evolved in terms of its mission and services?

So much has happened in the last 2.5 years. On a personal level my twin girls were born which obviously impacted home life, and in turn Fresh Base.

It meant my role has evolved to more of an Executive Producer role – sitting above and across multiple projects rather than Line Producing on a per project level. This has also freed me up to focus on growing and developing the business and its client base.

To accommodate this shift, we have built a small internal team and also scale up when needed, by using our vast network of brilliant freelancers who regularly come in for short stints or on a project-by-project basis.

Our continued focus on delivering exceptional service and passion on every project, and ​​extensive experience working with top-tier athletes and brands on high-profile sports productions has led to some major client wins. In early 2024 we were appointed as the retained creative production agency for NFL UK & Ireland, which was a big moment for Fresh Base.

We are now into our second season working with them as their lead production agency for social content, working across their higher ticket Instagram content, through to longer-form YouTube documentaries – including a recent collaboration with the Premier League. 

Alongside the NFL – and being flexible to the market – we’ve also developed our social content production arm in the past couple of years.  We are proud to be Fulham FC’s preferred content agency, and have worked with the likes of Arsenal FC, the Williams F1 team and Paddy Power.

Fundamentally, our core mission and services remain the same. We focus on and specialize in sports and lifestyle, and everyone we employ or collaborate with are also specialists in this field – which comes through in their skills and passion for the work. 

What prompted the decision to open a European office in Barcelona, and how does this expansion align with your strategic goals?

One of the key take outs from our last chat was that I’m always thinking what can we be doing to push Fresh Base forward, how to build, how to evolve – and focusing on Barcelona is probably a key example of this.

In 2022 and 2023 we filmed a lot in Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville for the likes of EA Sports, Sports Direct, and Hummel and built up a great network of partners there, so it made sense to try and leverage our local experience.

Given everything else that’s happened since, we’ve probably not pushed it enough and have been focusing more on home, but it is something I want to revisit in 2026.

Fresh Base is an ambitious and expanding company, we are driven to push creative and physical boundaries as we enter new markets.

Our business model, creds, and portfolio are strong enough to take properly into other markets – Spain being one, but I’d love to look further afield as well. 

We’ve filmed a lot in Germany over the years and recently started shooting regularly in the United States – so would love to explore these territories further.

Can you share insights into your team structure and how you collaborate with your network of creatives?

We operate a lean agile model – scaling up and down when needed, building bespoke teams on a project-by-project basis, being flexible to the needs of our partners, operating as a production service, full production, or creative production solution, as required.

We have a core permanent production team of three people, and part time / fractional support staff in finance, marketing & PR, admin roles. We have a great little black book of freelancers and partners to scale up when needed – there was one point in April 2024 where we had 16 people “in the building” to speak.

With the way the business has developed and grown over the last couple of years, we now have that core team, but I still like to keep it nimble. We have such a great network of Producers, Creative Directors, Photographers, DP’s & Editors who all seem keen to work with us – what that means is we can, nine times out of ten, put the right team together for the job. If, for example, we represented three Directors and three Photographers, every job that came in we would naturally need to push to use them.

We mostly work remotely, occasionally if we need to be in the same place we’ll use a shared workspace or meet at the Client’s offices. We’ve avoided sinking costs into an office, as it would just be additional overheads which would eventually hit a Client’s budget, and move us away from our core principles of remaining agile and nimble.

The majority of people we collaborate with also work in this way, and that’s why we choose to work with them – I don’t feel there’s anything to be gained from asking people to come into an office, just to justify the expense.

Because we do have such a strong long-standing team – be that the core permanent team, or the regular freelancers – it works well, and suits everyone’s own lives and workflows.

How do you ensure that your team stays aligned with the company’s vision while fostering creativity?

This comes down to working with the right people. Most of our team we’ve worked with for many years, but even before working with someone new we would always really get to know them first and make sure they’re the right fit. 

With Fresh Base being so personal to me, it’s really important that anybody we work with feels on brand for the agency. We always aim to work with friendly, dynamic, and entrepreneurial people – with a Fresh Base shoot being well organized, hard-working but also fun.   

Once people get what we’re about and are bought into it and enthused by it – then everyone pulls in the same direction.

From day one we’ve consistently brought brave, bold ideas to life that aim to drive fame and cultural relevance for our clients. That vision and creative approach remain core to the content we produce.

You work with some great brands in the world of sport. What unique challenges and lessons have arisen from some of these?

Working in sports can be both brilliant and challenging, but I think that’s also part of the appeal. 

We have extensive experience working with top-tier athletes and brands on high-profile sports productions and there is no doubt it can be high pressure, short deadlines, limited time on set with athletes – but it’s also a small world. 

Everyone that we work with is there because they are passionate about the sport and the work they’re making – so that helps get you through it.

I’ve spoken before about how in the early days there was the odd time we’d end up on set with somebody not used to the sports world, perhaps more from other sectors or even drama sets – and it could cause issues. 

I think most people in our industry actually thrive off the pace and the challenges associated with working in sports – and then take pride in the work that comes as a result.

The main lessons are to always over prepare, be prepared for any eventuality – for example the 2-hour appearance with the player becoming 1.5, and to always be flexible, accommodating and solutions focused.

How do you measure the impact of your projects on both the client and the audience?

We have strong open relationships with our Clients, so usually get feedback as we go – then regular reviews to look back over the previous 6-12 months. 

Where there is a product launch such as a new football boot, our work can be one part of a launch campaign – the success of which can be gauged based on audience reactions, engagements and crucially comments, and then ultimately the sales of the product. 

More qualitative results can be harder for us to get hold of, but we have had some great results recently. Our first season of working on the NFL London Games in 2024, we played a major role in contributing towards 65m impressions, an increase up 89% from the previous year, and our 2025 Team Announcement film alone generated 8.5m impressions – an increase of 109%. 

It’s always great to get numerical evidence of the positive impact our work is having on a client’s business, be that impacting ticket sales, product sales, or growing awareness and popularity of the sport. 

What stands out in Gaurav’s approach is clarity: stay nimble, stay specialist, and surround yourself with people who genuinely care about the craft.

As Fresh Base looks ahead to potential World Cup projects, deeper international expansion and new verticals in basketball, cricket and lifestyle, the agency’s direction feels intentional rather than reactive. Growth, for Gaurav, isn’t about size for the sake of it — it’s about building the right teams, pushing creative boundaries, and delivering measurable impact for partners.

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