The decision of Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group to open themselves up to offers for the football club has dominated the sporting agenda over the past 48 hours.
The Reds' US owners, who acquired the club in 2010 for £300m and transformed them from the near ruinous regime of Tom Hicks and George Gillett into a Premier League and Champions League winning side that sits in the highest echelon of European football with a valuation of £3.5bn, are now exploring a potential exit.
FSG, who engaged American banking giants Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs more than a year ago to try and find some minority investment, have kicked the door ajar to a potential full offer, although it is understood that it is exploratory at this stage.
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Nevertheless, the prospect of a 'big six' Premier League side being available, a rarity, will have piqued the interest of North American private equity funds, family offices and wealth from the MENA region and beyond, with the Reds seen as a club whose valuation will continue to rise over the next few seasons, with US investors in particular believing that the Premier League is significantly under monetised given the size of its slice of the global sporting economy and enormous fan base.
But how has the situation been viewed across the Atlantic?
FSG's roots lie in Boston, their name derived from the famous Fenway Park stadium where their first team acquisition as FSG (then known as New England Sports Ventures) came to pass in 2002 with the purchase of the Boston Red Sox.
The Red Sox hadn't won a World Series for 86 years until they delivered one under FSG's stewardship in 2004. Since then they have added another three to the haul. But that hasn't made the ownership immune to criticism, with similar arguments that exist in the UK around their ownership of Liverpool, mostly related to how much is invested into the product on the pitch when compared to their rivals, being prominent in Boston.
While FSG's mulling of a potential exit strategy has been pored over in great detail in the UK, in the US, specifically Boston, the hubbub has been less profound.
Michael Silverman, the sports business reporter for the Boston Globe, a newspaper owned privately by FSG principal John Henry, said: "It's difficult sometimes to cut through the noise of Boston sport.
"You have the Bruins, the Celtics and the Patriots right now in the middle of the start of the season and with the Red Sox not making the play-offs this year there is a lot of discontent there. Boston fans are very parochial, sometimes they see the connection between what happens in Liverpool but I think that it is hard for them to see sometimes how it would affect them, what would be there read on it.
"I know Liverpool fans have their thoughts, feelings and opinions on FSG, just like Red Sox fans do. For many fans here, and I think in Liverpool as well, they think that ownership's attention is on the other across the ocean and vice versa.
"It's not front page news over here, it's front page sports news, but not the top of the fold."
The Globe reported on Monday afternoon that the decision by FSG was one that was designed to see whether it was better to attract investment or simply sell the team, getting a better idea of the market value of the team just months after Chelsea were sold for £2.5bn and a commitment to spending a further £1.75bn on infrastructure. The Globe also reported that the timing of the move was not motivated by Liverpool's indifferent start to the Premier League season that has left them with much work to do to try and qualify for next season's Champions League.
FSG are in growth mode right now, pushing forward with they have coined in the US as 'FSG 3.0', a plan that would see the ownership group, entering its third decade, acquire more teams.
The ECHO has previously been informed that an NBA expansion franchise in Las Vegas is their preferred landing spot, although that could well be a couple of years away with the NBA still yet to confirm an expansion to 32 teams and the markets those teams may land in. If given the green light the plan is for basketball icon and current Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, an FSG partner, to helm it as team owner when he decides to retire.
North American sport offers greater cost certainty for owners given the salary caps that exist, the lack of a Wild West transfer market model like exists in Europe and the absence of promotion and relegation. A bad season may be disappointing across the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL but the reset button can be hit for next season with limited impact on revenues.
Owning teams in the MLB (Red Sox) and NHL (Pittsburgh Penguins), FSG know full well the positives of US sporting assets and they have had to learn the hard way how to approach sporting ownership in Europe. But while Liverpool remains the biggest chunk of their £10bn empire, it is also the one that is the outlier in their business model.
"Liverpool, while being the most valuable portion of their empire at the moment it does come with the most risk," Silverman told the ECHO.
"Not that FSG are afraid of Liverpool being relegated but there is the Champions League pressure, the petro-state competition that just does not exist in North America. Liverpool is an outlier in that sense and there is more revenue certainty in the NFL and the NBA.
"While we understand that they are in growth mode perhaps this is one exception to that, and maybe it isn't an exception, maybe it is a case of having to sell to buy more in North America, where they don't have to deal with the issues that are very real in European soccer.
"The fact they were one of the teams to go for the European Super League showed that they wanted to raise revenues at Liverpool. It was obviously a failed gambit but reflective of their mindset in terms of how to make Liverpool more like a North American sports franchise."
FSG have had to take plenty of ire from Liverpool fans in recent months, amplified by the poor start and losses to the likes of Nottingham Forest and Leeds United. The anger from fans has stemmed from what has been a constant criticism, one centred on a lack of first team investment.
In Boston, too, FSG have had to feel the wrath of fans over sporting decisions relating to their team's on-field performance. In 2020 they traded away their star man in Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers, with Betts going on to win a World Series in LA that same season. The decision was seen as one where FSG's lack of willingness to spend was of detriment to the sporting product, a criticism that has been levelled at them once again this season as focus switched to their relatively low net spend when compared to their rivals.
"They take plenty of heat in Boston too," explained Silverman.
"Go back to a couple of years ago when they traded Mookie Betts, that was a big one where they felt they were doing it for sound financial reasons that boiled down to sound baseball reasons. Most fans don't see things that way, that isn't in fans' nature.
"I think it depends on the volume of the fans' ire, but I also think that they build a wall as to not let that influence their decisions which they think they make with a more long-term horizon.
"In the case of Liverpool you can point to the Champions League title, the Premier League title, a bunch of cups here and there. The Red Sox, they would point to 20 years and four World Series. FSG would say that is a pretty good track record but that logic doesn't fly with fans, it just never will. If the team has a bad year they will point to what they are spending on payroll and say that they aren't committed. It is a kind of financial spreadsheet analysis that works in the boardroom but doesn't translate among fans satisfactorily.
"Everyone realises that is is a business but I guess there is a little bit of envy. Look at Manchester City, I feel that there is a bigger disparity in owners in the Premier League than there is in North American sports like Major League Baseball. Yes, they are all billionaires over here but in the Premier League and European soccer, when you add in sovereign wealth funds it skews the picture."
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