A new kind of football club ownership has emerged in English football, one that can be said to have begun with the Glazers’ debt-laden takeover of Manchester United in 2005 and continues to this day with Todd Boehly and his Clearlake Capital Group’s consortium-led takeover of Chelsea following the end of Roman Abramovich’s tenure.
The US ownership boom now includes most of the Premier League’s top-six clubs - the Blues, United, Liverpool and Arsenal - while minority US ownership stakes are held in Manchester City as well as Leeds United and Aston Villa. Crystal Palace have recently joined the ranks of US-owned Premier League teams while Fulham have long been under US ownership themselves. The trend is growing with nine clubs in the English top flight now completely or else partially owned by US entities.
While Abramovich’s spell in charge of the Blues featured hyper competitiveness for the most part - including two Champions League titles and billions lavished on player transfer fees and wages - Boehly’s tenure is now likely to have more in common with what’s happening at the other US-led clubs.
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"Boehly co-owns with Clearlake Capital and its founders Behdad Eghbali and Jose Feliciano," says Dave Powell, Business of Football writer for the Liverpool Echo. "In the case of Eghbali, while the initial spend has been large and seems to have a sense of the Roman Abramovich approach to it, the hiring of Graham Potter and public eulogising for the job that Brighton do it the Premier League with their model, and that Chelsea are seeking to poach more staff from the Seagulls, there is a realisation that there will need to be a smarter way of working."
Although it cannot be said that all US owners are alike simply because they are American, there are certain similarities to be found at these US-owned clubs. There are no benefactors, by and large; this is an era of owners who don’t like to spend money but who expect to make it.
"The approach hasn't been uniform across all clubs but there has been a greater focus on the 'Moneyball' model, where the uses of data becomes greater and the needs of the business to be financially sustainable are espoused with the aim of putting a compelling product on the pitch," says Powell.
Liverpool fans for example are sounding more and more like Manchester United fans by the day given their current dissatisfaction with the John W Henry-led organisation. They might have banked the game’s biggest prizes in the Champions League and Premier League under Fenway Sports Group’s stewardship but those titles count for little with the playing squad now in drastic need of an overhaul and Jurgen Klopp’s team far from the pace set at the top of the Premier League table by Arsenal and Manchester City.
"Fenway Sports Group have improved infrastructure significantly and the wage bill has skyrocketed in the 12 years of their ownership," says Powell.
"What it has done is place more focus on these teams as businesses and pieces of intellectual property, where their place in what should be the world's biggest sporting economy means they have an enormous value proposition. These clubs are run more like businesses, where deficit financing everything is not usually the course of action."
Some Liverpool fans would simply like FSG to sell up but that is unlikely to happen any time soon. Coming from the US sports scene - as Henry, Boehly, the Glazers and Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke have done - the European football landscape and the Premier League in particular is seen as ripe for the picking. Given the sums involved, clubs can still be acquired for a song, commercial revenues maximised and - if and when the time is right - be sold for immense profit down the line.
"FSG want to keep Liverpool, it is their most valuable asset," says Powell. "Stan Kroenke and the Glazers operate differently but both know that the valuations haven't come close to peaking yet, and getting out now, unless they receive a crazy price, would be needlessly hasty. The Glazers do very well out of United despite doing precious little."
And in the case of some owners - like the Glazers, Kroenke and FSG - their time in control at their respective clubs will only mean more influence on the very makeup of the game both on a domestic and continental level. That was seen in the aborted 'Project Big Picture' plans - led by FSG and the Glazers - which would have seen unprecedented control handed to a disproportionately small number of big Premier League teams as well as the ill-fated European Super League which was supported in no small part by the aforementioned teams as well as Kroenke’s Arsenal, Manchester City, Abramovich's Chelsea and Tottenham. Those conversations have subsided for now but they haven’t gone away. There is too much money on the table for those blueprints to stay in the freezer and if the competition does not fit their plans, then they can simply agitate for those competitions to be changed.
Boehly was quick out of the blocks with his suggestion that a North vs South All-Star game could be played instead of the Community Shield, citing the success of MLB's equivalent which took place in his Los Angeles Dodgers' stadium last summer.
For an example of how the paradigm might change further in the next decade of English football, it is worth paying attention to the investments of RedBird Capital, now an 11% owner of Liverpool’s FSG, owner of AC Milan since completing a $1.3billion (£1.13billion) deal earlier this year and also owner of Toulouse FC. RedBird - led by founder and managing partner Gerry Cardinale - has managed plenty of sports interests since its inception and, once everything is joined-up, will demonstrate what is possible for new US owners in the relatively virgin landscape of British and European football.
"Everything has a shelf life and a price," says Powell. Certainly in the case of RedBird they are a group who see themselves as business builders that partner with rights holders, provide capital and seek to scale these clubs as businesses. AC Milan is something that they see as a long-term project. The same is true of FSG. The Premier League is an immature market compared to the likes of the NFL, despite having a global fan base 20 times the size. There is tremendous scarcity value in these major clubs, particularly in the Premier League, and selling them right now risks missing out on the still considerable value growth to come.
RedBird part-owns the YES Network which handles the broadcasting rights for Major League baseball’s New York Yankees, the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, New York City FC of MLS and WNBA team NY Liberty. And while broadcast rights are still sold collectively for the Premier League and Champions League, the so-called big six are already calling the shots in securing a much greater slice of international Premier League broadcast revenues for themselves. One day, sufficient sway could be held that will ensure all the top clubs will be offering their own OTT service for fans with all their matches and backstage content included.
RedBird is also a minority owner in Skydance Media - which produced the summer blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick. It is not hard to envisage a future where behind-the-scenes documentaries like Arsenal’s All or Nothing Amazon series and Disney +’s Welcome to Wrexham - both under American ownership - become par for the course at the most popular clubs.
There are lessons to be learned from the much-vaunted Formula 1 documentary Drive to Survive as well as the upcoming warts-and-all show about the 2022 ATP tennis tour - both are Netflix projects produced by Box-To-Box Films. The die has been cast with Tottenham and Arsenal’s Amazon series as well as Wrexham’s and Sunderland’s. It’s only a matter of time before other clubs catch up.
RedBird is also involved in Dream Sports in India which operates the world’s largest fantasy platform. Dream Sports also runs FanCode - an innovative sports destination - where fans can watch the action on the FC Live platform, access insights, statistics and more on FC Stats and buy their merchandise in the FC Shop. Well-off fans can purchase the very best sports travel and experience packages on the Dream Set Go platform while mobile sports games are on offer elsewhere on the Dream Game Studio. It’s that kind of synergy that could well be coming to clubs like Liverpool, AC Milan and Toulouse. As well as its Dream Sports investment, RedBird is also a 15 percent owner of IPL side the Rajasthan Royals.
RedBird exited its investment in On Location Experiences in 2020 - which specialises in 'VIP access, premium seating and exclusive moments' in events like the NFL, the tennis majors, world class golf, the UFC and the forthcoming Paris Olympics. That project caters to the rich with high ticket prices and wholly immersive matchday experiences.
Boehly and his co-investors' redevelopment of Dodgers Stadium, moreover, cost over £200million and is widely seen as a standard-bearer in terms of stadium reconstructions. Expect major movement on Stamford Bridge soon.
Cardinale’s RedBird has recently sold its 40% stake in intellectual property licensing business OneTeam for a $600million (£523.2million) - or 500% - return on its investment. OneTeam was formed by Major League Baseball’s Player Association (MLBPA) and the NFL’s Player Association (NFLPA) in 2019 and "represents the commercial interests of more than 10,000 athletes". That number now includes MLS players, the USWNT, the NWSLPA, the WNBPA, the US Rugby PA, the eSports union LCSPA as well as college athletes.
"OneTeam Partners is a partnership with the Players Associations of the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB) to monetize the Name, Image and Likeness (“NIL”) of the collective players, anchored by exclusive rights for video games and trading cards," its website blurb says.
The recently relaunched XFL - now led by RedBird and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson - is worth keeping an eye on as its new franchises come on stream for 2023. What is applicable there not only in getting teams on the field but in broadcast and commercialisation could well represent the future for US-operated sports teams in England and beyond.
It seems inevitable that these elements come together for the right football club at the right time. As we can already see various ownership groups are to some extent engaging in some elements of the process.
"They aren't all equal and it's hard to pigeonhole them all as one and the same," says Powell of the American ownership boom. "There have been negatives, the Glazers leveraged buyout and the ESL fiasco, but there has also been a greater push towards a more sustainable way of football being played, one that at least challenges the ever growing desire for owners to spend more whatever the cost.
"Given US sport is ahead of European football in terms of how it monetises everything around it, the expertise and insight will be required to take football forward into a new era."
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