Chelsea FC’s new owner-in-waiting, Todd Boehly, an American financial and media executive, had to charm sporting and political power brokers earlier this year to triumph in one of the most fiercely contested takeovers in the history of football. Pressure on Chelsea’s Russian oligarch owner, billionaire Roman Abramovich, to sell the team to comply with sanctions stemming from the Ukraine invasion suddenly fulfilled the American’s yearslong dream to own the club. Now comes the real challenge: winning trophies without breaking the bank.
Boehly’s acquisition still must overcome last-minute haggling between Abramovich and the UK government over terms that the sale proceeds go to a charity. If it goes through, when the next English Premier League season begins in August, American money will be backing more than half of the 20 competing teams.
US owners have been divisive figures in the EPL. They’ve largely seen their investments grow in the world’s richest football division, but they’ve frustrated hardcore supporters by failing to match the on-field successes of rivals backed by petrodollar billionaires from the East. “American sporting culture is very different to that of the oligarch-sovereign nation culture,” says Roger Mitchell, founder of sports consulting firm Albachiara. “In Europe, owners are not expected to make a profit—and criticized if they do. In the US, it’s set up for owners to make a return on capital. That’s a significant culture clash.”
Boehly beat out a host of his countrymen, and a late challenge from one of the UK’s richest people, to reach a £4.3 billion ($5.4 billion) deal for Chelsea, showing just how in demand these trophy sports assets remain.
The American influx into English football began in the early to mid-2000s, when the Glazer family, which also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, took charge at Manchester United FC. Since then, Yanks have landed in the boardrooms of Arsenal FC, Liverpool FC, Aston Villa FC, and other famous clubs.
High growth potential and lower valuations relative to sports franchises back home have drawn US investors to the EPL. The increasingly global appeal of English football has also opened the door to more lucrative broadcasting and merchandising opportunities.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, EPL clubs in the 2018-19 season generated more than £5 billion in revenue for the first time, more than double the figure of a decade earlier, according to a report from Deloitte. Media rights accounted for almost 60% of that figure, with an additional 28% coming from merchandise and sponsorship deals, and the rest from gate receipts.
That milestone has helped lift valuations at England’s biggest clubs. When the Glazer family took control of Manchester United in 2005, it was reportedly worth about £800 million. Today it has a market value of £1.8 billion. Stanley Kroenke, whose family members own the Los Angeles Rams and the Denver Nuggets among other sports teams, upped his shareholding in Arsenal to more than 62% in 2011, when it reportedly had a value of about £730 million; KPMG Football Benchmark put that figure closer to £1.6 billion before the pandemic.
Despite the healthy increases in revenue, many EPL teams struggle to be profitable because they spend so much on players and coaches to compete for trophies or avoid relegation, the process of being moved down to a lesser league if they finish in the bottom three places in the division.
Fans are more interested in trophies and bragging rights than top and bottom lines. And neither Manchester United nor Arsenal, which used to duke it out for the EPL title every year in the early 2000s, has been delivering enough of either lately. Instead, their followers have had to watch as Chelsea, bankrolled by Abramovich, and Manchester City FC, backed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, have enjoyed their best years ever.
Chelsea and Manchester City between them have won seven of the last 10 EPL titles. Over that period, Arsenal fans have seen the club drift further from the top, with Robin van Persie, Alexis Sánchez, and other star players offloaded to rivals. Recent failures to qualify for Europe’s elite UEFA Champions League (UCL) have hindered the club’s ability to attract talent.
“Since the American owners came in, they’ve treated it as a business, and whereas we are fans, they look at us as customers,” says Turkish, a presenter on the YouTube fan channel AFTV, who regularly calls on supporters to boycott the Kroenkes by refusing to buy Arsenal merchandise.
At Manchester United, the Glazers faced distrust from the moment they burdened the club with debt as part of their 2005 leveraged buyout, though tensions were mitigated in the early years of their ownership when the team continued to win trophies under the management of Sir Alex Ferguson.
Things changed after the legendary coach retired in 2013. Since then the club has cycled through managers and big-money players to little avail. Headline-grabbing signings such as Paul Pogba, Harry Maguire, and Jadon Sancho have all been disappointments, and the club’s famous Old Trafford arena is in need of renovation; many see its decay as a metaphor for the club under the Glazers. “As fans, we expect to be challenging for the title and Champions League as we did for 20 years,” says Chris Rumfitt, director at the Manchester United Supporters Trust. “We expect the investment and right decision-making to get to that position.”
Both the Glazers and Kroenkes have found themselves the targets of fan protests in, around, and even above (in the form of plane banners) stadiums. In recent seasons, supporters have decided to vote with their feet, leading to low attendance at some non-EPL games.
But with ticket sales representing a club’s smallest revenue source, a bigger concern for owners is the money that broadcasting rights generate, a chunk of which is contingent on qualification for the UCL every year. Arsenal hasn’t reached the tournament since 2016, and Manchester United will miss out next season.
Only the top four teams in the EPL get into the tournament, and competition for those slots is expected to increase when the new Saudi Arabian owners of Newcastle United FC begin to exert their financial might. New UEFA rules may offer an extra spot based on the historical performances of EPL clubs in the Champions League.
Last year a group of Europe’s biggest clubs took what turned out to be a drastic misstep to mitigate the risk of missing out on the UCL. Owners of Arsenal, Liverpool, and Manchester United infuriated fans by helping orchestrate a breakaway Super League that would’ve guaranteed them places in a new elite competition. All were forced to backtrack and apologize after supporters protested the plans they said would have concentrated power and revenue in elite clubs regardless of their performance.
Although American owners have given no indication of reviving the plan, Mitchell at Albachiara says they likely will want to move toward a sporting model they are more comfortable with and that guarantees certainty about the competitions they are playing in. “It would be unwise of owners who were implicated in that [Super League] or other owners to try and make changes which are perceived as nontraditional,” says Minal Modha, media analyst at Ampere Analysis.
Representatives for Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United declined to comment.
There have been successes. Liverpool, backed by Boston Red Sox owner Fenway Sports Group Holdings LLC and RedBird Capital Partners, won the EPL for the first time in almost three decades in 2020, having picked up the UCL the year before. With German coach Jürgen Klopp, the club has been competing for an unprecedented four titles this season.
Even so, Liverpool’s fan base maintains a tense relationship with the owners. The fans’ outrage forced U-turns on both the Super League and the club’s plans to furlough staff during the pandemic. Peter Hooton, a committee member at the Liverpool supporter group Spirit of Shankly, says that as recently as this season supporters have been chanting, “The Reds [Liverpool] have got no money, but we’ll still win the league,” from the terraces of the famous Anfield Stadium.
“It’s almost like a backhanded compliment,” he says. “If we hadn’t got Klopp in place, there would have been many more protests.”
Arsenal, too, has been showing signs of improvement this season under coach Mikel Arteta. The club spent a lot last summer to bolster the squad with young talent it hopes will lay the groundwork for success in the coming years.
At Chelsea, Boehly will need to deliver on-field success at a cost that ensures he can generate returns expected by his main financial backer, California-based Clearlake Capital. The buyout firm is investing in Chelsea via 15-year long-term funds, Boehly said in a text message.
Still, the investment raises questions about how hands-on Clearlake might be with the West London club as it seeks to maximize gains for its own investors. A representative for Clearlake declined to comment. The investors who put money into Clearlake “will be looking for a return in terms of an exit,” says Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at the University of Liverpool. “I think you’ll see a very different style of recruitment at Chelsea, much more analytically based.”
For now, Chelsea’s supporters appear happy with their new owner, welcoming him with a playful chant of “Boehly, Boehly, give us a wave” on May 7, at his first match since agreeing to the takeover.
“I didn’t hear that,” Boehly says. “I wish I did.”Read next: Major League Soccer Threatens to Replace the NHL as One of the Big Four US Sports
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