For all the debate about the FA Cup’s modern appeal, this weekend’s fourth round will attract invested viewers from as lucrative an audience as you can get: America’s one per cent. They will be keenly watching some of the lower-league clubs, and part of that is romance. A much larger part, however, is how that romance can be monetised.
The wider English pyramid is currently seeing an explosion of interest from American billionaires and “institutional money”. This weekend’s fourth round has four EFL clubs under such ownership, and they make up a total of 19 out of 72, with stakes even extending into the National League.
