Last year, Todd Boehly sat on stage during a conference in New York when he said the words that would cause slaughter in England. The new owner of the big team Chelsea was asked about the finances of the top four leagues in England, where the Premier League earns much more than the rest. First, he said he hoped the Premier League would “learn a lesson” from American sport. Then he added…. – Why isn’t there an All-Star game? In such matches, the league’s biggest stars are divided into two teams, usually north versus south. They are popular in the US, absent in England. But since the topic was how the minor leagues could make more money, Boehly recalled that baseball’s All-Star Game in Los Angeles that year had grossed $200 million in two days. – I think you can very easily play an All-Star game in the Premier League to finance the rest of the leagues, said Boehly. He probably meant well. But if Boehly had worked in English football for more than just a few months, he would have known what awaited him. CHELSEA OWNER: Todd Boehly. Photo: AFP – Did he really say that? asked Liverpool coach Jürgen Klopp. – Incredibly arrogant to talk like that about a league you don’t know, said TV profile Jamie Carragher. Even the Professional Players’ Association in England and Wales released a statement reminding them that the calendar was already packed. But the sharpest criticism came from Gary Neville, who called the US dollar a “clear danger” to the sporting integrity of the league system. He wrote on Twitter: – They just don’t understand. They think completely differently. They also don’t stop until they get what they want! Chelsea is one of eight clubs in the Premier League with owners from the United States. Leeds and Manchester City have smaller investors from the USA. In February, the website The Athletic wrote that as many as 27 percent of the teams in the three divisions under the Premier League have owners or investors from the United States. And there may be more. – When it comes to new investments now, American owners are often mentioned, says Eirik Aase, who runs the Championship Norway website. It is not only top clubs that are bought. Americans have snapped up teams such as Crawley Town, Plymouth Argyle and Ipswich Town. Wrexham, a team in North Wales, is run by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, two actors from Hollywood. NFL legend JJ Watt has invested in Burnley. Recently, he was spotted on a pub crawl with fans in the city. What is going on? What do American celebrities and royalty want with these teams? news has put the question to Kieran Maguire, one of the foremost experts on football economics in England. In his book The Price of Football, he writes that people buy football clubs for four reasons: passion, money, vanity or madness. – And let me put it this way… says Maguire to news. – The Americans don’t buy them for the passion. Don’t allow a draw People in the USA have no idea about football. At least that is a perception that has long existed among fans in England. Even people who use “soccer” instead of “football” can hear it. Where England has had a league since the late 19th century, the US’s first came in 1968 – and it collapsed. Today’s Major League Soccer (MLS) began in 1996. With new rules, they have tried to increase soccer’s popularity in the United States, such as extra points for goals scored, no ties and penalties where players run with the ball from the center circle. When Bob Bradley became the first ever coach from the United States in the Premier League, in 2016, he was laughed at for referring to penalty kicks as “PK” and away games as “on the road”. Bradley was fired after 85 days. Several also chuckled when German midfield general Bastian Schweinsteiger was asked upon his arrival in MLS if he thought his new team could “win the World Cup”. On Twitter, the parody account “Soccer Guy” has gained more than 100,000 followers by impersonating a soccer fan from the United States. He calls headers “head kick”, clubs “franchise” and penalties “deathstrike”. For fans in England, it’s easy to laugh. As Neville wrote: They just don’t get it. But in the last 20 years, several English fans have seen their club end up in American hands. In 2005, Manchester United was sold to the Glazer family, before Stan Kroenke bought Arsenal and John W. Henry took over Liverpool. Now the Americans are flocking to the ball island like never before. English football is full of “soccer guys”. Bargain What are they doing there? One good reason, says Maguire, is price. – If you compare the cost of buying an English football club and an American sports team, it is actually very cheap, he says. There’s at least one good reason why teams in the US are expensive: They can’t be relegated. The leagues in the three biggest sports – basketball, baseball and American football – are cartels where the owners make a fat, risk-free profit. When the financial magazine Forbes made a list of the 50 most valuable sports teams in the world last year, they found that 30 played American football in the NFL. Seven played basketball in the NBA. Five played baseball in the MLB. Four played football in the Premier League. BIG BUSINESS: Several NFL teams have sky-high value. Photo: Reuters Unlike the USA, English football also has several divisions with small teams that are cheaper. The big teams in the Premier League are worth between two and five billion pounds. Chelsea changed hands last year for 2.5 billion. In the Championship, i.e. level two, Hull City was sold for 20 million. Once the owners have taken over a team, they can increase the club’s value. – So there are many in the US who believe that you can make a bargain by taking over an English team, and then sell it a few years later, says Maguire. But then the question is: How can they make their teams more valuable? Russian roulette The jackpot is to reach the promised land: the Premier League. Since its inception in 1992, the top division has been sold and marketed brilliantly with increasing TV revenues. Even the team in last place now receives more than £100m a year, 10 times as much as a team in the Championship. All owners, both from the US and elsewhere, dream of this promotion. But only three make it each year, and in a division with 24 teams, that means many are stretching too far. – You may have 16 teams that have ambitions to move up every year, often without the resources to be close. And then it becomes madness and gambling, says Aase. Last season, the teams actually spent more money on salaries than they earned. For four straight seasons, teams have been stripped of points due to financial mess. Professor Dan Plumley has described it as financial “Russian roulette” to The Athletic. But what about the owners who are in the Premier League already? It is their pursuit of money that can really change English football. The growing pie Imagine the income of a big club in England as a pie. In the old days, most came from ticket sales. Now this amounts to around 15 per cent. About 30 percent comes from TV rights. Around 55 per cent comes from commercial activities such as sponsors and supporter equipment. The size of the pie has grown over the past 20 years. If Henry sells Liverpool now, he can quickly get back 10 times as much as he paid in 2010. Still, the owners never stop thinking about how the teams can rake in even more. The least interesting item is tickets. You can make room for more spectators, but there is a limit to how much each stadium can be expanded, and a new facility is often expensive and complicated. Ticket price increases are never popular. But the biggest teams are global brands with fans around the world. It is in the other two items – television and commercial activity – that the potential is greatest. CLOSE ON: The big moments in the Premier League are broadcast to huge numbers of people in front of the TV sets. Photo: PAUL ELLIS / AFP Here, not all figures are equally promising for the owners. The value of the Premier League’s TV deal in the UK has stagnated. Manchester United’s revenue was highest in 2018-19. Nevertheless, ESPN writes that Joel and Avram Glazer believe United could be worth 10 billion pounds – double the current estimated value. And José E. Feliciano, one of the owners of Chelsea, believes his club can double its income to one billion pounds per year. – It is very ambitious, says Maguire. But maybe not impossible. Let’s say that United earns 70 cents – about nine kroner – per fan per year. It sounds small, says Maguire, but United claim to have 1.1 billion fans. If you can increase it to one dollar per fan, the revenue will skyrocket. – And then the owners can get that money themselves via dividends or a sale, says Maguire. But how are they going to earn these extra kroner? Ted Lasso One way, says Maguire, is if the value of the TV rights increases abroad. Growth continues here, especially in the USA. In 2026, the USA will also bid for the WC together with Canada and Mexico. Teams such as Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Sunderland and Leeds have featured in series on Netflix and Amazon. The show “Ted Lasso”, where a jovial American coaches an English team, has become a big hit. TV STAR: Jason Sudeikis plays fictional manager Ted Lasso. Photo: Jordan Strauss / AP Where there’s interest, there’s money. In 2021, NBC paid £2bn to show the Premier League in the US until 2028 – almost double the previous deal. In recent weeks alone, the owners have received more good news. UEFA believes that the new format in the Champions League will increase TV money by 33 percent from 2024. Several owners believe that new technology – such as streaming via the web – can create more opportunities to sell content. In MLS, Apple will stream matches online for the next 10 years. The owners can also create their own shows. In Wrexham, Reynolds and McElhenney are creating a series about the small team from Wales, who moved up to tier four this season. The show’s success has already boosted the club’s value – attracting sponsors such as TikTok. Often the owners see what works in the US and copy the model in England. – Many American investors believe that English clubs are not very good at marketing themselves. Compared to American sports, they believe there is a big opportunity to squeeze more money out of the fans, says Maguire. This is how you can get proposals such as the Super League. PL matches in the USA The Superliga was a dream for all owners who want to make a profit: A closed league with permanent top teams that earn money without the risk of relegation. The value of the clubs would skyrocket. The TV contract would be huge. The project quickly collapsed after protests from fans and the press, but the appetite for new lucrative matches has existed for a long time. In 2008, then Premier League boss Richard Scudamore proposed the idea of ”match number 39″ – an extra round to be played abroad. In 2020, the Glazer family and Henry were behind “Project Big Picture”, a proposal for the Premier League to give money to the lower leagues in exchange for the top division being reduced to 18 teams, and the League Cup being cancelled. This would make room for matches abroad. None of these proposals received enough support. Smaller teams without large fan bases abroad will not earn as much, and domestic supporters will want all the games where they are. But the owners know that the money lies in the big markets abroad. Maguire explains: – I have a season ticket at Brighton. It only costs me £27 a game, including travel. It’s good for me, but not good for the club. But if they play a “home game” abroad, all the tickets will go to people who live there. You can imagine how much money they can make then. Here again, the USA is ahead: This year the NFL will play five games in London and Germany. Football teams in England have so far only played friendly matches in the USA. This summer, the Premier League will for the first time organize an official tournament there, with six teams: Aston Villa, Brentford, Chelsea, Fulham, Newcastle and Brighton. Official matches may be next. Aleksander Čeferin, president of UEFA, has said that it is “possible” that matches in the Champions League will one day be played in the United States. Few believe that the chase for money will end. Recently, journalist Matt Dickinson from The Times had lunch with an important figure in one of the clubs in the Premier League. The figure said that the owners in England, especially those from the United States, were constantly talking about how they could make more money. – You cannot stand still if you want to be the biggest and best tournament in the world. And there is a danger that we will either do it, or that it is already happening, he said. So will American owners continue to come to England? – Yes, I think so, says Aase. Maguire agrees. – I think it will continue, especially if we get a couple of success stories. Maguire reminds us that it’s not just about profit either. Imagine you are an American billionaire. You have all the cars and houses. What are you going to do with the money? If you want global recognition, there is no doubt. – If you buy a team in the NFL, you become known in the US, says Maguire. – If you buy a team in the Premier League, you become known all over the world.
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Soccer guys – Sport Langlesing
