🇺🇸 The Three Reasons Why Americans are Investing in our Premier League Clubs

Over the festive period my platform has grown somewhat.

In the first 75 days of bringing you weekly videos and a weekly newsletter I amassed a small audience across each social platform. Then, in the 2 weeks from December 18th to January 1st, everything doubled!

If you are new here, welcome to 2024 and welcome to The Long Play.

The business behind sport fascinates me and I intend to bring you much more content as we gear up for a mammoth year.

Today, we start with an interesting trend I see emerging in the Premier League.

I saw a fascinating tweet the other day which showed the 100 most watched events on Television in 2023.

93 of them were NFL matches.

As you can see, the NFL is flourishing.

And so too are other American sports.

As the Premier League did recently the NBA is currently gearing up to renew its current broadcast rights package.

The current deal is a 9yr/$24bn contract across ESPN and other networks. The deal ends next summer and the new deal is rumoured to be more than DOUBLE the existing one.

Despite people watching less traditional television in the States, sports are flying and growing massively.

Yet strangely, we are seeing a massive influx of American investors turn their attention to sports… in the UK!

Below are the twenty teams in the Premier League this year and their current owners:

• Arsenal: 🇺🇸 Stan Kroenke

• Aston Villa: Nassef Sawiris and 🇺🇸 Wesley Edens

• Bournemouth: 🇺🇸 William P. Foley

• Brentford: Matthew Benham

• Brighton and Hove Albion: Tony Bloom

• Burnley: 🇺🇸 Alan Pace

• Chelsea: 🇺🇸 Clearlake Capital Group, 🇺🇸 Todd Boehly, Hansjorg Wyss, 🇺🇸 Mark Walter

• Crystal Palace: 🇺🇸 John Textor, 🇺🇸 David Blitzer, 🇺🇸 Josh Harris, Steve Parish

• Everton: Farhad Moshiri

• Fulham: 🇺🇸 Shahid Khan

• Liverpool: 🇺🇸 John W. Henry and Tom Werner

• Manchester City: Abu Dhabi United Group

• Manchester United: 🇺🇸 Glazer Family

• Newcastle United: Public Investment Fund

• Nottingham Forest: Evangelos Marinakis

• Sheffield United: Abdullah bin Musa’ed

• Tottenham Hotspur: Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy

• West Ham United: David Sullivan and Daniel Kretinsky

• Wolverhampton Wanderers: Guo Guangchang, Liang Xinjun, Wang Qunbin

As you can see 9 of the 20 Premier League clubs are either fully or partially owned by Americans. For many months, an American Private Equity company have been close to a deal with Everton too, potentially taking it to 10 of 20.

But why? When American sports are flourishing, why are investors looking so intently at the Premier League?

There are three key reasons.

The first being that British clubs are… cheaper!

The last two franchise sales in the US are as follows:

• NFL - Washington Commanders: $6bn (June 2023)

• NBA - Phoenix Suns $4bn (November 2022)

It’s worth noting that none of these teams are particularly impressive. The Phoenix Suns reached the NBA playoffs a total of ZERO times between 2010 and 2020. The Commanders have reached the NFL playoffs 3 times in 15 seasons, losing in the first round each time.

Yet despite this, they fetched massive tickets when being put up for sale.

The last two clubs to be sold in the Premier League:

• Chelsea: £2.5bn* (June 2023)

• Bournemouth: £200m (December 2022)

^{*Listed at £4.25bn as Todd Boehly commited an extra £1.75bn to invest in the club}

Chelsea are one of the most successful clubs in European football. They have a great fanbase, in a great part of a great city and were substantially cheaper than some American NFL franchises.

Simply put, investing in PL clubs does not require as much capital and is easier to do.

When you couple that with the upside potential then you get to reason #2.

With a few games outside of the US popping up in the UK and now in Germany, NFL is slowly becoming a more international sport. However it is very difficult to give international presence to a sport like that as it’s a logistical nightmare to take on the road.

Football doesn’t have that problem. It is truly a global sport. By virtue of this, American owners benefit massively.

Percent of Broadcast Revenue from Outside HQ country:

• NBA: 21%

• Premier League: 52.3%

In 2022, 21% of the NBA’s broadcast revenue came from outside of the US and that was the best in the United States. The Premier League is a different beast.

By owning Manchester United, the Glazer family now has exposure to most of the world. Look at the fixtures Man United played in PRE-SEASON in July:

• July 12: Manchester United vs. Liverpool in Century Cup (Rajamangala Stadium, Bangkok)

• July 15: Manchester United vs. Melbourne Victory (Melbourne Cricket Ground)

• July 19: Manchester United vs. Crystal Palace (Melbourne Cricket Ground)

• July 23: Manchester United vs. Aston Villa (Optus Stadium, Perth)

• July 30: Manchester United vs. Atletico Madrid, (Ullevaal Stadium, Oslo)

The growing international broadcast rights raises the revenues of Premier League clubs and gives owners a foothold in places where NFL teams can’t.

Which brings me onto my final topic which is the brand and glory of owning a Premier League team.

Fenway Sports Group are no strangers to sports, but when they took over Liverpool in 2010 not many predicted that they would steer Liverpool to being one of the best clubs in Europe by the end of the decade.

They have transformed the club, made a lot of money in the process and has since seen their company grow massively attracting a LOT of additional investment.

The brand of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney has grown massively since investing in Wrexham. Both of these chaps were Hollywood stars already but investing a few Million Pounds into a football club in Wales has seen their audience grow by some margin.

The non-financial gains of football club ownership in particular can be stark. And with there being 92 clubs in the English footballing pyramid I foresee the Yanks continuing to plant their flags over here for many years to come.

Happy New Year everyone.

More next week.