It has nothing to do with players but how about those Americans buying Inter! US-based investment fund Oaktree Capital Management said on Wednesday it has become the new owner of Serie A champions Inter Milan after a missed €395 million ($428m) payment from the club's Chinese holding company, Suning. Inter Milan get American owners after missed payment - ESPN
Lesson to Oaktree - DO NOT look at how the capital investment group at Chelsea is running that club for tips on how to assume ownership. Talk about an absolute toxic tire fire inside of a dumpster!
How many Serie A clubs are now majority owned by Americans? Seven. Inter, AC Milan, Atalanta, Fiorentina, Roma, Genoa and newly promoted Parma. Venezia would be an eighth. Right? .
I’m not sure if it counts as American but as North American or Canadian , Joey Saputo, buying and owning Bologna who are currently 3rd and has qualified for the Champions League has done a fantastic job! Bravo Joey! In Serie B, the American owners are Ascoli, Parma, Spezia and Venezia... Palermo are owned by Man City or the City Football group...
That sounds right. To be fair, my comment was very much meant as a dig to Chelsea. Good to see Parma promoted - Kevin Krause (Parma's owner) is from the Des Moines, IA area.
Whoops - reminder #257 for me to not post before the coffee has kicked in (and for today, my pain meds for the surgery I had yesterday). Of course you're right - brain freeze on my part.
Makes me wonder what could happen if American businesses control a majority of the teams what could happen. We approach sports pretty differently as a nation, salary caps in all leagues create more competitive environments, drafts, free agency all that. Clearly can't turn these leagues into a mirror of the American model, but it's also difficult to argue that there isn't something fundamentally wrong with the financial structure and system in place w/so many teams facing crippling debt problems. I'm trying to figure out why so many American businessmen and women want into such a dysfunctional environment, there has to be a win here for them, or maybe it's just barriers to entry to ownership of American sports team are so freaking high, its just easier? Trying to figure out the motivation behind the purchases.
Well, we're just about there in England. This past year we were about 10 that are partially or fuly owned by Americans. Arsenal – Stan Kroenke Liverpool – Fenway Sports Group Aston Villa – V Sports Part-owned by American billionaire Wes Eden (V Sports) and American investment company Atairos Manchester United – Glazer Family West Ham – J. Albert “Tripp” Smith Minority stake Chelsea – Todd Boehly Fulham – Shahid Khan Bournemouth – Bill Foley Crystal Palace – Three American investors combine for 81% ownership Burnley – ALK Capital It seems the Everton sale to Miami-based 777 sports is in jeopardy. There's another US-based company called MSP Sports that's involved now. 777 is the group that bought Genoa. They also own Standard Liege, Vasco de Gama, Red Star Paris, etc. etc. MSP sports owns Estoril in Portugal, Alcorcon in Spain, Beveren in Belgium, Brondby in Sweden, blah, blah, blah. Minority stake in Augsburg? We may get Leeds back, who are now owned by the 49ers ownership. Let's see............Barnsely, Gillingham, Huddersfield, Millwall, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Swansea, Wrexham, Woking, Wycombe, blah, blah, blah. Football clubs are just playthings of the rich and famous. Its like their McMansions. They all try to have the bigger house and most impressive cars. They also now want to own soccer clubs.
I think it's primarily a combo of American sports franchises being too expensive and too hard to get into plus the real lure of "European football" -- there's a romanticism to it. It's clear that Boehly bought into Chelsea to run a European soccer club. And the capital fund that owns most of it is probably going to remove him because of it. And while the Man Us and Chelsea are very expensive ... Inter was relatively cheap when the Clippers are going for like $2B -- and that was years ago now. I also think that on the hedge fund/capital fund end, there's an impression that because American clubs are so highly valued, and European clubs have fanbases either exceeding or at least similar worldwide, that there's a lot of unexploited value there in terms of worldwide brand equity. Some of this is probably true -- a lot of these clubs are poorly run, with the smaller ones often making suboptimal decisions due to lack of liquidity and larger ones often plagued by short term thinking due to needs to win elections, etc. But I do wonder if there's real money there without controls and with a lot of the revenue plans largely being antithetical to the fanbase. The American money has the cash to build a shiny new stadium, but high tickets prices in the US that they may be looking at will cause a war in Europe. I think the Asian and US markets are in some ways underexploited for a lot of these teams, but I question their ability to execute on it in a crowded market. And while I'm sure that there will be a push for cost controls, EU labor laws are simply going to be harder to circumvent than American ones.
Using the Serie A or Italy as an example as it’s the only other foreign league I mostly follow, having more American ownership groups can only help. With all the knocks on MLS has, and I am also guilty of criticizing them too, you must give them a lot of credit for the way their league has grown. When I moved to Europe in 2000 and came back in 2005, I believe the league only had 10-12 clubs. Maybe their salary caps, no pro/rel and alphabet soup (TAM, GAM, DP & GA) rules may seem a little whacky and outdated, I don’t think there is another league in the world that has made the progress MLS has made in such a short period of time. Since 2004-05 anyway, no one can boast the growth, stadia, training facilities, academies, TV audiences and sellouts that MLS has in place. Even having no promotion or relegation isn’t a bad thing. I mean in Europe; you have teams imploding from one season to the next in getting relegated but here, they can go worst to first in matter of months. If they were in any other circuit in the world, Miami will have been militating in the USL instead of leading the league this season. I am sure many European leagues will benefit from American ownership in the future.
For many owners a sports team is a trophy or status symbol. And our economy is the best at creating the class of individuals who can dabble in that sort of activity.
Not Barnsley as mentioned above. The club and former directors are facing sanctions for fronting for the real shareholders.
Some of them do get in over their heads. Randy Lerner of Villa got in over his head. Didn't seem like he knew what he was getting himself into. I worry about that with Todd Boehly, who I went to college with. Todd Boehly went to college with me, Wade Barrett, Steve Jolley, Adin Brown, etc. William and Mary was quite soccer-obsessed at the time. Paul Grafer. That's a name for old-timers. He's not in over his head with money. He has the money. Its everything else, which we're seeing now with the Pochettino sacking. In American sports, it's rare that there's as much of a microscope on the owners as there is in the Premier League. Yes, there are a few. The Steinbrenners, etc. etc. But with salary caps and everything, it's a different animal. Jerry Jones is criticized for his work as a general manager, not as an owner. If you asked 100 Texas Rangers fans to name the owners of their club, I bet you 75% couldn't do it. I'm a Rangers fan, and I have to think about it for a while. [Answer: Ray Davis and Bob Simpson.]
Owners are considered custodians. The clubs existed before them and will exist (in some form) after them. And without a salary cap it means that they are entirely on the hook for spending decisions. If you look at the history of British football ownership you see can see how it evolved. Pre 1960s - club directors elected by members Maximum wage peaking at £15 meant no real financial pressures, other than paying the bills. 1960-1980s - contrived takeovers by "personality" owners. Directors now appointed by chairman/owner rather than elected. 1990s/2000s - wealthy long-term fans "rescuing" clubs financially. Late 00s onwards - rise of the foreign investors and corporations. Appointments of CEOs (GMs) to run operations.
OT but seems Mr Lookman of Atalanta just punched his name into a big transfer this summer. Well earned
I think with Boehly it’s a classic case of what Bill Simmons calls new owner syndrome. You got this new owner who’s been successful in other arenas and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else as a result but doesn’t know a ton about running a professional sports team. And because they just spent a ton of money on that team they feel that they need to put their own stamp on it on top of that. And so it leads to some missteps.
Also co-owner of the Boston Celtics. That's what he's known for in these parts. ............oh, and being the co-organizer of Boston's ill-fated attempt to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
What is Stephen Pagliuca Net Worth 2023: Net Worth = $4.1 billion dollars Source of Wealth = Investments, ownership positions, salary as co-chairman of Bain Capital
Time for Tanton and Borto to look for first team playing time. American eligible right back Devan Tanton🇨🇴🇺🇸 & USYNT keeper Alex Borto🇺🇸🇵🇱 were crowned U-21 Premier League Cup Champions with Fulham.Tanton had a stellar performance & notched an assist🅰️, still not cap-tied, he was pictured carrying a Colombian🇨🇴 team scarf in celebrations. pic.twitter.com/womOQ4Uiu8— Joshua 🇺🇸🇳🇬 (@joshua_reports) May 22, 2024
Worth noting, dude was quiet in the group stage, but had a brace in the Round of 16 in the AFCON sending Nigeria to the Quarters where he scored the winner again before he quieted down again. Seems like a big game player but it remains somewhat small sample size. 23 goal contributions this past season for Atalanta, and 23 the year before, was much quieter with Leicester city (12 and 9 the 2 previous seasons). Not as young as I thought though. He'll turn 27 early in the next Serie A season. On the international front it's worth noting that the difficulties that kept Nigeria out of WC '22, have continued into WC '26 qualifying. They've opened qualifying with back to back draws against the crapper sides in their group stage and only one team escapes it. The good news for them is the other top 3 pot sides in their groups have all had stumbles, South Africa drew Lesotho (like Nigeria) and Benin is in dead last despite being the pot 3 team. There's still plenty of time and with Rwanda (who always sucks) in 1st place, one would imagine there will be more shuffling, I just think with Nigeria having already dropped 4 points in a pair of winnable games, getting their ---- together would be a good idea. And honestly, why on earth is Nigeria missing WC '06, WC '22, and potentially '26? They are consistently a top 1-4 side in the region, its pretty absurd (of course part of the reason is the generalized viciousness and difficulty of qualifying out of a region that often leaves no margin for error, or little).