Tampa Bay Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer owns Manchester United, Patriots owner Bob Kraft once wanted to buy a piece of Liverpool (though I don’t know if anything ever came of that), and now Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner could be looking to purchase Aston Villa. I find this strange.
Doug Ellis’ desire to sell Aston Villa could finally be realised with American billionaire Randy Lerner reportedly joining the race to buy the West Midlands club.
It is understood Lerner, who owns NFL franchise Cleveland Browns, will enter the bidding for the Premiership club when Villa chairman Doug Ellis returns from holiday this week.
I love how they say he “owns NFL franchise Cleveland Browns.” I wonder if there’s some obnoxious asshole American football fan in Britain who’s reading that and fuming because you’re supposed to say “the Cleveland Browns.”
But I digress. In the case of someone who’s responsible for the product that the Cleveland Browns trot out to the field every Sunday, it’s perfectly believable that he heard about a football team called Aston Villa and he thought, “Hey, they play pro football in England? I’m buying them! Who’s their quarterback?”
I don’t get why these NFL guys all the sudden want to buy Premiership (and most certainly not EPL) teams. I doubt that they’re just rabid soccer fans, looking for an outlet. If that was the case, they’d just buy MLS teams and save themselves a few bucks. Could it be that they feel that the Premier League has a chance to develop an audience in America? Anyone else have an explanation for me?
insomniac Says:
July 25th, 2006 at 3:15 am
My guess is that the franchises make decent money b/c of all the rabid fans and they want to buy the teams as an investment.
Heck, look at what Schultz made on the Sonics franchise, and it was supposedly losing money.
House of Sporst Blab Says:
July 25th, 2006 at 3:31 am
Easy. There’s profits to be had. No owner in their right mind would pick an MLS team if they had the money to pursue a Premier League team. There’s no way for them to have a worthy profit margin with a stake in MLS, especially since the U.S. team bombed so bad in the World Cup (and inadvertently crippled the league because of it), and that there looks to be less American born players willing to play here. For example, by the way Freddy Adu talks, he’s counting down the days before he can jump to Europe. It’s like he’s in prison over here.
Over in England, owners can put together a crap team and still cultivate a tidy little profit in comparison. When you consider what a solid investment and NFL franchise is, why not go after the English equivalent?
King Dan Says:
July 25th, 2006 at 8:55 am
I think in the entire history of the MLS, two, maybe three teams, have ever turned a profit over the course of the season, and two were last year. So sure you might pay a little less, but then you’re paying for the right to flush money directly down the toliet. I actually enjoy the MLS, but so far it isn’t econmically viable. They just keep plugging along.
golden Says:
July 25th, 2006 at 11:18 am
I see how the Premier League will ever appeal to Americans.
It’s not the soccer, it’s the fact that it’s a league that none of us have any real connection to.
I enjoy watching English soccer but do I really feel a connection to Liverpool the same way that I would to a team that was based in my hometown, with matches I could actually attend? No.
I know you keep promoting the Premiership because of the better quality of play and I know you don’t like MLS but at the end of the day whether you like it or not, the sport is not going to take of here unless Americans have their own clubs to cheer for.
Just like the people in England.
Mr. Bojangles Says:
July 25th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Easy, it’s gaining popularity everywhere and the number crunchers love the idea of a global market. Heck, didn’t you just post about your newfound interest in the Premiership a couple of weeks ago, based on some recent exposure? I recall at least a half dozen replies from other folks equally interested in what they’ve seen - multiply that on a nationwide scale, and heck, it probably already exceeds the number of NHL fans outside of Canada.
Add some more national TV exposure in the next year or so (and guys like Glaser and Lerner almost certainly have the finances and pull for it), plus a bit of publicity in places like Italy, where the entire soccer infrastructure just tumbled down in a flurry of corruption, and the global market is ripe for a strong, professional-caliber league. It could be a notch below the World Cup, every year, especially if they can lure talent from South America and invest in modernizing the pitch to make the game more spectator-friendly.
Note: entire post is idle speculation on my part.
tony Says:
July 26th, 2006 at 12:05 am
…owners can put together a crap team and still cultivate a tidy little profit in comparison.
Kind of like what Art Modell was doing in the last years of the Browns before being so poor, broke and lonesome that he *had* to move the team?
And I have no problem with “NFL franchise Cleveland Browns”, but the Mike Cooper portion of the fanbase that licks from the teat of the crackwhore that is OSU might have an issue with omitting a “the”. Except they expect it to be capitalized.
Henry Holland Says:
July 26th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
I wonder if there’s some obnoxious asshole American football fan in Britain
Such a person does not exist, at least ones who aren’t totally American-philes (like people in London who drink *shudder* Budweiser *shudder*). No, not the “obnoxious asshole” part, they’re universal, but the “American football fan” bit. I’ve been to England on vacation five times and gridiron, as they call it there, is about as popular as cricket is here. I asked this one guy at an Everton game about it, I said “There was a team in London, surely there’s some fans”.
He said “It was popular when it was just a highlights show. You know, the best 45 seconds of the match. But once they started showing the full games, it died a death because people saw that it was 3 seconds of play and 45 seconds of standing around with these fat blokes gasping for air after going a yard”.