More and more American investors and owners are getting involved in English football. From the non-league to the Premier League, and everything in between, the beautiful game is currently being seen as a great opportunity for the affluent members of the USA.
By Christmas 2023, 22 of the 72 teams in the EFL had some level of American investment, whether it was full ownership or minority stakeholdings. That number has increased since then, with West Bromwich Albion being sold to Shilen Patel, a Florida-based multi-millionaire.
One of the real triggers for this sudden desire to own English and Welsh football clubs was Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s purchase of Wrexham. The Hollywood pairing took over the north Wales-based club in 2021, and have helped them to win two promotions.
They have been the big spenders of whatever leagues they have been in since the actors bought the club, but this season will be different.
In League One, they are up against some mammoth cheque books. Birmingham are working with a reported £20 million budget this summer, according to journalist Alan Nixon.
The Blues, like their Welsh counterparts, have owners from across the pond, and they are looking to make more of a splash than just in the transfer market.
Playing football league games abroad is an idea that has been flirted with for a while. The Premier League has contemplated the idea for a long time, with ‘Game 39‘ being proposed as an opportunity for teams to showcase their talents outside of the UK.
The increased involvement of Americans in the game is only going to make this possibility more likely. No team had themselves proposed this idea, until now.
According to the Daily Mail, Birmingham asked the EFL if they could play their home game against Wrexham in the 2024/25 third tier campaign over in the states.
This proposal was promptly refused by the EFL, which is said to have left some at St Andrew’s disappointed.
If the game between the two teams had taken place in North America, it would have been the first time that a competitive English match happened outside of England or Wales.
The EFL do have a desire to grow their brand and image outside of the UK. They recently agreed a new overseas TV deal with Relevent Sports, who now own the broadcast rights for games in North America, Latin America and the Carribean, which brought about a 40% increase in revenue, as per the Mail.
The motivation of the City owners is clear, obvious and understandable. If you owned a football team, you’d want to try and get them to play where you live, rather than having to take multi-hour plane journeys in order to see them live.
However, it would have set a horrible precedent. If they okayed it, every other league in Europe would be pushing for it because it’s a good commercial move.
Playing a game in Florida in front of 40-50,000 people, instead of 20-30,000 in Birmingham, would bring in more money than the usual Saturday 3pm kick-off. The snowball effect that would follow would be so damaging though.
The number of games abroad would slowly increase, until the association with England and Wales became pretty much void, because that’s where the money is.
There’s just such a lack of understanding of the fans sometimes from these wealthy owners.
Pre-season games abroad are acceptable. Those that want to make the journeys to mainland Europe or Spain can do so, and those that don’t aren’t missing out on important matches.
But charging season ticket holders hundreds of pounds per season to then put home games thousands of miles away is just totally disrespectful and rude to the people that will keep these clubs going long-term.
The fact that they proposed this as a serious idea in the first place is disgraceful. Thank God the EFL showed some common sense and told them to jog on.
