It’s not just Americans who see the potential. Among the owners of Premier League teams are Mohamed al-Fayed, the Egyptian owner of the department store Harrod’s (Fulham), Russian energy billionaire Roman Abramovich (Chelsea), and Icelandic businessman Eggert Magnússon (West Ham United). Because British soccer teams recruit players from all over the world—and then beam the games back all over the world—many are already strong global brands.

Photograph by Peter Byrne/Getty Images

George Gillett (left) and Tom Hicks inside the Liverpool players' tunnel.

To U.S. entrepreneurs, the British league offers a purer form of capitalism than sports at home does. With salary caps, luxury taxes, revenue-sharing arrangements, and draft systems (under which this year’s losers get first dibs at next year’s talent), big-time pro sports in the U.S. is basically socialism among billionaires. British soccer is a far more Darwinian affair. There are no salary caps. Each year, the worst three (of 20) teams in the Premiership are kicked out and must play the following year in the second division, the Football League (also known as the Coca-Cola League), and the top three teams from the second division are promoted. For teams relegated to the second division, fan support and television revenue plummet.

That highlights a great risk: Foreign investors paying top dollar for undistinguished Premier League teams (such as Aston Villa) can quickly find their teams out of the money. Imagine if the Arizona Cardinals, finishing up yet another miserable season, had to play in the Arena Football League next year. The Icelandic investors who spent about $170 million last fall to buy West Ham United, which reached the F.A. Cup finals in 2006, must have thought their downside was limited. But the club has been hit by a succession of injuries, and its star-filled roster has yet to jell. As of early March, West Ham was ranked last in the Premiership. So much for the five-year business plan.

That’s why Hicks was drawn to a trophy property like Liverpool. “If you’re one of the top four teams, the combination of television revenue and the fact that you can compete for the Premiership championship and the [Champions] League, as well as F.A., cups” presents a significant upside, he says.

How does the fan base feel about all these Yank owners? After some initial, um, resistance (Manchester United followers actually trampled American flags when they heard Glazer had bought their club), most British soccer fans accepted with relative equanimity the prospect of colonials snapping up their beloved teams. Winning will do that. (Man U. is on track to win the Premiership and is still alive in both the prestigious F.A. Cup competition and the Champions League.)

The American owners have smoothed things out by speaking softly and listening carefully, although Hicks concedes there might be some difficulty bridging the gap between his Texas drawl and Liverpool’s Scouser dialect. They’ve acknowledged their ignorance about the game, left management in place, and kept low public profiles. Mark Cuban and George Steinbrenner they’re not—except in the wallet. Hicks and Gillett have pledged to bring their expertise to help jazz up the new stadium Liverpool is planning to build, and Randy Lerner, who spent his junior year abroad at the University of Cambridge, has been a godsend to Aston Villa, in unfashionable Birmingham, a team that is generally starved for capital. He used about $35 million of his own money to bring in two hot strikers, which has improved his credibility with fans and increased the club’s chances of playing in potentially lucrative European competitions.

The larger question is how, precisely, these successful capitalists plan to make money from their investments—short of flipping the teams to a deep-pocketed soccer-loving magnate in a few years. After all, they’ve promised not to engage in the types of transactions that have allowed them to profit from industrial acquisitions, e.g., taking on debt to pay out dividends to owners. And though clubs can be profitable, constant investment in new players and stadiums is required. Being an owner of an elite global sports franchise is like being a member of a very exclusive club—one with a high initiation fee and steep annual dues.

Based on his experience in private equity, Hicks has come to understand that proprietary consumer products branded in their markets and deriving their revenue from corporate sponsorships tend to turn profits and increase in value. “When I started investing in sports, I made the decision that these would be long-term assets, probably two generations,” he says. “To have three teams that play year-round on a global platform really positions me for the next 25 years.”

---