Joe Roth's Soccer Partner Is... Paul Allen

The other shoe has dropped on the Joe Roth deal we reported earlier to acquire the Seattle Sounders soccer team, and it's a heavy one--belonging to Paul Allen. The world's 19th ranked billionaire (according to Forbes) has a commercial and competitive success with the NFL's Seattle Seahawks, but is saddled with the not-so-great NBA miscreants, the Portland Trail (rhymes with Jail, their non-fans always say) Blazers. Allen played footsie with England's Southampton Football Club before settling on this way to invest some of his Microsoft-founding fortune (and the repayment on his investment in DreamWorks.)

The announcement will come shortly, citing Roth as the senior (i.e., most heavily invested) partner in the $30 million acquisition along with Allen and Seattle fixture Adrian Hanauer. They've been promised a spot as one of three new teams in the Major League soccer circuit. Roth, a longtime C.A.A, client who's watched the agency dive into the sports market (notably with client David Beckham, with whom the Revolution Pictures boss shared a private plane ride recently), aims to use his film marketing skills in the new venture.

In grabbing the franchise, Roth and partners outmaneuvered a group called Atletico Seattle Management, who'd proposed building a new $135 million soccer stadium. For now, the team will continue at the Allen-run Qwest Field.

Roth crunched the numbers and the sports zeitgeist to deduce that the Seattle market, which has been good to the Seahawks and baseball's Mariners, should soon be looking for someone to replace the NBA Supersonics, who are almost certain to depart. He also noticed that when the storied Real Madrid team played Qwest Field on only 16 days notice, they sold out--68,000 tickets. He's already got his eye on some overseas talent. For schoolboy soccer star Roth, it's a welcome change from a career in Hollywood. "I asked myself, what do I love? This will be a fun adventure for me."

Add Your Comment

Report Abuse

Archive

Categories

Links