12/03/24
April 16, 2010
American Owners Put Liverpool Up for Sale: Liverpool's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett put the Premier League club up for sale Friday, three years after acquiring it in a leveraged takeover that left it $364 million in debt. Gillett sold the Montreal Canadiens last year and Hicks is selling the Texas Rangers.
If only this had come when the group that bought Man City were looking. We might be fighting for a better spot in Europe right now. Hopefully someone will come in and set the ship right for next season.
posted by Ricardo at 08:11 AM on April 17, 2010
Wait a sec: if we're all agreeing football teams are bad investments and everyone seems to want the Yanks (other than Randy Lerner) out of the EPL, how can we hold this against him as well?
Leverages everything he buys to the hilt
I don't understand this complaint. Which American sports franchises bought in the last 20 years weren't "leveraged to the hilt"? People don't drop hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, even if they have it. And if Hicks & Gillett are dumping other sports teams as well, they've either been hit by the recession or decided sports ownership isn't a good investment. Neither one makes them uniquely evil.
posted by yerfatma at 10:23 AM on April 17, 2010
What makes him a jerk is that he won't put much of his own money into the club, he just raises the debt level to the point that it eventually chokes the team. he's made promises along the way that he hasn't kept, and made decisions that have affected all of sports. The contract he gave to A-rod is a good example. Spent far more than the Texas Rangers' income level could afford, raised the bar on what top players could demand, and it eventually caused the team financial pain that affects them today. With Liverpool he hasn't put the stars on the team like he promised. And, while he's not alone on this, he's failed to come through on promises to help develop the areas around either the Rangers' or Stars' venues.
As far as other teams, I'm too lazy to search for data on this, but how many others owe more than their team is worth? Hicks bought the Rangers for $250mil in '98, and according to local sources, even if the gets the $530mil to $570mil that his deal with Greenberg is worth, it won't cover all of the debt.
I should clarify my first post in that he doesn't run everything he buys poorly. Clearly, his corporate deals have done nicely on the whole. However, in corporate buyouts there are usually pieces of the pie that can be sold off for profit, or efficiencies to be gained by combining some operations. He got out of his league when he ventured into sports. I don't think any of his teams are better off for him having been their owner. Having meet the man several times through my work with the Rangers over the years, my "arrogant S.O.B." comment stands.
posted by dviking at 11:59 AM on April 17, 2010
I don't think any of his teams are better off for him having been their owner.
The Dallas Stars won the Stanley Cup under his ownership and reached the finals a second time. Other than that, though, his ownership has been a failure for the teams involved.
posted by rcade at 12:13 PM on April 17, 2010
The Stars did add Belfour and Hull to the team, but most of the key players (Modano/Nieuwendyk/Langenbrunner/Lehtinen/Sydor/several others, including the coach) were in place before Hicks bought the team.
I'll give him credit for at least starting out on the right foot with the Stars, but overall I would not grade him highly as an owner.
posted by dviking at 02:26 PM on April 17, 2010
Winning a Cup in Dallas was a huge accomplishment that should not be underestimated. Hicks bought the Stars in February 1996 and the Cup contributors who he signed in the years leading up to the championship also include also Sergei Zubov, Pat Verbeek, Mike Keane and Dave Reid.
posted by rcade at 03:15 PM on April 17, 2010
rcade, I don't really have the energy to get into an argument over which players were the most important to the Stars winning the Cup. I'll cede that not every key player was already on the roster when Hicks bought the team, but clearly there was a strong framework of the team in place.
As I said, good initial grades, failing overall.
posted by dviking at 05:32 PM on April 17, 2010
As long as Benitez is manager, Liverpool do not interest me...
posted by StarFucker at 06:05 PM on April 17, 2010
they've either been hit by the recession or decided sports ownership isn't a good investment.
Option three: they've decided that having Scousers of the red persuasion telling them to eff off back to Yankland on a regular basis isn't worth it any more. It's not like they're going to walk away from this as paupers, but whoever's interested in taking over probably needs a couple of hundred million to burn. (I'm sure that both ends of Stanley Park have cursed the fact that none of the Beatles ever seemed interested in throwing their money away.)
posted by etagloh at 01:54 AM on April 18, 2010
Meanwhile, has anyone heard from the Glazers lately?
posted by jjzucal at 03:36 AM on April 18, 2010
they've decided that having Scousers of the red persuasion telling them to eff off back to Yankland on a regular basis isn't worth it any more
This is the one that really knocks me out about American ownership in the EPL. The idea that a critical mass of yellow & gold scarves will make big-time capitalists quake in their boots is adorably naive. Liverpool fans bitching on message boards and singing anti-owner songs isn't a patch on dealing with a strike or employee demands for better benefits, etc.
posted by yerfatma at 07:39 AM on April 18, 2010
Liverpool finished second in the Premiership last season, despite a horrendous number of draws (if three of them had been wins we'd have won the league), and made the Champions League semi-finals. This season has been less successful but we might still win the Europa League as consolation prize.
Under Hicks and Gillette we've bought Fernando Torres. Last Summer, okay we sold Xabi Alonso but with Real Madrid calling there was little chance of him not going. Meanwhile Benitez was given plenty to spend and paid millions of quid for Glen Johnson--good buy but injured much of the term--and Alberto Aquilani, a complete waste of well over $40M. Thankfully Lucas, a youngster Benitez has groomed filled in reasonably well considering its his first season as a regular starter.
Speaking of injuries, other than Dirk Kuyt and Pepe Reina almost all the team's important players have missed meaningful chunks of the season due to them.
I agree that Hicks and Gillette should probably not have taken on quite so much debt BUT if the economy had not gone so deep in the toilet the last two years I'm pretty sure this would be a non-issue for us, Man U and probably even Portsmouth.
posted by billsaysthis at 01:48 PM on April 18, 2010
Liverpool fans bitching on message boards and singing anti-owner songs isn't a patch on dealing with a strike or employee demands for better benefits, etc
You've never walked through Toxteth or West Darby, have you?
posted by owlhouse at 12:00 AM on April 19, 2010
Hicks is a douche bag. Leverages everything he buys to the hilt, runs them poorly, arrogant SOB.