Billionaire Ken Griffin speaks at the Milken Institute's 22nd annual Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif. on April 30, 2019. According to the Wall Street Journal, Griffin is the U.S. men’s national team's major benefactor.MIKE BLAKE/Reuters
This weekend, the U.S. men’s national team debuted Mauricio Pochettino as its new manager. Pochettino hasn’t won much elsewhere, but he’s well known. The U.S. team very badly wanted some of that celebrity magic.
Such things are expensive. So in order to afford Pochettino’s US$3-million salary, the U.S. soccer program went fundraising. According to the Wall Street Journal, its major benefactor is Ken Griffin.
Funny that that story would come out the same weekend Pochettino’s winning his first game on the American touchline. It’s almost as though someone wanted everyone to know.
Griffin is a billionaire hedge-fund manager who dabbles in philanthropy, political influencing and jet collecting. He’s got all the toys except the one every Forbes profile subject wants – a sports team.
A team is special for the same reason a Jasper Johns or a Rolex Daytona is special – you can’t just walk into the shop and buy one. You must first be approved.
Look at Jeff Bezos. The Amazon founder has more profile than a lesser Kardashian and he can’t get anyone in the NFL to take his cheques. He hasn’t done enough work sucking up to all the existing billionaire owners who have to okay his purchase. He’ll get there eventually, but it’s going to cost him some dignity. That or he can settle for a hockey team.
Griffin – who started his business with a few thousand bucks in a Harvard dormitory room – has found a better way to buy into sports. Forget the pros. Go international. They’re selling the same thing, but for cheap.
Canada did a less sexy version of this deal when the three Canadian Major League Soccer clubs agreed to partly fund the hiring of men’s national team manager Jesse Marsch. That’s closer to a contra deal. If the national team wins over new customers, it stands to reason the country’s pro clubs will benefit from that. It’s an alternative-marketing program.
Griffin’s reported involvement with the U.S. men’s team is something else – a pure ego play.
Now that his name is out there, Griffin can expect several benefits. If Pochettino fails, he’s a philanthropist. If Pochettino succeeds, he’s a philanthropist and a visionary. If Pochettino really succeeds, he’s the Robert Kraft of Wall Street.
The only downside to this arrangement is that Griffin cannot reap a financial benefit from whatever good comes from his donation. Because he’s the 38th-richest person alive, I can’t imagine he’s all that bothered. ROI aside, Griffin gets all the perks of ownership.
If he wants to go to games and swan around like he bought the place – because he kind of did – he gets that. If he’s there when the team wins, the camera will swing up to him in a private box and the house pets on the broadcast team will sing songs of his generosity.
When he vacations on whatever skull island hedge-fund billionaires vacation on, he gets to say to his pals, ‘You know, this is funny. I was texting with Landon Donovan the other day about this exact same thing and I told him …’
And it gets better. Griffin exposes himself to none of the reputational risk that typical sports owners are vulnerable to.
Last week, the New York Jets fired their coach, Robert Saleh, five games into the season. It was a panic move in the most ruthless U.S. sports market. Not a great combo.
Despite denials, people are convinced that quarterback Aaron Rodgers called the shot and that Jets owner Woody Johnson was ordered to do the hit.
Whatever the truth of it, Rodgers looks powerful and Johnson looks like a stooge. For as long as the Jets are terrible, Johnson will be the one people blame.
This can’t happen to Griffin. He doesn’t own U.S. Soccer. When it wins, he will get a little of the credit. When it loses, he’ll get none of the blame.
This isn’t a lesser form of sports ownership. It’s sports ownership perfected.
Whereas others have to leverage the farm to get in on this racket, then wrangle with the city about a new arena, then fight with fans who hate them on principle, Griffin did it for pocket change and zero exposure. Plus, he gets to say that he bought something that wasn’t for sale.
No national team anywhere has turned down free money. The new wrinkle is that the money is specifically directed to the acquisition of a brand name. That isn’t a donation. It’s a form of control.
When the current guy you bought for them is clipped and they want to buy another, even more expensive guy, who do you think makes that call?
Nothing need be said out loud. Everything that matters is implied, with all the status markers attached. Once the benefactor’s name is leaked, the sports news machine does the rest.
For the superrich, this is hipster sports ownership. The sort that believes in the power of sport to cross divides and bring us together at a time when we are so divided and zzzzzzz.
In other words, the usual self-aggrandizement dressed up as charity – nothing noteworthy there – but without a downside. All it takes is the sort of money these people spend on a Sweet 16 party.
Like anything cool, the key is getting in there at the beginning, before the arrivistes who work on credit figure out the move and ruin it.
It will create an arms race in international sport. It will eventually require some sort of administrative intervention to create spending guardrails. And it will blow up when some rich control freak who doesn’t get how this works starts faxing in his preferred starting lineup 10 minutes before kickoff.
But for right now, it’s the smart way to get all the benefits of owning a piece of a team, and none of the hassle.