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Liverpool Echo

Sport

Dave Powell

'That's why they're getting rid of Liverpool' - NBA prediction made for FSG

Liverpool FSG NBA Red Sox Bill Simmons World Cup Echo Jamie Carragher John W Henry Jurgen Klopp

It hasn't exactly been a quiet end to 2022 for Fenway Sports Group.

After it was revealed early last month that the Liverpool owners were ready to listen to offers for the club there has been a glut of names linked as potential bidders, from sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East to US private equity.

Well-placed sources in the US last week told the ECHO that while the Reds could change hands if a group came in above and beyond a $4bn (£3.3bn) tag, there was nothing imminent and no talks particularly far down the line with any group. There was also understood to be no rush for FSG principal John W. Henry to part with the club, nor some of the other partners that make up FSG's total shareholding, although some parties may be more willing than others to cash out at a decent price.

What was described as a "strategic partner", such as a potential media or tech company, was seen as a preferred landing point for any inward investment, although the club does remain in play and there are interested parties who wish to acquire all of FSG's shareholding.

But it isn't just Liverpool where the news cycle has moved at pace, with FSG at the centre of it.

In Boston, where FSG have owned the Boston Red Sox Major League Baseball team since 2002, there is a great deal of unrest right now.

Red Sox fans, who were furious when the team traded their star player Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers back in 2020 having been unable to reach a contract agreement, sent their ire towards ownership once more last week when it emerged that Xander Bogaerts, their star man for 2022 who had been a product of the Red Sox farm system, was to head for the San Diego Padres.

The Padres were willing to hand the 30-year-old Aruban an 11-year deal worth $280m, something that the Red Sox reportedly did not get close to matching. But the anger lay not with matching what some see a risky deal given its length, but the perceived bungling of how it was handled, with fans and many pundits believing that the team should have got the situation sorted long ago to avoid the risky situation of free agency, where out of contract players are able to tout themselves to the market and speak to other teams.

Bogaerts left for a team that finished dead least in the American League East division last season, with fans left wondering what is in store for 2023.

FSG want to get into the NBA, the ECHO having been told by multiple sources, most recently in New York, that an expansion franchise is what they want to add to their $10bn portfolio of sports teams next. They want that franchise to be in Las Vegas and they want basketball icon LeBron James, an FSG partner and former Liverpool shareholder directly, to run the team when he finally calls time on his glittering career.

There isn't anything imminent with regards to expanding the NBA, with two new teams arriving having to be voted through by the current 30 before it comes to fruition. A price tag of $2.5bn to pick up an expansion franchise, where they will likely either be in Seattle or Las Vegas, will be spread among the existing teams as something of a sweetener.

But an expanded NBA is on the horizon, potentially in the next two years, and FSG want in on that. Where once they had looked at multi-club models the impetus for such a move has melted away somewhat, the ownership understood to be looking towards the greater cost certainty that exists for team owners within the North American sports market. They already acquired the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL team in November 2021 for a $900m sum.

Part of that purchase price was aided by the arrival of fresh capital into the company through new partners coming on board, most notably RedBird Capital Partners who acquired an 11 per cent piece of FSG for $750m in March 2021.

With one eye on what may happen with the purchase of an NBA expansion team, and with FSG having taken a passing look at both the Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns but wanting to wait for Vegas, some pundits have questioned whether the scenarios currently playing out in both Liverpool and Boston point to a change of direction for FSG.

Renowned NBA insider and founder of The Ringer, Bill Simmons, was the first to suggest the plans for FSG and a Vegas expansion franchise.

"I just don't understand the plan, I don't understand what they're trying to do other than just gut the team [Red Sox] and sell it," Simmons said on his podcast. "I don't think there's any other takeaway, this just feels like a three-year plan to cut costs, make the team as malleable as possible for the next owner.

"We know they're getting the Vegas NBA team, that's happening. I don't know how many more times I can tell people that. LeBron's involved. That's happening.

"That's why they're getting rid of Liverpool, that's why they're gonna sell the Red Sox. They're gonna move their investments towards the NBA and the Penguins and whatever else."

Simmons' point of view isn't shared by some sources in the US that the ECHO has spoken to, with a sale for the Red Sox not something that was the plan, nor was the idea behind testing the market with Liverpool born from the immediate need to raise capital to fund an NBA team purchase.

Earlier this year Boston Red Sox president Sam Kennedy, one of FSG's most senior executives, said that the company remained in "growth mode". That is something that sources are adamant is still the case, with more team assets looking to be added, with the motivation behind opening themselves up to offers for Liverpool coming from their primary desire to attract new investment but also the buoyancy of the market, where Chelsea, a team that needed heavy spend on infrastructure, went for £2.5bn to the Todd Boehly/Clearlake Capital group back in May.

FSG have time to find the capital that they need for an expansion franchise, although the stance has always been that they would remain "opportunistic" when it came to the business and acquiring new assets, or even selling them. It is for this reason why there is understood to be no rush to sell Liverpool, or even part with them at all. But for owners that are opportunistic, and for a principal owner in Henry who made his fortune as a commodities trader where the idea is to buy cheap and sell high, if an opportunity comes along that is too good to turn down, it won't be.

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