From NFL to EPL, San Francisco 49ers expand their global reach with Leeds United
SANTA CLARA — The San Francisco 49ers have increased their minority stake in the English Premier League club Leeds United as the NFL team moves to raise its global footprint.
49ers Enterprises, the team’s sports and entertainment arm, announced Monday that its investment has more than doubled in the third year of a partnership with Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani.
The action involves a larger presence from 49ers executives to help manage the EPL team’s future, including a more fan-friendly experience and developing commercial interests around Leeds stadium known as Elland Road.
Radrizzani, an Italian sports media entrepreneur, said in an interview that he wants to introduce “a style of California into Yorkshire. That’s the way I like to picture our partnership.”
Paraag Marathe, president of 49ers Enterprises and executive vice president of football operations, has been promoted to vice chairman of Leeds. The 49ers increased their stake from 15% to 37%, according to the announcement.
Marathe, who led the project to build Levi’s Stadium, said Leeds’ international profile has risen in the three years since the 49ers joined the team in 2018.
“It was just a dormant global fanbase,” he said. “They were just waiting to be ignited.”
Such sentiment has been supported by A-list actor Russell Crowe, who has said he grew up in Australia watching Leeds games on television. Crowe said he considered buying the team six years ago.
“I firmly believe it’s the great sleeping dinosaur of English football,” Crowe once said, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post.
The club had a majority of its success in the 1960s and ‘70s. The past two decades have been difficult for fans of the Whites. Leeds dropped to the third division of English soccer, League One, in 2007. It returned to the second level, or Championship League, in 2010.
Leeds ended a 16-year drought to advance to the EPL this season after winning the Championship League.
Leeds (7-9-2, 23 points) currently sits 12th in the 20-team EPL in a season scheduled to end in May. It is suffering through a three-game losing streak in all competitions heading into a match Tuesday at Newcastle. It could not have been worse than two weeks ago when fourth division Crawley Town embarrassed Leeds 3-0 in the third round of the English domestic championship known as the FA Cup.
Such setbacks do not deter Marathe. After 20 years working with the 49ers, Marathe has experienced bitter times as well as two Super Bowl appearances.
The 49ers bought a stake in the English soccer team a year after Radrizzani became the principal owner. Marathe said the Niners had been interested in Leeds for years.
“They had all the bones of a powerful big club,” he said.
Marathe said the potential is great because Leeds, which is located in central England, is the country’s fourth-largest urban area but has only one major soccer club.
London, for instance, has nine teams playing in the EPL or Championship League alone. Manchester has four well-known clubs.
“You’ve got one club and such a remarkable storied history,” Marathe said.
The 49ers’ partnership with British soccer is not unusual. Americans have major stakes in top soccer leagues in the United Kingdom, Italy and France, according to data from KPMG Football Benchmark.
The Glazer family, which owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, runs Manchester United, one of the league’s biggest teams. Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke also owns Arsenal, another major English club. Shahid Khan owns the Jacksonville Jaguars and London’s Fulham FC.
Then there is John Fisher, owner of the Oakland Athletics and San Jose Earthquakes who has a stake in Celtic FC in Scotland.
A’s executive Billy Beane is part of a group that in 2017 bought English second division Barnsley Football Club. In September, he bought a minority share of AZ Alkmaar, a Dutch team.
Earthquakes general manager Jesse Fioranelli embraces the global cross-pollination. After all, Fioranelli came to Major League Soccer from famed Italian team AS Roma.
He said the European environment has become open to new owners who offer more than an infusion of money.
“That translates into stadiums but also the management approach,” he said.
He said an American approach focusing on data works well with the traditional European method of running a sports team.
“This is a people’s business,” Fioranelli said. “Whether we’re talking about numbers or talking about technical development you have to put the person at the center of your project and try to create value out of it.”
Radrizzani has no illusions about quickly competing for an EPL title. Leeds is not going to outspend the richest clubs for the world’s best players.
But he hopes to see Leeds edge closer to the perennial top-tier teams that include Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham.
“Sports is not always about money,” he said. “History has shown with a good strategy and good ideas you can overachieve.”
Radrizzani recalled recently telling the players and staff they needed to embrace the underdog role.
He said they sometimes need to show some arrogance while respecting their opponent. “But to show we don’t fear anyone,” he added.
It sounded more like the Earthquakes’ approach than the 49ers, whose five Super Bowl victories are part of Bay Area lore.
Marathe said he is confident the 49ers’ past successes will translate overseas beyond the marketing and organizational side. He also did not rule out one day being involved with Major League Soccer though for now Leeds is the primary focus.
“Whether it is football, American football it doesn’t matter,” Marathe said. “It is still a sports team. The engine is the fans. We’re just the drivers trying to make things work.”