American influence in British football is now rife and Rangers are the latest to see its impacts.
An NFL legend turned English football investor has directly answered a question surrounding Rangers and their 49ers Enterprises takeover.
JJ Watt is a celebrated defensive player in American football, featuring for the Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals, a three time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and five time All Pro. After retiring from the sport, he has taken interests to the UK and become a minority owner at Burnley who have just been promoted to the Premier League.
Tom Brady is involved at Birmingham City while the likes of Wrexham also have American influence supercharging their rise up the football ladder, with Aberdeen, Dundee United, Dundee, Hibs, Livingston plus St Johnstone backed by US investors here in Scotland. Rangers will hope for an equivalent success after the investment arm of NFL franchise San Francisco 49ers, who also own Leeds United, completed a takeover alongside US health insurance tycoon Andrew Cavenagh.
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Investor directly addresses Rangers takeover question
Watt has been appearing on a BBC podcast that has been republished with presenter Mark Chapman where the host directly asked the Burnley investor about Rangers. Chapman said: “There are several Americans now and American groups as well, not just individuals who are invested in a lot of English football and British football actually. You look at the 49ers about to invest in Rangers. Why? What do you think the attraction is of our football to invest in?
Speaking on why there is an influx in Americans coming into the British game, he says there is more value for money to be found, and that the duty to put organisations on the map is also an intriguing factor. Watt responded: “I think each person has their own different reasons. I think that when you look at the 49ers group and their things, they're going to have different reasons than me as an individual. I mean, for me personally, you look at an American football club.
Why American investors are coming to UK football
“You know, right now, they're all valued in the billions of billions of dollars. Washington (Commanders) $6.05 billion dollars. So you take my amount of money and you put it into that. And you're congratulations. You have one seat at a game, not at the board table, not at anything. But you come over here and the valuations are different and there's more opportunity.
“And you also can kind of choose the level you want to be at. You know, you want to go into Tottenham or Man United or Chelsea. That's the American football level. You drop down to Championship if you want to. You drop all the way down League One, League two. But I saw an opportunity where I could get involved at the level I wanted to be involved at.
“Being in the board meetings, learn, grow while also injecting something and providing a service to the club that I feel I'm bringing something to the table myself in terms of global notoriety, more eyeballs to the game, et cetera.”
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