Fenway Sports Group have had quite the week when it comes to their sporting assets
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FSG chief John W. Henry.
FSG chief John W. Henry.(Image: Carl Recine/Getty Images)
It has been a pretty wild seven days for Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group. With the Reds having agreed to a bumper, British transfer record-breaking deal with Bayer Leverkusen to bring German superstar Florian Wirtz to Anfield in a £116m deal, the FSG-owned Boston Red Sox risked the ire of its fans by trading its own superstar, Rafael Devers, to the San Francisco Giants.
In addition to those two blockbuster deals, and the very different way each fan base responded to such personnel moves, FSG were also forced to field questions around their long-term commitment to the Pittsburgh Penguins ice hockey team that they have owned since 2022 after rumours of a sale.
As it happened, FSG provided a statement to the ECHO that said the intention was to sell a small stake to a minority partner, much the same way that they did with Liverpool and Dynasty Equity in 2023.
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It’s seldom been the case that all supporter bases of FSG-owned teams have been happy at the same time, but from a Reds perspective, with a Premier League title secured, an excellent replacement for Jurgen Klopp having been proven, and a willingness to invest heavily in the transfer market to give the club a better chance of cementing success and adding European silverware too, there is little to grumble about at present.
But this has always been the FSG goal. While John Henry, FSG’s supremo and Liverpool’s principal owner might not have always been the most popular man across all sections of the fan base, he has had a conviction about what it was that could deliver success in English football.
That was the adoption of data and the time that was given for the club to properly immerse themselves in it at every level. That time, and a willingness to forgo chasing silverware early on, meant that by the time Klopp arrived the club had the plan in place, it just needed the right person at the wheel.
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But revenues were far smaller, and Champions League football far more sporadic. That impacted the three main revenue pillars of matchday, commercial and broadcast, while their rivals had successive seasons of being able to bank on that money and reinvest.
Liverpool spent big on Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk because of the Philippe Coutinho sale, they are now spending big because, for the first time, all parts of the club are working as was envisaged by Henry and FSG at the start. The club invests, the club wins, the club makes money from prize funds, broadcast, commercial and matchday, and then the cycle repeats.
Liverpool invested in improving Anfield early, something that has driven matchday revenues above £100m for the first time, and commercial revenues stood at a record-breaking £308m for the last financial year. That figure will grow again, not just ‘because that’s what happens’, but because Liverpool has turned into a global brand that partners want to be aligned with, that they trust will be run well, will be successful and will avoid chaos and tumult.
It is an unpopular thing to say, but the football industry has become a part of the entertainment industry, and that means that you have to put on a show and can’t afford to be out of the limelight for too long.
But being the best entertainers in the land requires hiring the best performers. Liverpool can now do that, and they can wash their own face while doing it. There are very few clubs in world football at that level, perhaps to be counted on one hand, who can do that.
Speaking to the Financial Times last month, Liverpool’s chief commercial officer Ben Latty said: “My department’s role is to generate income to sustainably finance the pursuit of trophies.
“We’re already looking to the future and working out how we can best maximise this success [winning the Premier League] to continue our commercial growth and support further on-pitch success.”
That may sound like corporate speak for just bringing in more commercial revenue on the back of a trophy lift, but there is more to it than that at Liverpool, with Latty telling the ECHO back in April that the plan was to make the Reds “the most impactful partnerships platform in world sport”.
The difference now is that part of what makes Liverpool so attractive is that they have found a way to win through smarts and strategy, and that is very much on point with where the game is across the world right now.
The Reds didn’t spend as heavily as some wanted when they won the Premier League in 2020 as it was in the midst of the pandemic, and there was a genuine concern that revenue streams would not bounce back to the levels they were previously. FSG are notoriously risk-averse, and that decision was made with preservation in mind.
Things are not the same now. Whether or not some fans choose to accept it or not, the club is in a far better position that it has been at any stage in the Premier League era. Far better.
It doesn’t haemorrhage cash, it has no issues with profit and sustainability rules or squad cost ratio rules, it has manageable debt and access to good credit, it has infrastructure that supports it globally, and it has a very, very good football team.
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After all the building of a business, and having to make some unpopular decisions through leaner times, the signing of Wirtz points to Liverpool under FSG now being in a position that took them 15 years to achieve, where they have all the working parts, the staff to address issues ahead of time, and the money to be able to invest in the squad at key times.
It has always been a fallacy to suggest that winning wasn’t important to the owners, it always has been as it drives revenue. But at this juncture, where the European game finds itself, Liverpool are set up as one of the strongest when it comes to the potential to dominate for a period of time. FSG need Liverpool to win to continue the virtuous cycle, and now is the time the football operation is getting its shine.