The Friedkin Group has announced the formation of a new company called Pursuit Sports and appointed David Beeston as CEO.
The news means Everton will now become part of Pursuit Sports, with Beeston ultimately reporting to Dan Friedkin as CEO of the Friedkin Group. But what exactly does that mean for Everton?
Dan Friedkin has already given a hint after announcing the news on the Friedkin Group website. He says: “Dave Beeston is a proven, trusted leader who is steeped in wisdom and experience around how to build high-performance sports enterprises. Under his dynamic leadership, each of our clubs will be empowered to compete at the highest level while preserving the identity and passion that makes each of them unique.”
Beeston, who formerly worked for Liverpool owner group FSG before spending five months at investment vehicle Clearlake Capital, who own Chelsea, will now oversee Roma, AS Cannes and Everton through Pursuit Sports.
The good news for Everton is that the move comes with multiple upsides and very few downsides. Here us what it means for the Toffees.
No multi club model
The idea of multi clubs has perhaps been linked most closely with the horrific Red Bull Group rebrands of existing clubs like Leipzig and Salzburg. Later, the City Group’s shady transfer dealings across the likes of Troyes, Girona and City themselves have been the poster child for multi club ownership.
The Friedkin Group was always clear that it would not be supporting a model seen at those clubs or at the likes of Chelsea and Strasbourg, where the clubs form a strict hierachy with ‘lesser’ clubs becoming training centres and feeder clubs for the top sides in the pyramid.
Such a model would never work for the Friedkin Group. While Roma are clearly in a better position than Everton in terms of league placement and European football, the potential riches of the Premier League means a successful Everton could be more commercially successful.
The news today confirms that thought. Pursuit Sport clubs will act almost entirely autonomously, with local teams (Angus Kinnear, for example) tasked with delivering results while maintaining what the Friedkin Group call ‘excellence’. All of the teams will be held to a high standard but will operate in a bubble to ensure each team has a chance to build to success.
This has already been clear in the summer transfer window where there has been no indication Everton and Roma would be doing business with each other at all.
A central bank of data resource
When Everton announced it has appointed Chris Howarth to lead its new-look data and analytics operation the move also included the purchase by the Friedkin Group of his data company, Insight Sports.
While Everton will have their own data operation led by Howarth, with its own scouts, analysts and data scientists, Pursuit Sports will be able to scale this operation across all Friedkin Group teams.
It means every Pursuit Sports team, which includes Everton, will be able to tap into a larger network of data that could improve scouting and sports science. Everton will now have a worldwide scouting and data network available through their parent company to complement the local expertise at the Liver Building and Finch Farm.
Beeston explains: “Our first responsibility at Pursuit Sports is to build an organization and culture that meets The Friedkin Group’s standards. With a focus on people and data driven decision making, we will use our scale, insights, and expertise to unlock and empower the leadership at each of our clubs, which will allow them to realize their full potential and pursue championship success.”
Future compliance or commercial growth?
What we do not know about the new organisation is if this is the first steps to avoiding UEFA sanctions if Roma and Everton ever qualify for the same European competition.
It is difficult to see how this move would achieve that. While separating each club under the Pursuit Sports banner would seem like a move to convince UEFA the clubs are acting autonomously, they still share senior board members in Ana Dunkel. Ultimately, all are owned by the Friedkin Group and major shareholder Dan Friedkin so it is unlikely Everton would avoid a Crystal Palace scenario.
Everton’s case would be supported by the lack of transfers between the two clubs but it is more likely one of the teams would need to be placed into a ‘blind trust’. It would mean Roundhouse Holdings Capital, the company that was used to buy Everton, would need to be placed in a trust and Everton would then not be allowed any input from the Friedkin Group.
The structure of Pursuit Sports means Everton would not suffer. Decisions would already be made on a more local level, led by Kinnear, and the recruitment and management team are already independent from the Friedkin Group to an extent.
That is an issue for another day. In the meantime what it does mean is that Pursuit Sports can pursue commercial deals that will benefit all of the clubs under its umbrella. How it does this could vary between outright splitting central deals between clubs – although this could then draw the ire of UEFA – or using the scale of the portfolio to increase brand awareness.
The latter is similar to how Liverpool leveraged LeBron James to launch a tacky range of merchandise to appeal to US fans. It could also mean lucrative friendlies in the US at the home of any Pursuit Sports-owned baseball, NFL or hockey teams. The group has been clear it hopes to buy more sports teams in the US and commercial tie-ins with existing clubs are very likely.
Day-to-day the news probably won’t impact Everton drastically. Behind the scenes it should improve our management and club philosophy, while delivering world class tools around scouting and leadership. It may also improve commercial revenue long term.
The rest will be up to the Everton team structure to deliver on-pitch success.