Mystery Americans swoop for Tranmere

One time prime minister Harold Macmillan once said of The Wirral ‘funny place, it sticks out, up there.’ I have only been to Tranmere Rovers once, but I was able to park in the road outside and I thought they were a really friendly club.

The problem is that they are the third club on Merseyside and it is relatively easy to travel across the Mersey. The Wirral itself is an odd mixture of deprived and high end housing. There was once another EFL club at New Brighton: the once decaying seaside resort is seeing something ofa revival.

Tranmere Rovers are set to become the latest English team to come under American ownership, as a bid for the Merseyside club from Ascent Capital Partners is waiting for English Football League (EFL) approval.

Current owners former Football Association (FA) chief executive Mark Palios and his wife Nicola bought the club in 2014 but have been trying to sell the League Two side for at least two years.

They declined to comment on Ascent Capital Partners’ interest in the club, which is understandable given the difficulties they have faced in trying to sell Tranmere, who are currently 17th in the table but only eight points off the promotion play-off places.

Last year, a bid from a group led by U.S. President Donald Trump’s former lawyer Joe Tacopina and rapper-turned-actor A$AP Rocky, the partner of Barbadian star Rihanna, collapsed following difficulties getting regulatory approval.

Much less is known about the new potential buyer but its website says it provides financial advice to ultra-high-net-worth families and it has offices in Arizona and Texas.

Bryant Clark, the firm’s “growth advisor”, wrote a post on LinkedIn last week that said there were “two ways to play the sports infrastructure boom”. The first is to buy stakes in leagues or teams, wait for rising media rights income to raise the value of your equity and then sell for a profit.

Ascent Capital appears to favour the second of Clark’s approaches: buying clubs outright and trying to make money from their everyday operations. Crucial to this approach, he explains, is maximising the team’s property assets.

“UK football illustrates this well,” he wrote. “Clubs often trade below U.S. (revenue) multiples despite comparable global reach. But when you pair club ownership with stadium infrastructure and mixed-use real estate development, the economics shift from pure appreciation to sustainable income streams.”

This suggests an Ascent-owned Tranmere would push on with the Palios’ plan to move the club from its longstanding home at Prenton Park to a new stadium at nearby Bidston Dock, where it would be the centrepiece of a £100million “sports city”.

Ascent Capital Partners did not respond to a request for comment but if its bid is approved, Tranmere would become the 37th club in England’s top four divisions to be at least partly-owned by U.S.-based investors.

In the last week alone former EFL side Hartlepool United were bought by a property company from Minnesota and ex-San Diego Padres owner Ron Fowler announced his plan to take control of League One side Lincoln City, while the EFL continues to vet U.S.-based James Bord’s bid to buy Sheffield Wednesday.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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