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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