Glazers, John Henry, Randy Lerner and Stan Kroenke: How do their other teams fare?

Some of the top Premier League teams are now owned by American sports entrepreneurs who have a wealth of experience with teams in various sports in the US. Here is the City Sport takes a look at their ownership of their other teams and their varying success.

Glazers

Malcom Glazer and his family first bought out the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1995 and immediately set about building a new stadium for the franchise. Steady improvement over time and the new Raymond James Stadium culminated in a Super Bowl win in 2003 against the Oakland Raiders.

Since their buyout of Manchester United later that year, the Glazers increasingly diverted their attentions to the English club and struggling to cope with the debts incurred in their takeover of United, they have spent less on player salaries with the Buccaneers. The franchise has slowly declined since then particularly playing in one of the strongest divisions in the NFL in the NFC South with recent Super Bowl champions New Orleans Saints. Despite the modern stadium, the team struggle to sell out their home games.

John Henry

The current Liverpool owner took over Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox in 2002 and prevailed in breaking an 86-year-old losing streak by winning the World Series in 2004. The forward-thinking owner was depicted as such in Moneyball as he looked to adopt the more statistical ‘sabermetric’ approach to baseball. The World Series win was repeated in 2007 and Liverpool fans will hope his hiring of Brendan Rogers will realise the same success.

Currently, the Boston Red Sox, under new head coach Bobby Valentine, are languishing in last place in their division.

Randy Lerner

Randy Lerner inherited the ownership of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns when his father Al died in 2002. A few months into his control of the franchise the Browns made the playoffs for the first time since 1994. The team has been unable to repeat the performance ever since playing in the strongest division of the AFC with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals.

Stan Kroenke

Whilst Stan Kroenke is a majority shareholder rather than an owner of Arsenal, he has run a portfolio of American sports clubs in the past including the Denver Nuggets of the NBA and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. He was forced to transfer ownership of these teams when he took over full control of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams in 2010 having had a stake in the team beforehand. Under his full ownership, the Rams missed the playoffs on a tiebreaker in 2010 with rookie quarterback Sam Bradford but fell to a 2-14 record the following season leaving the franchise with the second worst record in the NFL.

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