How John Henry thinks about sport

Even without a ball being kicked, it’s been another tumultuous week in the English Premier League. On Tuesday, details of a legal complaint filed against the league by Manchester City became public.

While most legal experts and club executives see City’s challenge as likely to fail, it shows that the bitter battle between the league and its top club is escalating rapidly.

At the league’s AGM two days later, clubs gave their backing to trial two new spending rules from next season, albeit on a non-binding basis.

As we report here, this week the curtain has been pulled back to reveal the worsening tensions among team owners over how the competition should be run. And now the gloves are coming off.

This week we’re bringing you an exclusive Q&A with John Henry, founder of Fenway Sports Group. Plus we have an update on the push by World Athletics to ward off new challengers. Do read on — Josh Noble, sports editor

The John Henry letters

Over the past eight months, Scoreboard’s Sara Germano has shadowed John Henry, owner of Liverpool FC, the Boston Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Penguins. This period also coincided with Henry’s endeavour to invest in the PGA Tour’s new commercial entity, a pursuit that jockeyed for the finance billionaire’s attention amid an already crowded sports portfolio. The full story, including sharp dissent among Sox fans and rogue ideas for the future of the Premier League, is this weekend’s FT Magazine cover story, which you can read in full here. But below are some additional excerpts of our email correspondence with Henry, lightly condensed for space:

FT: What do you know today that you wish you knew when you bought the Red Sox? And where do you think the industry will be in another 20 years? What’s your largest concern going forward?

Henry: I don’t think the sports business could have evolved in any other way. Twenty years ago these were largely “mom and pop” operations. Now just like family offices have evolved and broadened so too have the family-owned and corporate-owned professional sports organisations. These are tough, competitive businesses to run that by and large do not have economics that make sense for owners. There are exceptions obviously . .. . . [but] It’s not the financial losses that pain most owners, it’s losses on the field. 

As frustrated as our fans get from time to time, they are remarkably resilient. If we are not going to win a championship in any given year, we are not going to feel badly about finishing fifth. They will get frustrated, but at some level they know we will be back.  

FT: What do you say to people who want you to sell the Red Sox?

Henry: This has been the case annually since the day we arrived. Same in Liverpool. If you are building for the future you are going to upset fans. We do that virtually every year to greater and lesser degrees and literally every year there are calls from some. But you cannot stand pat. You don’t win championships by resigning every player. Frustration isn’t new or surprising and you have to base acquisitions and dispositions on the future — not the past. That is unpopular generally. It is the same in financial markets — you have to do the right things for the organisation every day no matter the criticism — that is your job. I believe we have done exactly that and continue to do it, but it doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes.  

FT: You rarely speak publicly. To the extent you may feel misunderstood by fans, why might that be? 

Henry: It’s probably been a mistake to say less and less every year, but we have a lot of people [at each team] speaking publicly! I often believe there isn’t that much more to say. I focus every day on the strategic aspects of the club and the league that are not always reflected in day to day.

In my position you have inside information that is accurate, but my experience has been when pushing back on a false report or narrative — journalists and fans don’t really want to hear it or believe it. So . . . whatever I honestly say about these matters will sound defensive.

Athletics’ quiet revolution

We’re witnessing something of a revolution in athletics.

In the space of a few weeks, World Athletics president Seb Coe has unveiled plans to introduce bonuses for Olympic gold medallists and an entirely new biennial competition starting in September 2026.

Track and field athletes should brace for more change. World Athletics is adapting to a new world of athlete power and commercialisation.

Never before have the financial rewards in sport been so great. Sponsors, sovereign wealth and private equity firms are pouring in cash in search of returns and the branding power of global sport.

New challengers, such as four-time Olympic sprint champion Michael Johnson, are starting new leagues.

For incumbents like World Athletics, the only way to survive is to adapt. And quickly. Its new competition — called the Ultimate Championship — will feature a fast-paced format designed to appeal to new audiences, a trend that’s well established in global sport.

Hungary will host the first edition of the event, but Saudi Arabia could well emerge as a contender for future editions.

Unlike the Olympic movement, which heavily restricts sponsors outside of the International Olympic Committee’s partners, World Athletics plans to give greater flexibility to athletes over their commercial activities. This means partnering with athletes to produce different kinds of content and giving them the power to promote their own sponsors.

Coe says the sports federation will pay everybody to participate, in an another break from the way the IOC operates. People close to the IOC stress that athletes benefit from a system that redistributes 90 per cent of its income to national Olympic committees. These international sports federations and hosts then decide how to “best serve their athletes and the global development of their sport”.

Another one to watch is the second edition of Ultimate Championship, scheduled to take place a couple months after the Los Angeles Games in 2028.

All in all, athletics can’t operate in a bubble that ignores the macro changes in sport. Expect more change.

Highlights

• Everton’s main creditor are battling for control as two groups look to buy the club from current owner Farhad Moshiri following the collapse of 777’s takeover, the FT revealed this week.

• Michael Bloomberg has joined a group of investors seeking to buy the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA franchise.

• Michigan Ross School of Business and investment firm Arcto have launched a new index designed to track valuations of US sports franchises.

• Former Olympique Lyonnais owner Jean-Michel Aulas has agreed a deal to buy the team’s indoor arena from John Textor’s Eagle Football, the club’s current owner, for around €160mn.

• Watford Football Club have launched a share sale aimed squarely at fans, with the hope of raising around £17.5mn through digital investment platform Republic. The money will be used, in part, to buy new players.

Final Whistle

Cricket is still trying hard to crack America. But America already appears to have cracked cricket. At the T20 World Cup this week, Team USA stunned former champions Pakistan to score victory at the Grand Prairie Stadium down in Texas. It’s one of the biggest upsets in the history of the sport.

Here are the full highlights from the International Cricket Council, but you can see the key moments at around 4:50m.