LONDON — The very idea of Americans buying English Premier League soccer clubs, once unheard of, if not unthinkable, has become fashionable enough to seem almost mundane.
George Gillett and Tom Hicks' purchase Tuesday of the venerable Liverpool team for $340 million makes it three American purchases in three years, what with Manchester United in 2005, Aston Villa in 2006 and now Liverpool.
The sale of Manchester United to the Glazer family of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers roused such ruckus that "Love United/Hate Glazer" decals still adorn lampposts near the stadium. That sale entailed a heap of debt, and the spite sprouted partly from fears of how that might hamper future player acquisitions, although being in first place through this season has quelled that somewhat.
The sale of the Birmingham-based Aston Villa to Randy Lerner of the NFL's Cleveland Browns proved more tranquil, partly because of fan fatigue with his octogenarian predecessor.
And the sale of Liverpool, the most successful club in the history of England's beyond-beloved game, to the owners of the NHL's Montreal Canadiens (Gillett) and baseball's Texas Rangers and the NHL's Dallas Stars (Hicks)? That wrought a few odd groans about Gillett's early-1990s bankruptcy or Hicks' support of President Bush, but those comments pretty much drowned in the comprehension of globalization's reality.
Globalization's ultimate sports league saw its foreign-ownership total hike to seven, or 11 if you count foreign-company ownership, according to the BBC. The Premier League includes owners from Egypt (Mohamed Fayed, owner of Harrods department store), Iceland and two from Russia. Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire, has spent so profusely on player salaries that it's common parlance to follow "Chelsea" with "They bought their championships." (Two in a row, for the record.)
Clearly, curious billionaires can expect stout challenge for a league deemed the world's most popular in sports and televised in 196 countries with a new overseas TV deal worth $1.225 billion.
For several months, it had seemed apparent that Liverpool would go to the world's fifth-richest person, sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Maktoum of Dubai.
That hit a snag, and today, Americans own three of the 20 top-flight clubs, and while each May three clubs suffer relegation to the second tier, none of these three figures to plummet any year soon.
