Selling Soccer to America, the World Cup Years!

There’s an old and well worn saying in US sports: Question: “How do you make a million dollars in American Soccer ?”…. Answer: “Start with $ 10m” — ominous and scary but unfortunately pretty true. The American soccer landscape is littered with the bodies of entrepreneurs, investors, passionate hobbyists and serious business minds who had failed to make a dime in the sport. People who had given their all, formed leagues, staged exhibition matches and pounded the corporate corridors, but to a man failed and often spectacularly so. How then was a British Sports Agency, with no background in soccer, led by an ex-Kodak marketing executive who knew even less, to succeed where all else had failed? The answer at the end of the day was a pretty simple one that gave SUSAP a clear advantage over all those that had come before it: it was the advantage of being able to treat the business of soccer as just that, a business. SUSAP was not interested in trying to get more kids to play the game, not interested in preparing and developing players to win matches or creating coaching curricula. These things were someone else’s responsibility and purview. Edward Leask, the Financial Director and part owner of the Agency, had little interest in soccer as a sport and despite living in England, he could probably not name one England National Team player, let alone an American one.