Roma and AC Milan will do battle on the field today, but away from the pitch the two American ownerships continue to have similar visions for the future.
La Gazzetta dello Sport talks about the duel today between Dan Friedkin’s Roma (Forbes’ estimated $5.5bn fortune) and Gerry Cardinale’s Milan ($8.6bn pof assets under management through RedBird Capital) who ‘seem like they come from another world’.
Both have roots in the United States and that is why they come at things from a different angle to the usual Italian establishment in Serie A. They approach things ‘from the Third Millennium’, which tries to find a difficult balance between passion and business.
The ‘Friedkin Group’ has 6,000 on its payroll and – after a long negotiation slowed down by Covid – they became the owners of Roma on August 6, 2020. From that day Dan and Ryan – father and son, as well as president and vice president – have released only one interview, in September of that year.
In the end the investments spoke for them. They spent €199m for the purchase of the club, the Texan family (even if Dan was born in California) have paid out around €750m in total since they arrived.
Understandable, given that the latest balance sheet was closed with losses of €219m, which contributed to signing a Settlement Agreement with UEFA necessary to put strict limits until 2026 on signings and sales.
Despite this, on the field there has been success as Roma won the Conference League, while the Primavera and with the Women’s team won the Coppa Italia, Supercoppa and the Scudetto between them.
Cardinale does not differ too much. Tonight, after the ‘Champions League play-off’ at the Olimpico, there will be another game attracting his attention.
Toulouse – who are owned by RedBird and were built on Moneyball, i.e. on the basis of data and algorithms – will play in the Coupe de France final against Nantes.
Meanwhile, ‘Air’ – a film that tells the story of the agreement between Michael Jordan and Nike – is hitting theatres for the 4th weekend in a row and Cardinale is a part of the production team.
This is an example of the RedBird model, Cardinale’s fund that does business spanning sports, media and culture. Since being created in 2014, after more than 20 years of experience at Goldman Sachs, RedBird have diversified its investments between American sports, soccer, broadcasting, technology and cinema and manages 8.5 billion dollars in assets.
Cardinale has big plans for Milan. After taking over the club from Elliott for €1.2bn euros, he wants to multiply its profits by modernising it in every aspect: stadium, merchandising and synergy between football, entertainment and other sports.
Take the bridge built between Milan and the New York Yankees, who have a minority stake in the Rossoneri. Randy Levine, president of the franchise, has joined the Rossoneri board of directors.
Meanwhile the Diavolo and the Yankees sell each other’s merchandising in their respective stadiums and Pioli’s team’s games are broadcast on the YES Network, the sports network born from the collaboration between the Steinbrenner family – owner of the Yankees – and Cardinale.
Profits? What profits? Milan haven’t made a profit in my lifetime I don’t think. Basic maths would suggest “multiplying profits” will result in an even bigger loss, unless it’s multiplied by a negative!