How Ted Lasso & Welcome to Wrexham sparked investment boom from American sports stars & made soccer ‘cool’ – with NFL legends Tom Brady & JJ Watt joining NBA icon LeBron James on that bandwagon

Funds continue to flood over the Atlantic, with NBA legend LeBron James among the first to tread that path after acquiring a stake in Premier League giants Liverpool. He has since been joined by NFL greats Tom Brady and JJ Watt, who are now investors in Birmingham and Burnley respectively.

There is the promise of more to come - as Hollywood actors such as Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell follow the trend at Wrexham and Leeds – with popular television programmes and documentaries helping to spread the soccer word and open up a window to the world.

Laurie Pinto, a sports industry dealmaker in the U.S. and UK, has told The Athletic of why such deals appeal to iconic figures from different fields: “What we are talking about here is crossover halo effects. These athletes bring their fanbases, which are primarily American, to the party and they mingle with the fanbases of these 100-plus-year-old football clubs, which, for the big clubs, are global. Everyone’s a winner. But there is more to it than that. These guys know sport, so they’re obviously going to be interested in sports-related investments. The top NBA guys have contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, even the average players are earning tens of millions, and they’ve all got sophisticated financial advisors.

“But buying into U.S. sports franchises is difficult for them. First, there is the high cost, simply because of the scarcity value of American teams and their high valuations. But they also can’t do it while they’re still playing. LeBron can’t invest in the NBA until he finishes his playing career, but there was nothing to stop him from owning a piece of Liverpool. English football also has a very low cost of entry for these guys, so it is a low-risk, medium-reward type of investment. And it looks fun. They have all seen Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham and they fancy some of that themselves. It has taken a while, but soccer has become cool in the U.S. — and it is only getting cooler. This ownership trend is not slowing down any time soon.”

Clubs across the United Kingdom will be happy to throw open their doors to whoever arrives with a chequebook in hand, as ever-increasing costs mean that funds have to be found from somewhere. The interest in documentaries is not about to wane any time soon either, with numerous players and teams exploring options with production companies and streaming services.