When you spend most of your time writing and talking about bad examples and cautionary tales, you can get a bit… well, negative.
We imagine that British consumer rights expert Martin Lewis finds it hard to believe there are some utility companies that are not trying to fleece everyone, Gordon Ramsay struggles with the idea that anyone else can make a decent beef wellington or Roy Keane will ever accept that today’s players want it as much as he did.
Good football club owners are our blindspot. We know they exist but they get crowded out by all the rubbish ones creating havoc in plain sight. So, when we do get to meet a good one, we should mark the occasion by getting out of the way and letting them speak for themselves.
And that is what we propose to do with this interview with Bill Foley, the 78-year-old businessman who bought AFC Bournemouth in December, adding the Premier League club to a growing stable of sports teams that includes the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League.
Foley spoke to us from his California home on the morning of game five in the Western Conference semi-final between the Golden Knights and the Edmonton Oilers, a game his team would win to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. Since their launch as the NHL’s 31st team in 2017, the Golden Knights have made the play-offs in five of their six seasons, reaching the Stanley Cup finals in their first campaign. No NHL expansion team has ever been so successful, so quickly.
Bournemouth lost at Crystal Palace on Saturday but their mission — avoid relegation — has already been accomplished, a feat few thought was possible when the newly promoted team got thumped 9-0 by Liverpool in August. That is not an experience Foley intends to go through and he will be setting his team loftier goals than survival in the seasons to come.
Before we let him speak for himself, we should make it clear that when we say he is a “good owner”, we obviously do not know how his ownership of Bournemouth will pan out; British football’s history is packed with owners who made good first impressions only to leave to a chorus of boos, and that could easily be Foley’s fate.
But he has already achieved more than many by not promising too much and actually delivering tangible improvements. He has put his money where his mouth is and has made himself available to fans and the media. And, most of all, he has a plan that has already worked somewhere else.
Bournemouth fans, meet the newish custodian of your club. Golden Knights fans, here is the boss’ latest venture…
The Athletic: We know you have plans to make every game at Bournemouth feel like a real, stand-alone event, and we’re told that is what you have achieved with the Golden Knights. To those who haven’t ticked it off their bucket list yet, what is a Vegas Golden Knights game like?
Foley: Well, Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world and, when we got the team, our business plan was to be competitive with all the shows on the Strip. So, we have a big pre-game in the Plaza and then our Drumbots (the official drumline of the Golden Knights) march in with our cheerleaders and lead the fans into the game. It’s a big show.
And we love doing skits. We have our own production company and we try to do a new skit every month. At the start of the season, I was in one based on the scene in Dumb and Dumber where the killer is sat between them in the truck and they’re playing “it”. So, it was me and (Golden Knights players) William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault. We also have a pre-game show where our knight fights the other teams’ mascots. So, we have a pretty big entertainment and video department and we put a lot of money into it.
Look, it will never be that at Bournemouth but we are buying some really big LED screens that we can show videos on and we’re starting every game with “Hey Jude”. We’re doing all kinds of little things. In the NHL, we have rally towels — they’re little towels that might say Golden Knights or have our logo on them. So, we put a “Red Army” rally towel on every seat and, at first, people didn’t really know what to do with them but then some of them got it and started waving them around. We weren’t sure how that would go down but it was OK.
The Athletic: Why “Hey Jude”? Is it just your favourite Beatles song?
Foley: Yeah, I like it but (president of business operations) Jim Frevola came up with the idea. And the fans seem to love it.
The Athletic: And everyone knows the words! But getting back to what you can do at Bournemouth, when you bought the club there were some over here who said “he does know about the stadium, doesn’t he?” You did, of course, but what is the plan?
Foley: Obviously, it is inadequate. It’s too small and we don’t have the right hospitality assets. We have 13 or 14 suites but we need 30, maybe 33. We can sell them — our pre-game meals and bars are packed.
We really have two choices. We still have five years on our lease at the stadium. The South Stand is a temporary stand, so if we wanted to renovate the stadium we could tear that down and put about 5,000 seats down there with a two-tier deck and have it wrap around and join the Main Stand. The trouble is, you would then need to build a second deck there and almost push it over the Main Stand, and we’d still be stuck with the concourses and inadequate hospitality.
So, the best approach is to try to build a new stadium and to do it economically, spend £80-90million ($99.6m-$112.1m), with the right hospitality and about 20,000 seats. We don’t need much more than that but we do need to open up our ticketing to new fans. They’ve been using a points system until now — you get a point for attending a game — but that just means everyone in the stadium looks like me: old, white guys. We want younger people. The tickets aren’t that expensive but to widen our fanbase we need to expand. We’re very intent on accomplishing that mission.
The Athletic: Sounds expensive…
Foley: No, we could get some pre-payments on suites, we could get some PSLs (personal seat licenses, or debentures, as they are known in the UK) in certain areas of the stadium to raise some financing. We’ve actually got a separate group that is interested in being a partner in the stadium. We don’t think the money is going to be the problem; it’s more a matter of timing.
But, in the meantime, the stadium was old and decrepit, so we’ve wrapped it with AFC Bournemouth slogans and logos, and we’ve painted it, inside and out. We’ve now got approval to do a good-sized food and beverage opportunity outside the South Stand. That will enable us to move some of the things that happen in the Main Stand that take up a lot of space and aren’t as profitable as they should be, and then we can use that space for more high-end hospitality. There’s a big demand for that.
We want to get some real pre-game activity going outside and we’re making a lot of progress. I’m proud of the work the guys have been doing, Jim Frevola and his team. He was my chief sponsorship officer at the Golden Knights and then he went to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He’s running the business side of the operation. He hasn’t gotten rid of people, he’s just brought some new ones in and moved others. They were understaffed before and maybe lacked some experience. Two of our big sponsors — great partners — weren’t paying enough money, so Jim told them “You’re going to have to pay double from next season”, and they have renewed.
The Athletic: It was that easy?
Foley: Their contracts were about to expire and we said we wanted to renew you but it’s not for £700,000, it’s £1.5million, and it’s not for £400,000, it’s £800,000. I don’t want to name them but they are key sponsors.
We have the worldwide rights to AFC Bournemouth. At the Golden Knights, I have an 80-mile radius where I have complete control. In Bournemouth, I have the world. If we have £12-13million in sponsorships today, why don’t we have £80m? Then we’ll have real revenue coming in to reinvest. For me, it’s a pretty easy fix. Obviously, it’s going to take time: we’re not going to go from £13million to £80m overnight, but we can do it. We’ve got an international operation up and running in Vegas and Bournemouth, and Jim has opened a sponsorship office in London — that’s where the companies are.
I’m happy with where we’re going but the reality is we need a new stadium. Our other gating issue is that our current training ground is where the stadium will go. That means we need to get our new training facility built and move our first team, academy and women’s team there. It’s north of Bournemouth (at the former Canford Magna Golf Club). We have the space, we have 57 acres, and we’ve built one pitch. We’re building the indoor pitch right now and we’re just about to start the training facility. It should be ready in the fall of 2024.
That will mean we can move our business operations to where the training facility is now (in Kings Park, next door to the Vitality Stadium) so we can work on our stadium plan and have more room for hospitality at the stadium. Our offices are taking up space that we should be selling. We’ve got a whole plan for expanding our restaurants and bars. We want people to come an hour or two before the game, and stay an hour or two afterwards. But we have to make it easier. And if some of them don’t want to drink a better glass of wine or beer, that’s fine, they can drink a less expensive one. We’re going to give fans options. And we’re seeing the results already. We’re trying to do something every week but the big changes will come over the summer.
The Athletic: There’s a lot going on. Are you worried it could be too much, too soon? British football fans can be quite conservative.
Foley: We’re not afraid of change. We want to make things better. I want this team to play in Europe. Our ultimate goal is not to worry about avoiding relegation but to move way up the table. To do that, we’ve got to improve our team, improve our facilities, our infrastructure. We have to be a place where players want to go, where agents will say this is a place you want to go. Not a stepping stone but a destination.
I know we can do it because I did it with the Golden Knights. We were an expansion team and we had our expansion draft but when we tried to get some free agents, none of them wanted to come. Their agents said, ‘You’re just going to lose, we don’t know about your facilities’ and so on. So we invested quite a bit of money in first-class training facilities and a first-class arena. And we started doing things for players that other teams weren’t doing. We showed them we’d take care of them. Now we’re a destination. If you talk to players, they want to come to Vegas. It’s a competitive advantage. That’s why I went for Bournemouth. I am completely confident we can do it.
The Athletic: The fans are going to love hearing that but, getting back to the stadium, it sounds like you have a lot of freedom to make changes at the Vitality Stadium. It begs the question: why didn’t your predecessor Maxim Demin do it?
Foley: I don’t think he was as focused on the gameday experience as I am. When I go to the games, I try to sign every autograph and stop for every picture. I want the fans to think I’m just another guy. I happen to be fortunate enough to own the team but I’m one of them. The previous ownership focused on bringing players in but not the fans’ experience or making the place a destination. I’m just using the Golden Knights as my playbook, frankly. We built our team here from scratch.
I was talking to Loic Fery (co-owner of French side Lorient, where Foley has a minority stake) today about what we want to do, and he definitely got it. That’s another very good opportunity we have. We have a path to majority ownership and, as of June, we’ll have about 40 per cent of the team. It’s a place where we can put players and buy players. The multi-club model is the second part of the story. If I’m going to acquire players, why don’t I acquire them from myself? It’s a lot less expensive. The only downside is if you have two or three really good teams, only one can play in Europe.
The Athletic: We’re glad you brought that up because we wanted to ask you about what we thought was admirable but slightly unusual honesty in this business, as you have made it clear Bournemouth is the flagship in your multi-club fleet…
Foley: It is.
The Athletic: Most owners of several clubs don’t say that out loud because no European fan wants their team to be a farm team. Do you regret it?
Foley: I’m just being honest. Many players in Ligue 1 want to move to the Premier League, and we want to give them that opportunity. We want Lorient to be very good and if they can play in Europe, we would want them to do that. We don’t want Loic to sell all of his best players. We want him to have the opportunity of reaching Europe. But if a player wants to move on, I don’t want him to move to Liverpool or Arsenal — I want him to move to us.
The Athletic: Quite right, too, but to return to the new stadium, you made it sound very straightforward. Unfortunately, building stadiums rarely goes smoothly in the UK. Are you completely confident you can do this on time and on budget?
Foley: I am. We’ve established the budget, we have our plan. We’re going to three different firms to develop the design, based on our budget. We have to stick to it. I can’t afford to spend £120-150million on something that won’t return value. We’ll have a functional stadium, with the right hospitality assets. That’s where the ticket sales and food and beverage sales are — it’s the piece of the puzzle we need.
We’ve been in touch with the local authorities. The land is available. We’ve got to move a running track, which isn’t that big of a deal. The actual stadium will go where our training pitches are. The only thing that gives me pause is if we could somehow rehabilitate the current stadium by adding 8,500 seats and make it work; it would be easier because I could do it in stages and wouldn’t need to spend so much right away. I’d start with the South Stand next year. I’m just not sure how doable it is. There is a plan but I’m not sure if it will give us the extra suites we need.
The Athletic: Would the current landlords (London-based property group Structadene, who bought the stadium when the club was desperate for money in 2005) give you a reasonable price for it?
Foley: We have an advantage because it can only be a stadium and we only have five years on our lease.
The Athletic: That’s because there is a sporting-use covenant on the land?
Foley: Right. So, the clock is ticking. We know they’ll sell us the stadium at a reasonable price and that price gets more reasonable the longer we wait. If we move out, I guess they could go back to the council and say “We’ll tear it down and build affordable housing”, which is fine but that could take a while, so time is on our side.
But I wrestle with this with Jim and Neil (Blake, the club’s CEO): can we improve the stadium or do we have to build a new one, with all the procedural headaches that might come with that? We built the Dollar Loan Center (home of the Golden Knights’ farm team the Silver Knights and Foley’s Indoor Football League team the Knight Hawks) in Henderson with the cooperation of the city last year and that went smoothly, but it’s tougher everywhere now.
The Athletic: So why risk spoiling a good thing in Las Vegas with English football?
Foley: Because it’s the greatest sport in the world and the Premier League is the best league. I’ve been fooling about with football for three years, looking at opportunities in other leagues. But it’s like when I decided to expand my wine business. I looked at South Africa, Argentina, Chile, France, Spain, Italy, and I settled on New Zealand because you have the rule of law, English speaking, varietals I like, and a stable currency. Football for me came down to the UK and the Premier League. I had opportunities to be a minority owner in a number of other teams but, as you can probably tell, I’m not a good minority owner.
The Athletic: Ha! Well, we are aware of some of those opportunities but, looking from the outside, it looks like you made a good call.
Foley: I’m very happy. I know we can improve the team. We need to be embedded in the community and vice-versa. I know some of the guys on the team don’t like talking to the press but (I say), “The press will write what it’s going to write but, if you talk to them, they’re more likely to tell your story”. I’ve used the same philosophy at the Golden Knights. I’m going to be honest and transparent.
The Athletic: And long may it continue. But on your choice to invest here, English football appears to be very popular in the US. Should we worry that it’s just a flash in the pan and next year something else will be fashionable?
Foley: No, it’s the real deal. Americans love it. We’re developing local fan clubs for Bournemouth. People are getting up early to watch games in bars at 7am on the West Coast. The Premier League is very understandable to Americans. There’s always been a close relationship between the US and the UK. MLS has started to get out of its own way a bit and has gained acceptability in the US. It’s still only the eighth or so best league in the world but the stadiums are filling up and people are more engaged with it. But Americans love the Premier League. It’s the best football in the world. I hope I’m not going to irritate my Italian and Spanish friends, but it just is.
The Athletic: That will certainly help to win us over, Bill. But, as a final thought, do you acknowledge that sometimes, some of your compatriots have come to the Premier League and perhaps behaved as though they know it all, and maybe not listened very much? We hasten to add that Brits have been doing the same for centuries.
Foley: Ha! Well, that can be an American trait and I know quite a few of the other owners and some of them definitely do think they know it all. But there are exceptions.
The Athletic: But, clearly, we do have some things to learn from what you have created at the Golden Knights, right?
Foley: Well, thank you. I’m going to do a little bit of it at Bournemouth but we don’t want to scrap established traditions. We want to make improvements and be a bit different, but I’m very cognisant of the history of Bournemouth and the Premier League. We’re not going to be ugly Americans that come in and change this and change that because we think we know it all. We know we don’t, and we can learn a lot from you.
