May 16th, 2007, 21:52
corrected thank to Fatman I had put United.
The Thai and Aisan fanbase is extraordinarily large and enthisiastic.
TIME Asia
Dallas Stars ice hockey team and baseball's Texas Rangers had agreed to buy Liverpool for $430 million with his partner, George Gillett, the money behind the Montreal Canadiens hockey franchise. The two Americans beat out Dubai International Capital, which had offered $300 million for the club. The takeover is now complete, and Hicks and Gillett are set to move to the next stage of the deal тАФ building a brand-new arena for the 115-year-old team. "Liverpool has a history that's at the very top," says Hicks, who pledges to "make sure we keep a great thing going great."
Right now, in sports, the English Premier League is just about the definition of a great thing. Backed by wealthy investors like Hicks, and tapping into a huge fan base all over the world, Premier League clubs have struck gold. Teams in English football's top flight notched up around $2.5 billion in revenue last season, almost triple the level of a decade ago, making it the world's richest football league by a country mile. New owners are piling in: foreign investors have snapped up four clubs in the past year тАФ Liverpool, Portsmouth, Aston Villa and West Ham United тАФ to add to the three which already had non-British owners. The rush isn't over; in April, Stan Kroenke, owner of the Denver Nuggets basketball team and ice hockey's Colorado Avalanche, increased his stake in Arsenal, of London, to more than 12%. The flood of money is paying dividends; three of the four semifinalists in this year's Champions League are Premier League clubs. With interest swelling among faraway fans in Asia and beyond, backers of the Premier League can look forward to "a much brighter future of growth," says Hicks.
Full article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1614965-1,00.html)
The Thai and Aisan fanbase is extraordinarily large and enthisiastic.
TIME Asia
Dallas Stars ice hockey team and baseball's Texas Rangers had agreed to buy Liverpool for $430 million with his partner, George Gillett, the money behind the Montreal Canadiens hockey franchise. The two Americans beat out Dubai International Capital, which had offered $300 million for the club. The takeover is now complete, and Hicks and Gillett are set to move to the next stage of the deal тАФ building a brand-new arena for the 115-year-old team. "Liverpool has a history that's at the very top," says Hicks, who pledges to "make sure we keep a great thing going great."
Right now, in sports, the English Premier League is just about the definition of a great thing. Backed by wealthy investors like Hicks, and tapping into a huge fan base all over the world, Premier League clubs have struck gold. Teams in English football's top flight notched up around $2.5 billion in revenue last season, almost triple the level of a decade ago, making it the world's richest football league by a country mile. New owners are piling in: foreign investors have snapped up four clubs in the past year тАФ Liverpool, Portsmouth, Aston Villa and West Ham United тАФ to add to the three which already had non-British owners. The rush isn't over; in April, Stan Kroenke, owner of the Denver Nuggets basketball team and ice hockey's Colorado Avalanche, increased his stake in Arsenal, of London, to more than 12%. The flood of money is paying dividends; three of the four semifinalists in this year's Champions League are Premier League clubs. With interest swelling among faraway fans in Asia and beyond, backers of the Premier League can look forward to "a much brighter future of growth," says Hicks.
Full article http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -1,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1614965-1,00.html)