By Clemente Lisi - NEW YORK, NY (Jan 27, 2011) US Soccer Players -- As far as team owners go, Philip Anschutz doesn’t want to be a household name. He doesn’t hold news conferences, is rarely seen in public, and as a result has been able to maintain an aura of privacy despite being at the helm of a vast sports and entertainment empire.
A man who doesn’t seek attention, Anschutz is the main reasons why Major League Soccer has been able to stay afloat all these years. As owner of the Los Angeles Galaxy, he bankrolled the construction of The Home Depot Center, just a short drive from downtown LA. Anschutz Entertainment Group’s holdings across multiple sports, not to mention arenas, are vast.
The 71-year-old became interested in the game after he attended the 1994 World Cup final at the Rose Bowl. Since then, Anschutz has pumped millions into MLS, culminating with AEG spending $150 million to build the 27,000-seat Home Depot Center in 2003.
Anschutz has built his reputation as a risk taker. He is ranked the 123rd richest person on the planet last year, according to Forbes magazine, with a net worth of $7 billion. In businesses ranging from oil to telecommunications, Anschutz has bucked conventional wisdom. His gamble on American professional soccer has allowed the League to grow. Anschutz has been so vital that the trophy MLS presents to its champion each year bears his name.
So important has Anschutz’s contribution been that US Soccer President Sunil Gulati said last year that the billionaire “played a key role in the development of soccer in this country over the last 15 years.”
Despite staying out of limelight, some in the American soccer community have no qualms singing Anschutz’s praises. Like Lamar Hunt before him, Anschutz decided soccer was a viable investment.
The Kansas-born Anschutz, through a spokesman, declined a request to be interviewed. Anschutz has refused all interviews since 1974 and has only spoken publicly a few times.
“I have had little interaction with Mr. Anschutz over the years as he is not a person who likes to be out front and in the mainstream,” said former National Team defender Jeff Agoos, who currently serves as the scouting director for the New York Red Bulls. “On the rare occasions I have interacted with Mr. Anschutz, I have found him to be intelligent, humble and very open about discussing issues that concern the League. Mr. Anschutz strikes me as someone who knows what he wants and can work within different crowds of people to realize those visions.”
Anschutz - nicknamed “Uncle Phil” by those in soccer circles for being its biggest benefactor - has spent his entire life gambling on new ventures. As an eight-year-old, he started a successful chain of lemonade stands only to be closed down because he didn’t have a permit. He got involved in the family business, but by 1967 he was broke after sinking his cash drilling mostly dry wells. When oil was found in one well, it blew out and caught fire. With no money to hire a crew to douse the raging inferno, he called Universal Pictures, which was working on a film about oilfield firefighter Red Adair. For $100,000, enough cash needed to extinguish the flames, Anschutz sold the rights to film the operation for a movie.
In 1980, Amoco found a billion-barrel oilfield that extended onto a ranch Anschutz owned on the Utah-Wyoming border. He sold it for $500 million and used the money to buy a railroad company. Throughout the 1980s, Anschutz got contracts from MCI to lay fiber optic cables along his railroads tracks. Anschutz decided to lay extra cables and almost by accident founded Qwest Communications. By 1997, his net worth had skyrocketed to $15 billion.
With success in his more traditional businesses, Anschutz turned to sports and entertainment. He pushed MLS for soccer-specific stadiums - prophetically believing they would lead to long-term profitability - and expanded upon Hunt’s concept after he’d built Columbus Crew Stadium. The move was a solid investment, moving the Galaxy out of the spacious Rose Bowl (where fans did not buy season tickets) and into a smaller facility where there would be fewer seats. After the Home Depot Center opened, it enabled the Galaxy to become the first profitable team in League history.
In 1996, Anschutz became the investor/operator of the Colorado Rapids and at one point his vast empire held ownership in the Chicago Fire, San Jose Earthquakes, NY/NJ MetroStars and DC United, saving the League during those turbulent years. For his efforts, Anschutz was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2006. A year later, AEG lobbied the League to institute the Designated Player rule. That move allowed the Galaxy to sign David Beckham, giving MLS a lot of buzz and helping usher the arrival of other big name European players.
Beau Dure, author of Long-Range Goals: The Success Story of Major League Soccer, said Anschutz was the only reason why the League was able to remain viable because “no one else was stepping up.”
Another thing is for sure: Anschutz plays to win. Dure said Anschutz has been able to combine his love of sports with making money.
“From what I've heard, he’s a (soccer) fan,” he said. “But he also has sound strategies for making money on his investments. He has his hands in stadiums and so many parts of the sports and entertainment businesses worldwide.”
For Agoos, it’s simple.
“Without Philip Anschutz, there would be no professional soccer in the US,” he said. “There would be no roles models for kids to aspire too. The sport would continue but, without Mr. Anschutz’s vision, the landscape would be completely different from where it is now.”
Clemente Lisi is a New York-based writer. Contact him at: CAL4477@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ClementeLisi
