Inside Liverpool's true stance on 'crazy' £2bn plan, John Henry and Tom Werner have 'already exposed' it

The soul of Liverpool Football Club will always be in L4, Anfield Road, but owners Fenway Sports Group also know they are sitting on a global entertainment brand.

Liverpool have always been one of the grandest clubs in the planet’s biggest sport, so the mission to extract commercial income from overseas markets – particularly the United States and East Asia – isn’t exactly novel.

However – from Paris down to Turkey and beyond – technology has made the world a far smaller place.

Through linear TV, the Premier League is aired in 188 countries and will generate over £12bn in revenue for clubs over the current four-year cycle. In 1992-93, the Premier League’s first season, Liverpool earned £3m in broadcast income. In 2024-25? The figure will be close to £275m. Even since FSG bought the club in 2010, TV revenue has boomed by about 350 per cent.

Liverpool media income chart Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media

Under the model favoured by John Henry, Tom Werner, Mike Gordon and the rest of Fenway’s top brass, every penny has been reinvested in the team.

So when Liverpool broke the British transfer record to bring Florian Wirtz to Merseyside this summer, much of the cash was siphoned from Sky Sports.

Technology is supercharging Liverpool’s commercial income

As with every other strata of Western society meanwhile, social media has been transformative for football too. FSG boasted about their 1.7bn engagements across all platforms in 2024-25, for example. That enhances value for sponsors, fuels brand growth, and creates countless other monetisable touchpoints.

And soon, a revolution in how we consume football will arrive. Liverpool CEO Billy Hogan thinks so, anyway. He told Bloomberg earlier this year that, within the next 10 years, the Premier League “will shift from what was previously linear [TV model] to now more of a streaming concept.”

When these over-the-top internet services eventually take over, they will create more targeted advertising opportunities tailored to specific geographies and demographics, as well as simply more eyeballs on the ‘product’.

“It gives you the ability to deal with complexity directly,” says Hugo Hensley, head of sports services at Brand Finance, says in exclusive conversation with TBR Football. “Instead of a brand getting exposure in the Middle East and Africa where they don’t operate, a sponsor can target more effectively and efficiently. That brings almost a partner for every opportunity.”

Others in football finance evangelise about the potential of immersive or shared reality technologies, though just as many experts are sceptical about their ability to better monetise Liverpool’s global fanbase.

“We’ve seen gimmicky things fall by the wayside,” Hensley argues. “Closer engagement is winning out. Things like 3D, virtual reality won’t go to the masses.

“Behind-the-scenes footage from training grounds, ref cam, handheld camera operators running onto the pitch for celebrations… These things have a very low barrier to engage as a fan, but make you feel like you know the personalities more. That brings more complex engagement than gimmicks.”

Liverpool have dabbled with NFTs too, though they have steered clear of cryptocurrency. It’s revenue they can afford to leave on the table given that their annual commercial income was £308m in 2023-24, will be somewhere close to £350m once the 2024-25 accounts are released, and – thanks to the new record-breaking Adidas deal – could potentially hit £400m before the end of 2025-26.

Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images

But for all that modern technology has done to unlock new revenue streams across the globe, a studs-on-the-ground presence in lucrative commercial markets is still the golden ticket.

Liverpool visited Japan and Hong Kong for pre-season this summer. Last time around, it was America.

These tours have become de rigueur for Premier League clubs. Liverpool can net £10m in fees while simultaneously nurturing their overseas supporters and progressing more of their target market through the follower → fan → fanatic pipeline that football’s commercial class prizes so much.

Depending on who you ask, they are either a necessary evil to fund lavish transfers or a rare chance to see your icons in the flesh. But many of football’s moneymen want to take it several steps further…

Tom Werner’s idea for Liverpool to play matches outside Europe is alive and kicking

It’s one of the greatest sports business success stories – the Premier League now generates more money from the international market than it does through its UK broadcast rights.

The US TV rights alone, owned by NBC until 2028, are worth £2bn over their cycle. The interest in European football in the world’s commercial mecca has got some club owners thinking big.

La Liga are forging ahead with plans for Barcelona’s meeting with Villarreal in December to be played in Miami. The Spanish FA have given their assent, while FIFA are expected to do the same. There has been pushback from various stakeholders in Spanish football, yes, but this really is a case of when, not if.

Incidentally, FSG could soon have a direct interest in La Liga’s plans given that the Boston-based regime have their sights set on acquiring a Spanish club.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Discussions have regularly taken place about the possibility of Liverpool and their peers playing real, competitive Premier League matches in the United States too. Rightsholders NBC have said they want it to happen too. And soon.

While Premier League CEO Richard Masters last week claimed matches overseas are “not anywhere near my in-tray”, he has also previously said the “door looks ajar” to take the likes of Liverpool outside the UK in the regular season.

“FIFA have thrown in the towel when it comes to the sanctity of domestic matches,” says Liverpool University football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to TBR Football.

“We have seen this move from both La Liga and Serie A.”

Spanish football’s Super Cup has been staged in Riyadh for years, while the Italian FA have also moved their equivalent competition to Saudi Arabia for the last two years.

Speaking in 2024, Liverpool chairman and FSG shareholder Werner has already said that he is: “Determined one day to have a Premier League game be played in New York City.“

While a handful of American club owners have distanced themselves from the idea, the feeling within the industry is that the number of US owners in the Premier League has reached critical mass and a game in the States is now inevitable.

Premier League ownership diagram Credit: Adam Williams/TBR Football/GRV Media

Werner continued: “I even have the sort of crazy idea that there would be a day where we play one game in Tokyo, one game a few hours later in Los Angeles, one game a few hours later in Rio, one game a few hours later in Riyadh and make it sort of a day where football, where the Premier League, is celebrated.”

Henry, talking to the same reporter, said: “It’s not something I advocate or am particularly interested in.”

Meanwhile, the Champions League recently swapped long-time marketing agency TEAM Marketing in favour of Relevant Sports in a move widely seen as heralding a move to take European matches across the Atlantic. Brian Oliver, a former employee of FSG co-owned PGA Tour, was also named Relevant Football’s chief commercial officer in May.

“I don’t think it was a mask-slipping moment,” Maguire tells TBR Football, discussing Werner’s previous comments. “I think FSG are too smart for that. They were dipping their toe in the water.

“They have already exposed it. They knew what they expected the reaction to be, but they wanted to put it in the public domain and claim it was a misconception. It was classic good cop, bad cop.

“They messed up with the European Super League so they are now uber-sensitive to any pronouncements in terms of changes to the traditional way that football is consumed in this country.

Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images

One of Maguire’s theories is that the Premier League will point to the likes of La Liga and Serie A moving matches abroad and argue that they must do the same to keep up commercially.

“There will not be first-mover advantage for the Premier League moving matches abroad,” he told TBR Football.

“Richard Masters said it ‘wasn’t in his in-tray’, which I think was very well crafted wording. That’s not the same as not ruling it out.”

A game in the US, Saudi Arabia, Japan or anywhere else in the world might be a little while off yet, but FSG have their own plans to fortify their global influence.

Liverpool are their only venture so far into European football. But, as aforementioned, they want to take over a Spanish club. Recently, they returned to the negotiating table to buy Getafe. They have also looked at Bordeaux, though that deal collapsed. Levante and Elche are also under consideration.

Interestingly, TBR Football has consistently been told by brokers and individuals well-connected with FSG that the American ownership group is looking at the multi-club space through a commercial lens, not necessarily with a view to creating a feeder club as has become routine for Premier League sides with aspirations to buy another team.

Club Shareholder Other clubs owned Arsenal Stan Kroenke / Kroenke Sports & Entertainment Colorado Rapids Aston Villa V Sports Vitória S.C. Bournemouth Black Knight Football & Entertainment FC Lorient, Auckland FC, Hibernian FC Brighton & Hove Albion Tony Bloom Royale Union Saint-Gilloise Brentford Best Intentions Analytics Mérida AD Chelsea BlueCo (Todd Boehly & Clearlake Capital) RC Strasbourg Crystal Palace Eagle Football Holdings (John Textor) Olympique Lyonnais, Botafogo, RWD Molenbeek, FC Florida Everton Friedkin Group AS Roma, AS Cannes Leicester City King Power Group OH Leuven Manchester City City Football Group New York City FC, Melbourne City, Girona FC, Yokohama F. Marinos, Mumbai City FC, Montevideo City Torque, Lommel SK, Troyes AC, Palermo FC, EC Bahia Manchester United INEOS (Sir Jim Ratcliffe) OGC Nice, FC Lausanne-Sport, RC Abidjan Newcastle United Public Investment Fund (Saudi Arabia) Al-Nassr, Al-Hilal, Al-Ahli, Al-Ittihad Nottingham Forest Evangelos Marinakis Olympiacos, Rio Ave Southampton Sport Republic Göztepe S.K., Valenciennes FC West Ham United Daniel Křetínský Sparta Prague

Fenway have also been linked in the past with an MLS franchise, though that is understood to be unlikely in the near term.

As reported by TBR Football earlier this summer, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund were at one stage encouraging Liverpool’s owners to invest in a Pro League club during talks over Alexander Isak. Again, however, that is not on the cards at this stage.

One thing is certain, however: FSG’s investment in Liverpool is an investment in the global game, and their ambition is to propel the club even further onto the world stage.

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