So what if Tom Brady doesn't know the offside rule — he gets business

Times

a day ago

I do not blame Wayne Rooney for feeling the need to hit back after the manner in which he was portrayed in Built in Birmingham: Brady & the Blues, an Amazon Prime series that follows the now well-worn path of taking us behind the scenes at a football club.
We see Rooney, who was Birmingham City manager for two-and-a-half months from October 2023, giving a presentation to the players. He emerges from the portrayal as a manager lacking a bit of oomph, which leads Tom Brady, minority shareholder and the face of the club, to say on camera that he is 'a little worried about our head coach's work ethic' after a visit to the training ground.
Speaking on his new BBC podcast, The Wayne Rooney Show, the former England captain said: 'I don't think he [Brady] really understood football that well.'
Which misses the point entirely. It does not matter if the NFL legend that is Brady can explain the offside rule, what constitutes a high line or why Chelsea fans sing 'We hate Tottenham' at the start of every match at Stamford Bridge. What matters is that he and Tom Wagner, the American businessman with a controlling stake in Birmingham, understand the waste of a valuable resource.
Brady mentions rather often that Birmingham is the second-biggest city in the UK. You can see the disbelief in his eyes. Such a huge city, but the team bearing its name is floundering. Imagine the money to be made from helping it to rise to the summit of the football pyramid. What an asset.
Overall, that is the approach of American investors. No matter how eye-watering, to us, the price tag might be to buy an English club, US business people see undervalued assets. Three years ago a consortium led by Todd Boehly paid £4.25billion for Chelsea. Madness to us, but strategic to the investors. US sports team franchises are not undervalued and cost more partly because they do not suffer the risk of relegation. Americans believe if they can orchestrate stability and growth they are getting a risk-free investment in an otherwise risky environment.
For all we laughed at how Boehly seemed out of his depth, how lacking in football knowledge he was at the start of his ownership, none of that matters much now. Chelsea won the Club World Cup, qualified for the Champions League, have a clear strategy of investing in youth and appear primed for long-term success.
It is not just fans of Manchester United who glower when recalling how the Glazers took over the club in 2005. They could not actually afford to buy this prestigious team, but saw the inherent and future value and so exploited the lack of debt for a leveraged buy-out. There has been anger and angst ever since, but not in the US, where such deals are the fabric of the American Dream. Since the Glazers paved the way, fascination from US investors has intensified. From Liverpool to Ipswich Town, from Arsenal to West Bromwich Albion, American money is at the fore.
The owners are unafraid of big talk. It is as if they take it as read that modesty breeds mediocrity. It is, to a degree, seductive. I can picture Birmingham, newly promoted to the Championship, not just landing in the Premier League but thriving there. According to the Amazon documentary, the locals are more than happy being owned by what the executive producer Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, calls 'proper people with real money'.
And yet there is a queasy aspect to it all. The fans are portrayed as sweet or powerless or passionate or desperate and almost always as quirky. The impression is one of a hamlet where the inhabitants live in houses built on rocks veined with gold, but have no idea of how to mine it. It is inevitably all a tad patronising.
There is a real cultural divide beyond what Brady wants to hear from a manager's team talk. Supporters are cynical but in love, ambitious but afraid of hopes raised then dashed — and then, in ride the Americans, tanned and famous, ready to rip it up and start again, while keen to drool over the history, because history sells back home.
Still, Built In Birmingham is top-notch telly. There is a beautiful episode in which they intersperse footage of Jay Stansfield with that of his father, Adam, a striker with Exeter City who died aged 31, and we see how similar they are in how they run and shoot. There is also a terrific scene in which Wagner and Brady are trying to work out what to put in a goodie bag for their guest, David Beckham. What do you give the man who has everything? A hoodie, a scarf and hat, according to Brady, will give Beckham 'emotional interest in the club'.
Meanwhile, Wagner is planning a 62,000-capacity stadium to house old and new supporters, just like Beckham, in a glitzy sports quarter. Think bigger, build bigger and they will come — and turn you a profit.