In the early days of the rematch of Major League Soccer last summer, Philadelphia Union coach Jim Curtin told his players that he had drafted a special guest for a video conference call.
The Union players were in the league’s bubble at Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Florida, and due to health and safety protocols that restricted large group meetings, they spread to their hotel rooms for the call. A famous figure soon appears on their screens. Kevin Durant, one of the new owners of the team, showed up to give a speech.
While Durant’s speech – a message about what it takes to succeed and become a champion – turned into an unrestricted discussion, the players asked him about his NBA title in Golden State over his decision to join the Connecting nets. free agency and about his then ongoing rehabilitation of Achilles’ tendon surgery.
“It hit our players because they were all injured at certain times – how lonely it can be, and to get you back on top,” Curtin said. ‘The interesting thing is that I have guys from 15 different countries in my group, and everyone was like,’ It was great. ‘ I think Kevin contributed to the team in a bigger way than he realized. ”
When Durant agreed to buy a 10 percent stake in the Union in June – an investment of more than $ 20 million – he joined a growing but select club of basketball stars who gained interest in professional football teams. LeBron James was ahead of the mark when he secured a small stake in English club Liverpool in 2011.
For a short time, Carmelo Anthony owned the Puerto Rico FC of the now-defunct North American Football League, and WNBA star Candace Parker recently bought a piece of Angel City FC, an expansion team in the National Women’s Soccer League.
Durant is not even the only football owner in the locker room of the Nets. He gets daily reminders of the NBA’s rapid cross-pollination with MLS: Steve Nash, the Nets’ coach, is co-owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps; Joe Tsai, the owner of the Nets, has an interest in Los Angeles FC; and James Harden, one of Durant’s teammates, arrived in Brooklyn this season with a share of the Houston Dynamo.
“I’m sure that once we play those guys, James and I will have a nice little bet on it,” Durant said in a telephone interview, adding: “It’s cool to see guys move into our sport and do something else. ‘
The involvement of top basketball players in North American football comes at a time when athletes – especially black athletes – are increasingly using their wealth and their public profiles to promote the traditional dynamics of athlete owners. Keep in mind that the NWSL’s ownership now includes not only Parker, but also Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, tennis stars who understand their influence and take advantage of opportunities to use it out of court.
“I think players now realize that they have the opportunity to not just play for these teams and get paid by these owners,” Parker said. ‘They have the opportunity to actually write the checks. This generation has a different way of thinking. ”
Parker said she has become more serious in recent years about the idea of team ownership as a player for the Los Angeles Sparks. She got to know the owners, she was intrigued by what was happening behind the scenes – and the profound effect of the decisions.
Durant said he had thrown himself into the affairs of the Union. He participates in the weekly conference calls of the owners group. He talked to the coaches about development and training. He presented opinions on everything from sweater design to community outreach. He consulted with the players on issues of social justice, and he participated in a call that led to the team playing a role in the voter registration role last year. And he showed that he wants to think questionable referee decisions, like any other good Union supporter.
After the Union parted ways with two of their best players in the off-season – midfielder Brenden Aaronson now plays in Austria and defender Mark McKenzie leaves for Belgium – Durant could be the team’s most sensational addition in recent years.
Durant was not exactly a football fan who grew up in Prince George’s County, Md., Outside of Washington, DC for his age and 6 feet tall in high school, but he worked most of his time on his springboard. But he would kick the soccer ball around with his friends, and he quickly identified a parallel between the sports.
“I swear one of the things he likes a lot about is that it depends on a bucket,” said Rich Kleiman, Durant’s manager and business partner.
Early in his NBA career, Durant undertook a number of promotional trips to Europe on behalf of Nike, one of its sponsors, and met several other global recruiters from the company. They happened to be football players. Durant’s exposure continued to grow as he joined the Warriors and developed a relationship with Nash, who then worked with the team as a player development consultant. Nash, who has been a co-owner of the Whitecaps since 2008, is an avid soccer player whose brother Martin previously played for the Canadian national team.
“Steve likes football a lot,” Durant said. “We talked about what it’s like to be an owner, and how much travel he makes to stay with the team and how often he goes there.”
Durant recalls a formative experience in 2019, when he saw a news release announcing that Harden had joined the ownership of the Dynamo and the Houston Dash of the NWSL. Said Durant.
For athletes like Durant, Kleiman says, football franchises are a realistic entry point for team ownership. Current players may not acquire interests in NBA or WNBA teams, and the valuations of NFL franchises and top European football clubs could amount to billions, placing significant ownership interests even outside wealthy athletes. (There are, of course, exceptions: James bought a small stake in the Boston Red Sox last month from the same partners that own Liverpool.)
Parker said the driving force behind her involvement with Angel City FC was her 11-year-old daughter, Lailaa. Parker, a two-time winner of the WNBA’s Most Valuable Player Award, has long spoken out about encouraging others to support and invest in women’s sports.
“And my daughter, she’s the most important one who calls me on all my stuff. She was the one who said, “But mom, are you doing this?” Parker said. “So I had her in my brain when I decided, because I think it’s so important for us to not only say it, but also do it.”
Parker said football, not basketball, was her first love. She played until the age of 13, she said. “Until my parents smashed my dreams because I was going to grow tall, and they told me they had never seen any 6-foot soccer players,” she said. “I wanted to be Mia Hamm or Brandi Chastain.”
Durant spoke to another MLS team, DC United, about investing in the team before the negotiations stopped. After The Athletic reported on the talks in October 2019, Jay Sugarman, the majority owner of the Union, held out his hand.
“Such a random timing,” Sugarman said. “We were looking for different voices in our ownership group.”
Two months later, Durant and Kleiman, together with team officials, visited the Union’s training facility. Curtin was a tour guide. “I would be lying if I said I did not hit a few stars,” he said.
Any preconceived notions that Curtin had about Durant’s potential role – that he only wanted to link his fame to the team without actually being involved – resolved as they roamed the building. Durant had questions.
“You could immediately tell Rich and Kevin that they were serious,” Curtin said.
Sugarman said he feels Durant and Curtin are philosophically aligned. In the weight room, Curtin talked about how ‘beach muscles’ are out and what the core strength is. In the cafeteria, he introduced Durant to the team cook and restored the importance of diet for recovery. In the movie room, Curtin mentioned how he likes to keep the sessions as tight as possible, otherwise he runs the chance of losing the players’ attention.
“I feel the same way,” Durant replied.
Curtin also explained how he avoided the locker room because he saw it as the ‘sacred space’ of the players, and how the team put its youth academy and innovation first. Philadelphia experimented with GPS trackers, he told Durant. The team flies drones during training sessions. This is examined in analytics.
“He was interested,” Curtin said. “Not only interested in the game of football, but also in what we do on the field and how we get our players ready.”
By June last year, the deal was official. Durant’s ownership is a marketing partnership with Thirty Five Ventures, the sports, media and entertainment business he co-founded with Kleiman. But it also earned him a championship goal in another sport.
The Union finished with the best record in MLS in the shortened season of last year, but was eliminated in the first round of the play-offs. They and Durant want a better end to this year.
“We just want to keep building,” Durant said. “There is a lot of work to be done.”