On Tuesday afternoon, DC United made probably one of the biggest announcements in club history. For the first time since 2007, the Black and Red are adding new investors to the club in hopes of boosting financial and spending power for the future. This move has excited club officials as well as fans.
So who are these two new investors who are supposed to give United a permanent home as well as a global brand? Their names are Erick Thohir and Jason Levien. Now I won’t get into the backgrounds of each investor, since those can be found on almost every American soccer website possible at the moment. But I will give you my thoughts and some other useful odds and ends.
Will Chang, the man who has been financing United alone since 2009, has been looking for investors for quite some time. He and the other higher officials knew realistically it was impossible for United to build a stadium without some more help. So when Steven Goff began to stir the rumor pot in March about potential investors, fans began to pay attention. In May, the rumors began to get stronger until ESPN broke the news last Friday morning. Now, its official.
I had the unique chance to meet them in a staff meeting the morning of the press conference, and I came away very impressed. As evident in the press conference, Levien seems to be extremely excited to take on this challenge. He has experience in politics, especially around Washington D.C. So navigating the waves of the political sea in Washington? We have a captain.
Thohir was the more silent one during everything, but the man knows what he’s doing. Not only does he has substantial wealth, he also has many connections in the sports media industry. Last year, he brought the Los Angeles Galaxy over into Indonesia to play the Indonesian National Team. One of Chang’s goals, or dreams as he called it, is to make DC United a global brand. What better way to do it than to bring on a rich, connected, foreign investor with connections in media? Nothing has been announced, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see DC United make a trip to Asia soon.
So let’s recap for a second. Will Chang, who wants to see DC United get a new permanent home and become a global brand, has brought on a guy who knows the city and can help break political barriers and has brought on a guy who can help spread DC United’s name and provide more financial support. This sounds like a winning combination.
So what should fans expect now? Levien was pretty candid about this question at the press conference, but I wouldn’t expect big things for awhile. Not that it couldn’t happen, but United is currently in first place in the Eastern Conference so adding huge transfers probably isn’t on top of the list. The MLS season is also at the halfway point, so anything major might not happen until the offseason. Most of the stuff that happens now will be the small things which will add up to big things later down the road. There will be meetings, connections made, and preliminary agreements forged in the next upcoming months. Talk of having covers put over the unused upper deck at RFK has been talked about for awhile, and now with a little extra funding, we could see it actually happen.
Everything mentioned above is purely speculative. I know about as much as Joe down the road right now. But I will say this, United fans need to be paying attention to the club and upcoming news. We’re lucky to be experiencing what could be a Golden Age for DC United. It will take some time for things to happen, so we need to be patient. But good things are around the corner, I can feel it. The new investors are excited, the front office is excited, the players and coaches are excited, and the fans are excited and right now, there’s no reason to not be.
(image courtesy of DC United)
