Chester Perry wrote: ↑Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:49 pm
A new interview with the new Chairmain in the I newspaper
Alan Pace: ‘I want Burnley to be the UK’s favourite underdog’
INTERVIEWThe Clarets’ new chairman discusses his background on Wall Street, the controversy surrounding ALK Capital’s takeover and why tech has a big part to play in the future at Turf Moor
By Sam Cunningham
February 19, 2021 6:10 pm(Updated 6:15 pm)
In his early twenties, as a young, energetic entrepreneur, Alan Pace discovered a niche way to make money.
He would identify family businesses whose owners did not have an heir apparent – no daughter or son or distant cousins interested in taking it on – and were coming to the end of their working life. They wanted someone who could continue their legacy, perhaps even expand, and Pace would become that person. He would buy into the business, learn from the owner, take it forward.
In late 1980s California, Pace focused on the farming sector, partnering with a trucking company, a produce business, some import-export firms. His investors liked him and believed in him enough to hand him their money, but it soon became apparent that Pace required formal financial training.
So he set sail for Barcelona to take a master’s degree, in what was the start of a journey that, via two decades on Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, major sports equity firms and a financial crisis, would end some 30 years later at a town in Lancashire. In December he was announced as the new chairman of Burnley after his investment group, ALK Capital, purchased a controlling stake in the club.
But back in the 1990s, his first job in finance was at Lehman Brothers, in their London HQ. After a few years he relocated his family to New York and was then asked to get on board with a sport private equity firm. It led to him becoming chief executive and president of Real Salt Lake, headhunted by owner Dave
Checketts, and within two seasons they became MLS champions.
When the financial crisis hit in 2008, Pace was asked to return to banking and spent time at the Federal Reserve – America’s central bank. For the next decade he continued to manage and control multi-billion dollar divisions, until 2019 when he established ALK Capital with the aim of buying a football club.
Before we get to that, though, what is it like being responsible for quite so much money? “What I learned very early on Wall Street is they’re just zeros,” Pace, a dual British -American citizen, says. “My father was an entrepreneur, he would also prepare my tax returns. He’d been an accountant.
“He’d say, ‘Son, it’s only a difference of three or four zeros’. And the reality is – and I think most people on Wall Street would tell you the same thing – once you actually get into it, at first it’s a little overwhelming, the first time you see those kinds of numbers. But it becomes normal; a weird kind of normal. It’s just zeros, and it’s not yours, it’s somebody’s else’s.”
Isn’t that even more pressure? “Depending on what you’re doing, yes, but in my responsibilities, it’s much more like being at a football club. You’re almost a custodian of what you’re dealing with and you’re responsible for not doing any harm.
ALK Capital’s purchase of Burnley has not been free from controversy, and some critics have pointed to the fact that a previously shrewdly-run club, who have invested their returns from several years in the Premier League back into the club, are now saddled with debt. But Pace, 53, insists they are behaving responsibly, and tells i that he is in it for the long haul.
“We looked at a number of clubs around the country. We’d built a model on our side of what we are looking to do, going forward. The simplest thing to think about is we’re looking at building a platform of sports media and entertainment that draws in a tremendous amount of desire to be connected to a club, but not necessarily at that level of what you’re talking about for a Man United or a Chelsea. It draws interest and produces content to fill that interest level.”
Pace has three children under the age of 25 and wants to harness the way they – and young people in general – engage with the world today, mainly online, at Burnley. “If you look at what engagement they have and what drives them, they’d rather see the highlights for five minutes than necessarily watching the whole game.
“If they can see more things regularly, they want to stay connected to things they find interesting. That’s the same reason Snapchat works, Instagram works, the same reason all social media works, because you want to stay connected.
“We’re looking for something to connect to. When you look at something you want to connect to, you’re looking at a couple of different things. What’s the ability to create those connections? But also, how does it operate every day? How much passion and culture is tied to that same thing?”
ALK Capital were looking for a well-run club but with room to grow. “Are you buying a house that’s got holes in the walls and you’re going to have to rebuild the wall? Or are you buying a house that’s already done up, like a Man United or a Man City, and all you get to do is play on the fringes?”
During their search, Pace asked to see how a club was run, the culture, background, what they could potentially do with it. They were not looking for a Manchester City or Liverpool – clubs that are already maximising their potential and left little to play with – but beneath that. “And we found that this club [Burnley] was operated super well. It’s really well disciplined. It’s reinvested the proceeds from their time in the Premier League to things like the academy, rather than things like players, who get injured and end up costing you money.
“I’d love everyone to think of us as Britain’s favourite underdog. You can see how that’s easy to connect to. It’s doesn’t take a lot. We’re small market, we’re outside of Manchester, we’re not big, we’re not sexy, but it’s not hard for somebody to say, look, I don’t know who you are but I can support you when you play my arch-enemy team.”
He adds: “We’ve found that diamond in the rough, sitting here in Burnley, with a great culture and community, a club operating in a way that was fairly unique.”
Pace has experience in sports technology and one way he plans on adding to Burnley is through innovation. They have officially partnered with AiSCOUT, an app through which any young amateur footballer can upload a series of videos showing off their skill that feeds into Burnley’s recruitment team (and other clubs who sign up). It has the potential to revolutionise youth scouting.
“Think of it as crowdfunding talent,” Pace says.
“If I’m trying to build, this is a fairly inexpensive way to leverage the resources that already exist at the club. Those resources are coaching, facilities, the technical side. You’re doing a scouting process remotely. Just like Zoom exploded on the back of Covid, we think AiSCOUT will do the same thing. Clubs can’t send their people out to go do scouting, and there’s way more players out there with way more ambitions than there ever are scouts. So it’s an easy way to compare capabilities and use some of the same intelligence to predict their ability to actually go further.”
Pace understands that winning matches, avoiding relegation, qualifying for Europe, whatever a club’s goals, is the “tremendous pressure that overrides everything” and that AiSCOUT will take five-plus years to create an end product.
“If our goal and long-term thinking is that five-year plan, this technology works beautifully for that. If we can create that culture of using technology and that it’s a safe environment to think about it, then we’ll be able to do other things that may impact game day.
“I can be honest with you: I have a 20-year plan. I break it down into five-year increments and then I’ve got one, three and five for the next five. From being an entrepreneur and businessperson that’s how I’ve always thought about things.”
Another technology on the horizon is Player Lens, a growing global platform which football recruiters can use to search for players and execute transfers. It could potentially cut agents out of the system. “I’m not sure that I really like the agent market very well,” Pace says. “I’m much more comfortable in an electronic exchange, that everyone is transparent and understands. The stock exchange got done with needing to have a broker in the middle a long time ago.”
Like most technological innovation, that would hugely disrupt the agency business. As entrepreneur collides with football, can Burnley disrupt the Premier League?
