AMERICAN OWNERS #2: The glory and the dream — two investors tell all

Adam Webb has just endured St Johnstone (and Cambridge) being relegated — but he still loves it. Calvin Ford's Livingston gave instant joy with their return to the top flight.

Welcome to part II of award-winning sportswriter Stephen McGowan’s investigation series into the impact of American ownership on Scottish clubs.

Yesterday, we heard from Jon Pritchett, who was Tennessee truck tycoon Bill Miller’s advisor when he tried to buy the assets of oldco Rangers in May 2012. Jon wonders if Rangers missed a trick back then.

In part II today, we hear from relegated St Johnstone owner Adam Webb and promoted Livingston owner Calvin Ford on their motivations for getting involved and their plans for the future at their respective clubs.

In tomorrow’s final part, Lachlan Cameron speaks about his at-times challenging tenure at Ayr United, and how we haven’t seen the last of American investment in the Scottish game.

Parts two and three are for paid subscribers.

By Stephen McGowan

St Johnstone owner Adam Webb is an Atlanta-based attorney who started out in British football with a 10% stake in Cambridge United…

For me, football was a product of Covid. Covid occurred, the phone wasn’t ringing and a lot of things were not moving forward. My workload as an attorney was immediately reduced by 30% or whatever it was.

Ultimately, most attorneys finished up having a fairly regular schedule, but for the first few weeks a buddy and I basically pulled up a map of all the League One and League Two clubs in England and researched them the best we could.

I decided that one of my favourite cities in the world was Cambridge. It’s just a beautiful and historic place one hour from London, and Cambridge United was a very different type of League Two club at that time.

A lot of the clubs were in industrial Midlands cities and so, for good or for bad, that was the first approach and it was very warmly received and everything came together. My American colleague Mark Green and I both bought 10% at that time.

There are lower-level teams in every sport in the United States, but they never reach a level where there is passion. They are an oddity where people go, sit down, have a hot dog and show no emotion.

In the lower leagues in the UK, people absolutely are passionate. Both in Scotland and in England, there is great passion. That can be your club, even though it’s a third or fourth-division outfit. That can be the thing that you care most about in the world, sporting-wise, and so, when you put all that together, it was a dream of mine.

We all know that in America the worst teams end up trying to play worse so that they can get better draft picks in the NBA and NFL. You actually have something called ‘tanking’ in America where, not just one team, but several teams are trying to lose at the end of the season. So it’s just horrible for the sport and should never be allowed to happen. That is taken care of by the UK jeopardy.

And once you are an owner — and I’ve just been through two relegations with the old club and the new club — you do see the pain and the loss.