Why would one of the richest men in America, a man whose real estate and railroad and oil and telecommunications holdings run into the billions, a man who travels by private jet and owns farmlands that encompass three states, go to see the 1994 World Cup final?
He and his wife got free tickets. Phil Anschutz knows a bargain when he sees one. That is how he built his empire.
“He is enormously respected as a visionary guy who has taken businesses others didn't believe in and made them not only viable but successful,” says MLS Commissioner Don Garber. “He has made his career and his reputation proving others wrong.”
Perhaps that explains why he's been pouring money into soccer, as well as several other industries he considers undervalued, ever since Italian Roberto Baggio drilled that decisive penalty kick over the crossbar to hand the 1994 title to Brazil.
One of Anschutz's companies, Anschutz Entertainment Group, holds operating rights to five of the 10 MLS teams. AEG is building a multisport complex in Southern California that will include a stadium for the Los Angeles Galaxy and a U.S. national team training center. An AEG subsidiary, Envision, is one of the stakeholders in a recently launched marketing agency that will obtain and market rights to soccer properties such as the U.S. English-language TV rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups.
And on and on and on.
“A while ago, he was joking about the two free tickets I got him for the final have cost him $125 million,” said Alan Rothenberg, who was chairman of the 1994 World Cup Organizing Committee and president of U.S. Soccer, of Anschutz, whom he was courting for Rothenberg's pet project, a new pro soccer league. “The price has probably gone up from that. If you add the Carson facility and the guarantee he signed for the new marketing company, he's up over $200 million in both investment and commitment.”
That's a fraction of Anschutz's net worth, the estimates of which depend on the formulae used to compute the number and how the stock markets have performed.
According to Forbes, Anschutz's net worth is one-third of what it was a year ago as the stock price of his vast telecommunications network, Qwest, has plummeted. (Qwest traded at $8.68 a share on March 15, down from a 52-week high of $41.83.)
Yet Anschutz's empire is still worth many billions – Forbes lists him 54th wealthiest person in the world with $5.1 billion – and the Denver resident is pushing forward on projects galore.
JUST ANOTHER BILLIONAIRE. Anschutz doesn't look the part of a billionaire entrepreneur who got his start as a oil wildcatter. He doesn't date starlets, insist on the longest limo, wear baby-blue tuxedos or tangle with paparazzi.
He hasn't granted a media interview in more than 25 years and shuns photographs.
Attendees at the gala dinner in Washington to kick off fund-raising for the national training center were told not to take pictures of him.
It's a fair bet many of them wouldn't have known Anschutz by sight.
He dresses casually in most settings, in jeans and jacket and leather boots. He flies by private jet because of necessity but prefers to drive his own car. He shuns the media yet engages just about everyone else.
Tales of his unassuming appearances are many. He attends an MLS game most weeks of the season as well as events at the Staples Center, which was designed and built by AEG and is home to three major Los Angeles teams, the NBA's Lakers and Clippers and NHL's Kings.
At one Kings game, he was sitting in an empty front-row seat chatting with friends. An usher came up. Anschutz didn't have the proper ticket. The usher asked him to move. He did.
Anschutz is a frequent visitor to the Rapids' offices as well as their games.
When MLS held preseason training for all its teams in South Florida, he found time to check on his teams.
One year, he showed up at Lockhart Stadium while the Galaxy was playing.
Up in the press box, one of the few journalists on hand asked another, “Who's that guy standing near the bench?”
Reply: “Why, I don't know.” A minute later: “Maybe it's the mysterious Phil Anschutz!”
The first journalist snorted.
That's who it was. The players greeted him enthusiastically. He shook hands while talking on his cell phone and then watched the game from behind the bench.
“If you walked into a room with a few people, you couldn't pick him out,” says Rothenberg. “If the image of a billionaire sports entrepreneur is bigger-than-life and loud and boisterous, he's absolutely the opposite.”
After the Galaxy won the U.S. Open Cup final last year at Cal State Fullerton, Anschutz was on the field taking pictures.
He had also been at the semifinal in the same venue to see two of his teams. The Galaxy beat the Fire on a golden goal by Alexi Lalas, who took off in celebration and ran up an embankment behind the net. Anschutz was in his car by the time exhaustion dragged Lalas to a halt.
“He prefers the background,” says one of his employees. “He feels his companies are the story: His players, his coaches, and his business people are the ones getting the notoriety and being out in public. He enjoys the people who are in the sport, both the players on the field and the people in the soccer community.”
Says Rothenberg, “He doesn't like to sit down and talk to the media. He lets other people do that.”
On Anschutz's vast ranch north of Denver, guests can fish in the private lake, ride horses, shoot skeet and play golf on an 18-hole course he built on the property.
Or they can get married there, like Chris Henderson did.
Henderson, who returned to the Rapids during the winter when the Fusion was contracted, visited the ranch during his first tour with the Rapids.
“All of his teams go there,” says Henderson. “Once I saw it, I knew it would be a great place to have our wedding.
“It's not easy to get reservations, and somebody had to be moved. We stayed there that night, and it snowed the day after the wedding. I was really thankful to Phil.”
ISSUES OF CONTROL. MLS executives insist AEG does not have the voting power to arbitrarily dictate league decisions by controlling the board of governors. Some measures can be passed by a simple majority, others require a two-thirds vote, a super-majority.
Garber would not reveal how the voting rights are distributed among the operator-investors but said Anschutz does not hold half of the voting power.
In such a small ownership pool, Anschutz wouldn't need five teams to shanghai the league. Hunt Sports Group or Kraft Soccer Properties also could hold its other partners hostage simply by threatening to pull out.
Indeed, multi-ownership isn't a new issue. Hunt Sports Group has operated two teams – Columbus and Kansas City – since Year 1. (Anschutz owned only Colorado for the first two seasons.) The Krafts operated New England and San Jose in 1999 and 2000 before ditching the Quakes.
“The increased ownership that Phil Anschutz has assumed doesn't provide anything that would provide for competitive imbalance or disproportionate economics,” says Garber. “Phil Anschutz's goal is to support professional soccer in this country and help Major League Soccer grow.”
Former D.C. United president Kevin Payne oversees the five teams as managing director of AEG Soccer. He says day-to-day operations and player decisions are left to the general managers and coaches.
In the case of the MetroStars, whose rights AEG purchased from Metromedia in October, General Manager Nick Sakiewicz and Coach Octavio Zambrano retain their authority.
“Competitively, there is no discussion with AEG about how this team is built,” said Sakiewicz. “That's kind of taboo, we don't really go there.
“And I think that's the same with the other teams. Octavio and I call the shots with this roster, and we live and die by the team's performance.”
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS. Building soccer stadiums to house his teams and stage other events does jibe with Anschutz's aggressive purchases of movie chains and bold investments in entertainment facilities.
He has formed a production company, Crusader Entertainment, and one of the pending projects is a soccer film.
His business dealings aren't borne of benevolence. He has run afoul of conservationists with some of his drilling projects, and Qwest is one of the companies being sued by employees for the administration of its 401(k) retirement plan.
Anschutz, who co-owns the NHL's Kings and has a minority interest in the Lakers, could certainly play at a higher-stakes table than MLS and live a high-powered lifestyle if he wanted.
Instead, he and his wife, Nancy, follow a family approach, as corny as that sounds.
“Phil and Nancy will come into the locker room, and they'll know every player's name,” says Henderson. “They make you feel like part of the family, and the family's gotten bigger since I left Colorado in 1998. It's good to be part of it again.”
When Rothenberg was trying to help put together a group to bring an NFL team to Los Angeles, Anschutz declined.
“He said, 'I'm just another guy in the NFL,'” says Rothenberg. “'I really love soccer, and I think I can make a difference.' And that says it all.”
by Soccer America Senior Editor Ridge Mahoney