Stadium+real estate+pro/rel leagues = sustainable club football, says Benevolent Capital’s Johnson

In October the Centreville Bank Stadium in Rhode Island, the home of Rhode Island FC in the second tier USL, was voted the ‘Best New or Renovated Venue’ in the USA.

The 10,500+ capacity stadium in downtown Pawtucket on the banks of the Seekonk River is at the heart of a different club ownership philosophy in US soccer that is proving that you don’t have to be big to be beautiful.

It is a model that shows you don’t have to be a mega MLS franchise in a major city to be sustainable in football’s club eco-system. It is a way of thinking that provides food for thought for clubs in countries worldwide who are outside the big leagues domestically and living on the knife-edge of solvency.

In the US the USL is targeting the country’s first introduction of promotion and relegation within a three-tier league system. It has an application for a division one league license to go with its already successful second and third tier leagues.

 

Taking away the comfort of a closed league system and bringing in sporting jeopardy and the threat of relegation alongside the joy of promotion is for Rhode Island FC’s principal shareholder Brett Johnson the next step for professional US club soccer.

Johnson has quietly built up a stable of club and football-related sports assets and is passionate about all of them, and the process of making them work as an asset class.

As well as his investment in Rhode Island FC, Johnson is part of the US consortium that controls Ipswich Town, he is a minority shareholder in Phoenix Rising, as well an investor in youth soccer group Surf in southern California and having a stake in a wearable sports tech firm.

A Brown University graduate, Johnson was familiar with Rhode Island and its sporting culture. When he saw the demise of minor league baseball team Pawtucket Red Sox he saw a local opportunity and went back to Massachusetts the USL rights to Rhode Island and a plan anchored around the building of a new stadium.

“Right Stadium, right market, right location. We were an expansion club in the market but had a plan,” said Johnson.

It is about having a collection of assets that are driven by the team and stadium.

“You need to own and control the real estate so you can, for example, add a hotel in stadium. It is an asset class,” said Johnson.

Since opening in May, the Centreville Bank stadium has hosted a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup match against an MLS club, an international friendly featuring Nicaragua and Puerto Rico, Women’s Elite Rugby, the 2025 Major League Rugby Championship and the Governor’s Cup football match.

“The stadium and the opportunity it provides was 100% part of the plan,” said Johnson. Football is the core of Johnson’s investments but he is not starry eyed about what he feels are parts of the US soccer investment market that might have reached a value peak.

He points to the difference between an MLS franchise fee and a participation fee in the USL. With MLS franchise fees having risen from $60 million to a rumoured $600 million and NWSL franchises like Angel City and the San Diego Wave changing hands for huge fees, he feels that the “quick and easy money has been made, but the speed of that (financial) growth is probably over”.

On an individual level and with more Americans becoming emotionally involved with the game, he feels “the World Cup next summer will be the turning point for talented athletes to make football their sport of choice.”

Johnson’s immersion in football is baked in five years of working in London where “you have a front row seat to the Premier League and every level of English football”.

On return to the US he took that passion with him and having sold his computer business set up Benevolent Capital in 2005 with his twin brother. It is a private equity business that works across a number of genres but Brett Johnson is focussed on football with varying levels of control and ownership over a number of clubs and commercial real estate in the the US and UK.

Highest profile amongst those investments is Ipswich Town who were relegated from the premier league after a year back in the top flight last season. But the Ipswich story is not about that relegation but where they have built from.

“We started (our investment) when the club was in in league 1, England’s third tier. We won back-to-back promotions. Premier League was too much too soon. For our first Premier League game we had nine starters who were with us in League 1. Now we are back in Championship and I am sanguine about our ability to bounce back in the first year. But we have been structured for the Premier league from the start,” said Johnson.

For him it is about having the building blocks, literally, in place to construct the business of the club.

Johnson was an active investor in Phoenix Rising in the USL Championship who made the play-off final three times before winning the title. That investment was driven by the opportunity of the city’s strong Hispanic base and an ambition to take a football club to new heights.

He has since pared down that investment and ploughed his energy and investment focus into Rhode Island FC with the Centreville Bank Stadium at the centre of the business strategy.

“I know there is a pathway when team, stadium and surrounding real estate come together,” said Johnson.

Such is his conviction in the model that he has set up a consulting partnership to help other USL teams with the same challenges and opportunities he had with Phoenix Rising and Rhode Island FC.

“I am excited helping other USL markets replicate Rhode Island. I have the playbook and scars to show for it,” he said.