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Bryce Jamison of Orange County SC celebrates a goal scored vs. Memphis 901 in the USL Championship, … [+] July 2024.
Will G Macneil
The Irvine, California-based fan-owned soccer club, Orange County SC, has raised around £250,000 ($330,000) following a recent fundraising initiative in the United Kingdom.
Almost 1,500 UK-based fans have registered to become owners, building on the club’s existing group of fan-owners and investors in the United States.
The success of the recent U.K. ownership drive means the club is now likely to run another United States-based ownership campaign where it hopes to build on the existing $600,000 worth of investment there.
Perks for the U.K. investors have included things ranging from having their name on an owner’s wall at the Championship Soccer Stadium in Irvine, to meetings with club presidents and video messages from players at the higher levels of investment.
Orange County SC owners night, 2024
Albert Evangelista
This kind of soccer club ownership offers a way for fans to invest—either through intrigue alone as part of an interest in the sport, or for financial reasons—in the growing, increasingly stable, (or at least less unstable) but still quirky business of American soccer.
U.K. investors will see plenty of differences in how the game operates in the United States in comparison to the setup of the soccer pyramid in the United Kingdom.
Soccer has been played in the U.S. for as long as it has in most countries around the world since the laws of association football dispersed from the U.K. in the late 19th century, but it has developed at a different pace and in a unique manner.
In the 21st century, the sport in the U.S. finally appears to have found a more secure and stable footing at the professional level in both the women’s and the men’s game. Fan ownership models like this could potentially offer further security.
Orange County SC is part of a burgeoning second-tier league, the USL Championship, but unlike in the English football pyramid, there is no promotion or relegation.
The USL is, however, trying to build a model of soccer in America that aligns, at least in some ways, with the rest of the world.
Promotion and relegation between USL leagues has been mooted, and the franchises are given more freedom to create their own individual culture and identity.
Orange County is a team that has crafted such an identity and a way of working, with the ownership model part of that.
On the sporting side, it has aimed to become a club where burgeoning star players can develop their skills. On the back of success in this area, its methods of recruitment and development have been adopted by the league as a whole.
The former president of soccer at Orange County, Oliver Wyss, became the director of football across the USL, helping other clubs identify up-and-coming talent or add quality and depth to their rosters.
One recent example of this is Charleston Battery forward and USL Championship top scorer, Nick Markanich, who developed into one of the league’s star players at the South Carolina club and will join Spanish second-division side CD Castellón at the end of the current USL season.
MT PLEASANT, SOUTH CAROLINA – MAY 21: Nick Markanich #13 of Charleston Battery controls the ball … [+] during the first half of the Round of 16 – 2024 U.S. Open Cup against the Atlanta United at Patriot’s Point Stadium on May 21, 2024 in Mt Pleasant, South Carolina. (Photo by David Jensen/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Getty Images for USSF
Orange County SC president of business relations, Dan Rutstein, has U.K. roots and is familiar with fan ownership models.
Rutstein himself is a fan-owner of AFC Wimbledon via the democratic supporters’ organisation, the Dons Trust, which facilitates supporter-ownership of the London club.
“We are an international-facing club and our story is one of giving players a pathway, a chance to succeed in Europe,” Rutstein recently told U.K. digital newspaper, the Independent.
“We want to show Brits there’s a real team doing things a normal way — [US soccer] is not all about [Lionel] Messi and hype.”
There is plenty of cross-Atlantic interest in football clubs at all levels of the game, with the likes of Wrexham in Wales and Birmingham City in England recently attracting attention via their high-profile American owners Ryan Reynolds and Tom Brady respectively.
Fan-ownership is another element of the game that is attracting interest in the sport, as it offers a direct connection between a club and its fans. Orange County SC continues to pave a way for such a model in soccer in America.
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