Hicks the Huckster: Under the Skin of the Liverpool Owner

‘We won’t own it in five’

Last week, the British press seized upon a single quote from Liverpool’s co-owner, Tom Hicks, and spun it into a narrative of prolonged agony for the club’s supporters. “Hicks says Liverpool sale may take two years,” ran the headlines, crushing hopes of a swift departure for the American duo of Hicks and George Gillett Junior. The quote itself, taken from an interview with America’s Sports Business Journal, was far more ambiguous: “We’ve owned it (Liverpool) three years, we won’t own it in five.” A careful reading of the full article reveals a story far more troubling than one of simple timescale.

Hidden within the profile is the author’s damning summary that Hicks’s exit strategy from all three of his sports franchises, including the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars, “will almost certainly involve selling all three entities over the coming months.” This flatly contradicts the two-year narrative sold to the UK media. It points not to a relaxed timetable but to an urgent need for cash. The article paints a detailed picture of an owner whose business career peaked in 1999, more than seven years before he arrived at Anfield, and has been on a downward trajectory ever since.

A History of Failure

Hicks’s financial troubles are not a recent phenomenon. His company, Hicks Sports Group, defaulted on $525m in bank loans last year. While his PR machine framed this as a strategic move, the reality was starker. Major League Baseball was forced to step in to meet the Texas Rangers’ payroll. An insider from the National Hockey League is quoted as saying, “The feeling in the… League offices is that the problem isn’t the market, its Hicks… he needs to be gone.”

The article traces his downfall to a specific moment: the record signing of baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez in 2000. This followed a lucrative broadcast deal that represented, according to the piece, “the apex of Hicks’ career as an owner.” But the attempt to win a World Series with aggressive spending backfired. The ‘buy-and-build’ model that had brought him success in the soft drinks market could not be applied to sport. A former associate, Jeff Cagen, is quoted explaining the fundamental error: “Baseball and hockey are passionate buys. It’s not a widget.”

Despite these failures, Hicks apparently believes he has “really come to understand the business of sport. I understand it totally.” His friends identify another flaw: a love for the deal itself over the substance of the business. Hicks confirms this chillingly himself: “I’ve been doing high-risk, high-return investment since 1977. It’s all I’ve ever done, so I’m used to having some deals be great and some not work out. I don’t get devastated because, whatever happens, it’s a deal.”

It is the kind of statement that would make Bill Shankly turn in his grave.

The article also contains a truly bizarre assertion that, under Hicks and Gillett, Liverpool has become “one of the English Premier League’s most profitable clubs.” This, coupled with the claim that Liverpool and Manchester United are the league’s greatest potential revenue-producers, suggests a view of English football entirely detached from the reality of the league table this season.

The Stadium Mirage

The entire ownership model was, it appears, flawed from the very beginning. The Sports Business Journal states that “Hicks and Gillett bought Liverpool the same way they did everything, leveraging it with as much debt as they could.” This contradicts the co-owners’ initial claims that they would not ‘do a Glazer’ and pile debt onto the club. The article notes that this approach “extended Hicks’ precarious financial position even further.” A former associate, Michael Cramer, explains the risk succinctly: “Debt is generally good if you’re building a business. But you run into a credit crunch when you can’t get it extended.” And a credit crunch is precisely what Hicks ran into.

The author of the American piece observes with matter-of-fact clarity the inherent problem: “By using debt in the manner of a leveraged buy-out, Hicks’ exit strategy was always going to be to sell them… professional sports teams aren’t likely to generate enough profit to even service such debt, let alone pay it down.” Hicks himself admits, “this was never going to be a dynastic asset,” a line that sits uneasily next to the promise of a “multi-generational family commitment” made in the 2007 offer document to shareholders. For those of a certain age, it is a move reminiscent of European Footballer of the Year Allan Simonsen’s brief spell at second division Charlton.

This flawed model provides the logic for the absurd £800m asking price for the club. The new five-man board, led by Martin Broughton, is apparently tasked with “shepherding (the club) towards the construction of the stadium and a sale to someone willing to include that future revenue in the value.” Hicks wants to be paid now for a stadium he failed to build, convinced that “there are plenty of people out there” willing to pay for its projected future profits. As the interview concludes, Liverpool score a goal on the television in Hicks’s office. “Hick is happy,” the article notes. “He’ll be happier soon enough.”