Page 140 - OVATION Magazine (Issue 1)

S
L.A. STORY
sometime in the next few days, tom
Penn’s office phone will ring, his iPhone will buzz, or his inbox will ding with another email. It will be a plea from an- other billionaire, actor, athlete, or mogul, lobbying to join Penn’s exclusive club. He will politely decline the request, but it will remind him how fortunate he and his partners are—all 30 of them—to compose what might just be the most coveted part- nership in professional sports: the owner- ship group behind Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles Football Club.
Since playing their inaugural match
in March 2018, LAFC has sold out every game at Banc of California Stadium in Downtown L.A.The club posted the best season ever for an MLS expansion team and started 2019 off in even finer fashion, winning 17 of their first 24 games.Their quick success in the stands and on the field owes much to their flashy new stadium, and to a squad led by Mexican National Team star forward Carlos Vela. But at any given home game, much of LAFC’s star power is upstairs in the owners’ suite, which, as Penn points out with regularity, is currently at full capacity.
Will Ferrell. Magic Johnson. Peter Guber. Mia Hamm and Nomar Garcia- parra.The 31 members of LAFC’s owner- ship group cover a cross-section of sports, entertainment, business, and pop culture. Penn, who worked in the front office for the Portland Trail Blazers before joining ESPN as an analyst, is the quarterback
of the group.With him on the front line of the partnership are managing owners Larry Berg of Apollo Global Management, League of Legends co-creator Brandon Beck, and Ares Management cofound-
er Bennett Rosenthal.The group’s vice chairman,Vietnamese businessman Henry Nguyen, was an initial investor, and one
of the first things he did was to bring in Penn.“I can remember every contact with
“The linchpin came from Peter Guber. . . .
When he said yes, that opened the gate
for the rest of them to follow.” —TOM PENN
146 | OVATION
FALL 2019