Brett Johnson rejects the premise that he is “building a soccer empire.”
A New England fan blog wrote those words about him last year, after Johnson - co-owner of Rhode Island FC, who also has a significant stake in Ipswich Town - announced that his USL Championship club would soon have a brand new stadium.
The New York native was flattered. But he won’t claim that level of praise.
“I wouldn't describe it that way, but do I take offense if someone else uses that vernacular? No,” he tells GOAL.
Still, he is about as close as these things come in the United States' local soccer scene. Johnson isn’t your typical soccer owner. He is not the head of a massive sovereign wealth fund looking to invest in football, nor is he a know-nothing who sees sport as capital, and assets to be sold. Instead, he is part of a rising class of ownership in American lower level soccer - wealthy, but not otherworldly so, savvy but not necessarily here to use soccer as a means to build out a portfolio.
Instead, Johnson wants to grow the game in the closest thing to grassroots the country can offer. And while Major League Soccer has its benefits - stability, a growing brand, Lionel Messi - Johnson has taken what might be the riskier, yet far more interesting route. And as soccer evolves in this U.S., he hopes that his way of looking at the game - one that subscribes to traditional promotion-relegation and embraces a certain football romanticism - will proliferate into something immensely captivating.
“I think there's something exciting about local soccer. I think USL is really cornering the market in terms of authenticity,” he said.
