MBA kicks British sportsman into US big league

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MBA kicks British sportsman into US big league

A former professional footballer from the UK now promotes soccer in America

by: Jonathan Moules

Jake Edwards soaks up the cool ocean breeze drifting through the window of the president’s office at the United Soccer League headquarters in Tampa, Florida. “It’s another day in paradise,” he coos.

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After returning to live in the US with his American wife in 2012, Mr Edwards was introduced to the new owners of the USL, NuRock Soccer Holdings, which had bought the then struggling league from Nike three years earlier. At the time it had just 11 teams, mainly on the east coast, but Mr Edwards was impressed.

“I was also struck with the opportunity to create a football league structure like in the UK,” he says.

He wrote a strategic plan for the ownership group and they hired him as executive vice-president to focus on growing the business. Less than a year later, he was promoted to the top job.

The USL now consists of 30 professional teams across the country and is three years into a partnership with the nation’s top tier Major League Soccer. One and a half million people came through the turnstiles at USL games last season, a 33 per cent increase on the previous year.

“The sport is booming,” Mr Edwards says. “I look at this as a long-term play.”