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Ex Disney CEO Eisner Finally Buys the Hollywood Soccer Playbook

Long before Hollywood actors transformed Wrexham into a household name, former Disney chairman Michael Eisner considered something similar with his own English soccer team, Portsmouth FC, which he bought in 2017.

At the time, he thought the idea of a documentary camera following him around would alienate a passionate fan base. “I didn’t want to be a Hollywood stereotype,” he said during Sportico’s Invest West event at LA’s Intuit Dome on Thursday. “I’m also not a movie star.”

But now, the 83-year-old magnate is willing to try.

Eisner was one of the first Americans to make a major buy into English soccer, but he’ll be following the lead of Wrexham AFC owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in the world of content. The actors didn’t miss their opportunity to make lower-division Welsh club popular around the world through the FX series, Welcome to Wrexham, after purchasing the team in 2021.

Now, Portsmouth plans to produce behind-the-scenes content next season, with six cameras following the team and its leadership. Eisner is taking a page from Wrexham, which has a $25 million player budget, he says, in large part to the revenue the popular series generated from distribution deals.

“We’ll be copying them to a degree,” Eisner said. “It’s complicated. … You have to think hard about how you want to invest.”

The soccer owners/documentarians Eisner and Reynolds will soon collide, as Wrexham recently secured its third straight promotion to gain entry into English soccer’s second division, the EFL Championship. Portsmouth, run by Eisner’s sons Eric and Breck, was promoted to the Championship last season. The teams will play each other twice next season.

As if the Championship weren’t crowded enough with dual threats, Birmingham City Football Club was also promoted to the Championship for the upcoming season. The American-owned club, which boasts Tom Brady as a limited partner, will stream a docuseries this summer on Amazon Prime.

Eisner, who serves as chairman of his investment firm and Portsmouth parent company Tornante Co., is learning from his counterparts. Portsmouth, which ended the season with a 16^th-place finish, five points above relegation, is looking for new ways to elevate its club using various media platforms.

Portsmouth isn’t Eisner’s first sports ownership run. He was at the helm of Disney when it owned both the Anaheim Ducks and the Anaheim Angels. Although both teams won championships, he says owning a pro sports franchise as a publicly traded company was the “stupidest thing in the world.”

Even though the two teams were the smallest parts of the company, he said they generated the most criticism from shareholders. He points out that if you play to win, spending heavily on top talent, naturally that will irk shareholders. It’s a can’t-win situation, because if you don’t spend, fans are upset.

Eisner enjoys his position now operating a club under his own private umbrella. “We can lose money for a while, while building an asset, but with a [public] corporation you’re losing money quarter by quarter,” he said. “It’s just not worth it.”