Nestled inside the historic Horse Guards Parade is a beautiful arena which is the setting of the eleventh leg of the 2014 Longines Global Champions Tour. The three-day event, at the far end of St James’s Park from Buckingham Palace, is bustling with horses being warmed up or down before jumping. Frank McCourt, the slim Irish-American property and sports billionaire, gradually works his way across the VIP section of the event, past an elaborate array of canapés and a champagne bar. McCourt is famous for selling the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team for $2 billion to a consortium led by basketball great Magic Johnson. Less well known is what happened to him afterwards and how his roots going back to Co Tyrone and Co Galway have shaped him as a businessman. In June, McCourt acquired a 50 per cent stake in the Global Champions Tour. He hopes it will become the Formula One of showjumping by combining 14 stunning city locations with the best riders and horses in the world. The other half of the tour is owned by Jan Tops, a Dutch showjumping legend who won Olympic team gold in Barcelona in 1992. The financial terms of this deal have not been disclosed, but it is big business. Tops, who founded the series in 2006, had already convinced the top 30 ranked riders in the world to sign up for the event. His wife Edwina Alexander, an Olympic rider sponsored by Gucci, previously won the tour, so he knows every aspect of it. The championship certainly has the glamour quotient of F1. As McCourt approaches, across the arena Bruce Springsteen and his wife Patti are in the stand waiting for their daughter Jessica to ride. Sofia Abramovich, who is also competing, was seen a few minutes earlier walking the jumps. There is no sign of father Roman, the Russian oligarch and Chelsea owner, in the crowd. In terms of numbers, the Champions Tour attracts 150 million television viewers. It is impressive, but still only 28 per cent of the viewers of Bernie Ecclestone’s F1. The prize money of $12 million makes the tour the most lucrative event for showjumpers in the world, but it is only a fraction of the money available to top motor racing drivers, who individually can earn tens of millions. McCourt takes his seat, wearing an open-neck shirt with monographed cufflinks. He has the engaging character of an Irish-American dealmaker, who is clearly passionate about his new investment. First love McCourt outlines his vision in a low voice so as not to disturb the riders whose horses are making perilous leaps just yards from him. Occasionally he pauses mid-sentence to watch a particularly dazzling jump, but he doesn’t lose his train of thought. McCourt has been burned by the media – notably after a bitter divorce amid criticism by some fans of his final days at the Los Angeles Dodgers – but today he wants to talk about his future, not his past. After McCourt sold the Dodgers for $2 billion in 2012, his initial focus was on his first love: property. He renamed his business McCourt Global to reflect his ambition to not only invest in America but also go overseas. He moved its headquarters to New York from Los Angeles, and initially it had two arms, McCourt Properties to develop real estate, and McCourt Capital to make investments. Gradually the itch to get back into owning a sports franchise grew. In 2013, McCourt hired Blackstone to advise on how to re-enter the sports business. “I was interested in finding a sport that I felt had a great foundation in place, a great history and legacy, but that there was also an opportunity to grow,” he says. “I was particularly interested in showjumping. I asked Blackstone to do some work for me and to look around the world and see what was the state of the sport and who was involved in doing what and so forth.” Blackstone came back with a name: Jan Tops. “They identified Jan as someone who was very knowledgeable about the sport, and had been involved in it his whole life,” McCourt says. “He seemed to be someone who had a good sense for the growth possibilities for the sport.” A lunch was arranged in Paris late last year, and the American businessman and the Dutch rider hit it off. McCourt knew Tops had developed a good series, but he felt his knowledge of growing revenues by television, merchandising and other deals could make it a greater success. “The most important thing then was just to talk and see did we share values and philosophy,” McCourt says. “It really didn’t take long. Both of us are the type of people who can make up our minds very quickly.” The tour had secured “iconic locations” for its events such as Port d’Hercule in Monaco and Champ de Mars in Paris, making it a “beautiful platform,” that was poised for growth by going into Shanghai and Doha, according to McCourt. “Shanghai is just the beginning in Asia. Doha is just the beginning in that part of the world,” he says. “We will also be expanding into the United States. “This is the chance to build one of the very rare truly global brands in sport. That makes it very, very special." “Each venue looks totally different and feels different. It is not like we are going from one cookie-cutter event to the next. Each one is a piece of artwork.” The potential worldwide television and online audience for the tour has only begun to be tapped, he believes. “We want to bring the sport to everybody. We want to develop the Global Champions Tour so that our production quality gets better and better and our reach increases globally,” he says. Ireland’s long tradition of showjumping means McCourt would like to see the tour come to Dublin.
