Motherwell: Netflix ex-vice president Erik Barmack on potential investment
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Netflix ex-vice president Erik Barmack, along with wife Courtney, are looking to invest in Motherwell
You are probably wondering why former Netflix vice president Erik Barmack, and his wife Courtney who holds a senior role at Snapchat, want to invest in Motherwell.
Inspired by Wrexham's rise to Hollywood fame? Nope. What about the Fir Park club's tongue-in-cheek viral video urging Taylor Swift to "gie's some dosh"? Hmm, not necessarily.
Instead, Los Angeles-based Barmack wants to pair his passion for football with his work, which includes Netflix's hit Drive to Survive show and the Juventus docuseries, all while keeping Motherwell's fan ownership model at the core.
On the back of entering into an agreement with the club earlier this month about potential investment, Barmack speaks exclusively to BBC Scotland about his vision, understanding fan scepticism and connecting with Hollywood.
What has drawn you to Motherwell and Scottish football?
Scottish football is super fan-led. It's a dynamic league, it has the highest attendance per capita in all of Europe, that passion is there. The narrative stories are so strong, there are so many teams situated close together, so many rivalries, it's accessible globally. It's easy to follow the drama, that's the SPFL.
The Motherwell part is we are specifically interested in seeing if there's something we can do with a fan-owned club with deep local roots. I've seen a very passionate community.
There's the Motherwell Trust, it wasn't just the club, something that's doing good for the community. The team seems to thrive in its role of finding young talent, that seemed really interesting to me.
And again, I want to emphasise that this is all early stages for us, but those were things that brought us to Motherwell. But the key is the fan-owned society we could hopefully become a part of.
Did you have interest in other Scottish clubs?
We did research into clubs in the Premiership and Championship, but this felt like the best fit for what our strategy would be.
In January, Motherwell put out a tongue-in-cheek video aimed at getting Hollywood investment - how big a part did that play?
We were looking at opportunities long before the video came out, but what the video signalled to me is this is a club that has an openness to some level of investment but isn't necessarily looking for a change of ownership.
If any deal was to materialise, how much financial investment would you look to put in?
We can't discuss that right now.
What do you feel you can bring to Motherwell?
First of all we can bring some capital. My whole career has been connecting dots between big media companies and fanbases. Personally, that's what gets me up in the morning. It could be valuable to connect these worlds, the world of Hollywood and the world of European football.
My wife also works for technology companies. She's had senior roles at Google, YouTube and now she works at Snapchat. That's another world that is under utilised by European football clubs. Those relationships could be useful. European football is content and content is European football. That world is blending and you can see streamers and global media being more invested.
There's a possibility we could help facilitate that. We bring passion, enthusiasm and a certain level of energy that would hopefully match the ambitions of the Well Society and other stakeholders at the club.
Barmack believes connecting Hollywood with European football could be beneficial
Who else is involved with you?
My wife. There's other talent we could approach and we have ideas around it should it make sense. We are not ready to discuss those things, nor would it be appropriate. It's very early stages. But we don't think we'd be the only group interested in Motherwell over time.
What would your day-to-day involvement look like?
The club has brought in a very, very capable chief executive in Brian Caldwell. The Well Society is also very, very involved and doing a very good job of running a club that's stayed in the top flight for almost 40 years and been quite competitive.
Our role would be to see how we could help assist the Well Society and the CEO should a deal materialise.
What is your actual goal?
It's not some short-term return of investment objective where we try and get money out of the club. The first order of business would be whether we can do something together with the Well Society and the CEO.
Over time, we think with our connections and our ideas, we can help build value and a more global following around the club. All of the SPFL clubs over time are going to become more global, it's the way sports are heading. We can help facilitate that. This is an opportunity as a family to be part of a community.
So you don't want to be involved for financial gain?
No. This is a much more passion-based approach. The Hippocratic Oath matters here. First, do no harm. There's no short-term plan to view this as a financial investment.
Well Society members voted 642 to 351 that they would consider supporting plans which could see the ownership group's shareholding drop below 50%, do you want to be the majority shareholder?
Our perspective is we never want to make an investment that disempowers the Well Society and the connection the fan-owned group has with the club. There's a bunch of different ways to construct deals that can accomplish the objectives of a fan ownership model, alongside outside investors.
Any of those deals are dependent on trust and having good relationships. But while it's early stages, we're only interested if we can co-invest with the Well Society.
Fans are sceptical due to the financial difficulty the club suffered from in the early 2000s, do you understand that?
One hundred percent. The road to hell has been paved with investors from outside of these communities taking outlandish bets that don't pan out and burning clubs with debt or poor management. You have to look at totality of the club, it's been around for almost 140 years.
I believe any sound investment thesis needs to come with some protection that the club can continue to operate in the successful manner it's already operating under. If I was a member of the Well Society, I would be healthfully sceptical of outside investment.
In recent weeks, Motherwell fans have displayed banners calling on the Well Society to remain the club's majority shareholder
Do you have plans to grow the Well Society?
I think so. It's early days. One thing both my wife and I believe in is there's a tremendous amount that can be done on social media with new technology. I run a site called 'AI in Hollywood'. That's talking about AI being tremendously powerful in entertainment, it should be valuable in sports as well.
My wife has been heavily involved in YouTube and Snapchat, which are two of the biggest social media platforms you can imagine, so are there things that can grow the club through that?
On the entertainment side, Drive To Survive transformed F1. Are there content initiatives that can grow the club? All these things are things to think about. If you do those things well, can you broaden who else might be involved with the club down the line?
But does that risk losing the identity of the club?
This is why we wouldn't make an investment if the Well Society were not supportive of that investment. Mistakes can often be innocent, you come in and say "I have a hook-up with a fashion brand, let's think about the strips in a different way". Somebody from the outside may lack the context of the particular reason why the colours need to be claret and amber.
There are so many ways you can go wrong if you lack authenticity. A first order principle is those decisions need to have the support of people who have been thinking about the club their entire lives.
There's been a narrative building recently that Motherwell are struggling to compete financially with similar-sized clubs, would you address that?
It's so early in how we're thinking about this. I can't speak to the specifics of that. But I've watched the last 15 matches or so and the team plays with a sense of optimism, there are young players who are successful, the manager always has positive things to say about his players. As a spectator, it's fun to watch a team that's overachieving on some level.
Fans will naturally want to know how this will impact bringing in players, so how would you like to see your investment spent?
The honest answer is I don't know.
Wrexham, how much of that has played a part?
It really hasn't. Football is a passion of mine and sports documentaries have been a passion of mine in a way that precedes Wrexham. I would say being a small part of Drive To Survive was a much more motivating factor. You could see if a sport was presented in a dramatic fashion, it would engage a group of totally different fans.
So can we potentially expect a Motherwell docuseries?
It would depend on the right elements coming together, but that's not the reason for our interest in Motherwell. Still, there's something to Scottish football overall that's thrilling and dramatic.
Take the Dundee game. The pitch not being ready, being two goals down, there are so many dramatic moments that would lend itself to narrative documentaries. But who knows?
After Saturday's dramatic win over Dundee, you tweeted for the first time in about a year saying the word "bonkers". That sums up Scottish football - are you prepared to embrace yourself in that?
For better or worse, it's already happened. I'm addicted like anyone else who gets into a particular club. I'm already consumed by it.
Motherwell fans, what do you think of Erik Barmack's plan? Get in touch below...
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