A day with Huddersfield Town owner Kevin Nagle: ‘I think we’ll prevail – we have to’
By Philip Buckingham
Oct 31, 2024
It is early Friday afternoon and in the boardroom of Huddersfield Town’s John Smith’s Stadium, a peculiar scene is playing out.
Kevin Nagle, the club’s American owner, is hosting a very English tea party with 13 young season ticket holders. Their reluctance to sample the feast is seemingly their only common bond.
“I wanted to do ‘Beer with the Chairman’ but I was told it wouldn’t be such a good idea,” Nagle tells his audience. “It would’ve been more fun, I’m sure of that.”
Nagle eventually gives the room almost two hours, picking brains and seeking opinions. There is an eagerness to learn what supporters want from the club the 70-year-old bought “sight unseen” 16 months ago and how best to improve matchday experiences.
“League One is a stop-off point,” he assures them. And it needs to be. Nagle’s first season in charge of Huddersfield ended with relegation to League One, English football’s third tier, less than two years after the club lost the Championship play-off final to Nottingham Forest.
How Huddersfield Town collapsed from the brink of the Premier League into the third tier
That chastening experience, though, has not dimmed Nagle’s enthusiasm. This season is bringing a reset under Michael Duff, and Huddersfield are picking up momentum. They are seventh in the table.
The Athletic was granted access to shadow Nagle before he returned home to California at the end of a 10-day trip to the UK, attending the fans gathering, a charity event and an executive meeting.
“I think we’re going to prevail,” he says of the League One season now taking shape. “We have to, frankly.”
Nagle’s day began like most others on a visit to Yorkshire. Over two hours are spent walking the streets around nearby Leeds, where he and his team base themselves during visits to the UK. Sometimes it is three.
They walk and they talk business. “You think I’m joking,” says Rupert Campbell, whose role as non-executive director was confirmed on the day of The Athletic’s visit. “We did eight miles the other day.”
Nagle hosting tea with Huddersfield fans (Philip Buckingham/The Athletic)
Campbell is a son of Huddersfield, the uncle of former striker Fraizer and, until last year, president of Adidas North America. His appointment to the board is another step in Nagle’s gradual restructuring of a club that was on the brink of administration ahead of a takeover deal being signed off in June 2023.
Huddersfield have largely been an ailing club since they last saw the Premier League in 2019. Former owner Dean Hoyle, the lifelong fan who cracked the code with a first top-flight promotion since 1970, had run out of steam and sought change before the last of the club’s money ran out.
Nagle had 10 days.
“I made a decision that violated everything they’ve ever taught you about business when you’re acquiring a company,” he says. “We could only do very limited due diligence over a couple of days and I bought it sight unseen. I didn’t come out (to Huddersfield).
“I came in to see my CFO (chief financial officer) and asked him what he thought about buying a football team in the UK. ‘Which one?’ he asked. And I said ‘Huddersfield’. He said ‘Where’s that?’. I had to say I didn’t really know.”
Nagle does know now. He visits once every two months, where he can spend anything up to 20 days around the club and its town, wedged in between the cities of Leeds and Manchester.
Every period in the UK includes an “Afternoon Tea with the Chairman” event. It is a platform for fans to voice opinions. Nagle, concerned at the low percentage of female fans attending Huddersfield home games, has previously hosted a women-only event and the latest is just for fans aged between 18 and 30. They’re asked for their Huddersfield Town backstories. One fan, Holly, says growing up she would be bribed with a McDonald’s in return for accompanying her father to games.
Nagle wants to know how he can attract younger fans to matches and how to generate additional non-matchday revenue. There is soon to be ‘H Town’, a vast bierkeller-style bar on site. Barring any late obstacles, the John Smith’s Stadium will also come under his ownership before the end of the year after striking a deal with Kirklees Council. Huddersfield Giants, the rugby league team, plan to eventually relocate and leave Town as sole tenants.
Nagle is not here to lose money. A successful business life has seen him assemble huge wealth as a healthcare entrepreneur and property investor in his adopted home of Sacramento. A minority stake in the Kings, the city’s NBA team, was sold but Nagle continues to own Sacramento Republic, who begin their United Soccer League (USL) play-offs at Las Vegas Lights on Friday.
Nagle has long planned to take the Republic into a new stadium and then to the MLS, coming closest in 2019 only for a funding partner to back out. That dream simmers on the back burner for now.
Huddersfield were relegated from the Championship last season (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
Huddersfield, he accepts, commands more of his time in the short term. Nagle knows he has supporters to convince after Hoyle, the local businessman, had done so much.
“I didn’t know how they’d take an American, especially in an area of England where they’re not so used to seeing Americans as often, with respect to businesses,” he says. “But I’ve always been up for that challenge. They’re going to judge me on who I am in time.
“There was a honeymoon period right at the beginning because they had been worrying about where it was going to end up. The club wasn’t performing (last season) so the questions started, ‘Does he really know what he’s doing?’ There’s probably still a lot of people who have that question but I’ve tried to communicate over social media and other platforms. We’re always going to tell the truth in these things, there’s nothing to hide.”
Last season left Nagle nowhere to hide, either. Three managers — Neil Warnock, Darren Moore and Andre Breitenreiter — attempted to mask deficiencies in the Huddersfield squad yet each appointment backfired and relegation to League One brought a jolt to the system.
“We all feel a bit battered and bruised,” one fan told Nagle in the boardroom. Another picked at the wound of Warnock, who lasted just seven games of the last Championship season. The short-term appointment — a reward for Warnock for masterminding survival in the weeks in which Nagle was concluding his takeover — had set a harmful tone before the split. Just nine games were won in a disastrous campaign.
How does Neil Warnock do it?
Nagle was given uncomfortable lessons in his introductory season to English football.
“You need to be humble and you need to understand that things are not going to happen fast,” he says. “We acquired the team but there was very little you could change.
“We acquired the asset pretty much as is. We’ve made a lot of changes this year — not just in terms of personnel, but we’ve done a lot around the stadium. If you’re almost relegated one year and the next you end up almost getting to the Premier League, it’s not sustainable.
“At the Sacramento Republic, I’ve owned the club for 11 years and we’ve made the play-offs every single year but one. We’ve got one Championship and then almost another last year. We came second in the nation in our cup (2022 Open Cup) and that was down to building a really sound club. We need to get there (with Huddersfield) and the process has begun.”
Nagle looks every inch an American in this latest Yorkshire autumn: bushy moustache, aviator sunglasses, sports jacket and jeans. It is not the typical look in a working-class northern town but he can count himself part of a new crowd in English football.
Almost a third of the EFL has seen U.S. investment in recent years, and Huddersfield are one of three clubs in League One’s current top six under full or part U.S. ownership.
Flying high or facing relegation? How each EFL club to have seen U.S. investment is getting on
Birmingham City are at the summit, controlled by Tom Wagner and supported by Tom Brady. Wrexham are riding the
of a
after back-to-back promotions, under the guidance of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds. Huddersfield were at the latter last week, drawing 0-0.
Why the growing appeal of English football?
Nagle speaking to fans at the event (Philip Buckingham/The Athletic)
“First of all, there’s a mystique about it,” says Nagle. “Most people who understand sport would tell you the gold standard of football is the Premier League. I’ve always had a great curiosity about English football.
“And you have clubs that are relatively inexpensive compared to professional U.S. teams. It becomes affordable. That’s not necessarily the highest level but at the mid and lower level, U.S. investors will see it being more affordable to them.
“There’s a model that’s been created in the U.S. that essentially means, unless you’re a multi-billionaire, you’re not going to own any sports organisations. You can now come to the UK and purchase a quality football team and not have to be a multi-billionaire.”
That is not to say Nagle sees Huddersfield as a plaything. All plans are long-term, from stadium developments to off-field appointments, most notably chief executive Jake Edwards — the former president of USL — sporting director Mark Cartwright and chief revenue officer Paul Reeves. Offices next to the John Smith’s Stadium have been redeveloped and staff counts raised.
Fans have bought into the vision, increasing the number of season ticket holders to 15,000 in League One. Music concerts are also a big part of driving future revenues, with the Welsh rock band Stereophonics already selling out 31,000 tickets at Huddersfield’s home next June.
Nagle is purposefully hands-on. Last Friday included a visit to the Forget Me Not hospice, a specialist centre offering end-of-life care to children. Ninety Huddersfield fans had walked to last month’s away game at Bolton and raised £30,470 ($40,000) in donations. Nagle was there to present a cheque on their behalf and spent an hour touring the facility on the eve of the club hosting Exeter City.
“As long as I feel I can be a plus and not a minus to the overall organisation, then I’ll be involved,” he says, a month after celebrating his 70th birthday. “I also believe you should be a good corporate citizen and a good citizen of your community.
“Going to events like this is meaningful to me. I’ll always try to get to at least one every time I’m here. We have a minimal obligation as a football club because we’re such an important part of the community.”
Back in California, Nagle will watch Friday’s FA Cup first-round tie away to Non-league Tamworth on a stream at his home. The next trip back will come before Christmas when he expects to find Huddersfield’s position in League One improved further still.
A quiet retirement has already been shunned.
“If I’m the book, there’s a few more chapters to go,” he says. “I feel this isn’t the epilogue yet. We’ve got some business to do and we’re going to make Huddersfield proud.
“It sounds a little corny, but it’s true. People have told me a lot of times in my life that you can’t do this. You’ll never be a CEO, you’re not capable of that. At almost every single stage, I’ve gone out to try to prove those people wrong. Maybe eventually there’ll be a bridge too far…”
Huddersfield will hope it is not here
of a 
after back-to-back promotions, under the guidance of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds. Huddersfield were at the latter last week, drawing 0-0.