Could Hearts become European football’s biggest success story? | The Football Boardroom

0:01Henry:This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Ronda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer Gina Carano in the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best heavyweight in the world, Francis Ngannou versus Felipe Lenz. Watch Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano. Live only on Netflix. Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center Time, 6 p.m. Pacific Time. We are live from Fetty's house. Guests are gathering around the TV, even with a big storm outside. Are we worried about the feet?

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1:05Christian what a night of football in Scotland just an incredible night Celtic beat Motherwell with a last minute penalty Hearts beat Falkirk 3-0 and now travel to Celtic Park you couldn't you could not script this Robbie Burns couldn't script this they have to travel to Celtic Park at the weekend and a win or draw brings them their first title in 66 years and i want to know from you because you know these characters so i want to talk a little bit about tony bloom and his influence on hearts i want to know about jamestown analytics who you are very aware of having been embedded in in three english football clubs i want to know all about that but first i want to know where on earth did you get those curtains well i'm on one of my bucket trips which

2:03Henry:is around the scottish highlands it's not my grandma's bathroom but the curtains look like it so i'm well up in the highlands reception is a bit crap if i apologize to our audience if it's not up to our usual standards but yeah being up here and uh talking to lots of people in the last two days, the big events of this evening have panned out, probably as most expected. It's going to the last day. And I just want our non-Scottish audience to be aware we're in very, very unprecedented territory here. Scottish football having two teams win the league for over 40 years is unprecedented anywhere in Europe.

2:45Henry:Even leagues that we think of as being, you know, two horse races, one horse races even, have actually had five or six winners in that period. So the idea that Hearts might win the league is a huge football story. But I think what we want to talk about tonight is the backdrop to this remarkable season at Hearts. And in particular, the fact that last summer, after a fairly long getting to know period, the Brighton owner, Tony Bloom, took a, I think 29 % stake in Hearts, investing just under£10 million. But that investment, Henry, came after about a season of getting to know the people at Hearts and after crucially announcing that a company with which Tony Bloom is very closely associated, Jamestown Analytics, had entered into an exclusive arrangement to provide its analytical services only to Hearts Football Club within Scottish football.

3:52Henry:And everybody around that deal agrees that whilst, you know, nine million pounds of equity into a club is always a nice thing. That wasn't the point of the Tony Bloom Hearts connection. The point was bringing the magical powers of Jamestown Analytics to bear on this storied Scottish football club. And that's going to be the primary focus of our chat tonight. I mean, it's interesting, Jamestown Analytics, they actually were involved before Tony Bloom actually turned up at Tyne Castle Park. I think when they recruited Derek McInnes, he's done such an amazing job. The Jamestown Analytics recommended him as one of the sort of contenders when Hearts were looking for a new coach in 2024, recommended him again in 2025.

4:45And I mean, as you know well, Jamestown Analytics are a fairly secretive organization. But what we do know in terms of their data and in terms of their recommending a coach of McInnes' qualities is that they like to look for someone who can develop players. It's the data, it's the money, it's the eventual sell-on element. And I think that McInnes, if you've followed his career, you've seen him at St. Johnson and Aberdeen and Kilmarnock. He was probably less so at Bristol City, but he had a reputation for developing players. But what I found really interesting in all this, and it'll be fascinating to know your view on this, because you're a numbers man and this is very much a story about numbers but it's also quite a human story so like Derek McInnes when he was interviewing I think it was Braga who they had been recommended by Jamestown Analytics he actually had a zoom meeting with him and it was all you know he was struck by his warmth and he brought him brought him in for that for his personality as well as the data.

5:48And then someone you know, Tony Bloom, you know, you saw him at the game tonight at Tyne Castle, you know, with his heart scarf on. He's totally emotionally engaged as well as obviously financially engaged. So I find this fascinating and I love your take on this. This seems to be a mixture of the analytical, but also there is an emotional connection, certainly with Tony Bloom.

6:12Henry:Well, let's talk about the people, because to many of our audience, they will never have heard of Jamestown Analytics and they won't understand the connection. So let's see if we can shed a little bit of light on that. I think the first thing to do is to talk about Tony himself. So Tony Bloom is best known in the UK for his ownership of Brighton. and what perhaps is less well known by people is that Tony's family have been around Brighton Football Club for many many years. I think his grandfather was the chair many years ago and his uncle Ray who I've met many times has been a director for a long time so there's an absolutely huge familial connection between Tony Bloom and Brighton and he's a real fan of Brighton.

6:58Henry:But what perhaps some of our audience don't know is about Tony's background and what it is that he has brought to football that is almost unique. Tony is a mathematician by training, a mathematics graduate, and he very early in his career became a professional gambler and indeed with a particular emphasis on sports betting. In essence, applying his mathematical talents and training to the full-time professional job of beating the bookies on sports-related bets and did that with such success that he made himself a very wealthy man, which ultimately enabled him, of course, to buy a football club with which his family had been long associated.

7:50Henry:And we'll talk about just how successful that's been over the long run. But the link here, Henry, is that Tony's application of complex mathematical training to the business of betting on sports markets. In the end, he decided there was an opportunity to bring those approaches to the specific area of running football clubs successfully, and in particular, and initially on recruiting talent, using exactly the same methodologies that he had honed in the betting markets. And indeed, in another very analogous activity, Tony is a world-class poker player and backgammon player. And those two games are well known for the most successful, most professional exponents of those two games, being hugely capable mathematicians using probability theory and game theory to compete and make money in those two games.

8:57Henry:So this is what Tony Bloom's approach is to the business of running a football club. And to complete the point, Jamestown Analytics was for many years, essentially think of it as the business within Tony's empire that produced the analytical work that enabled him to be so successful, firstly, in the professional betting industry, and then actually in his ownership of Brighton. And Jamestown Analytics has branched out from being essentially an adjunct of Tony's betting empire, focused largely on helping Brighton, to actually being a standalone service provider now, who provides those very same services to other football clubs, including Hearts.

9:49And Como and other teams. I mean, it's had a huge influence. Can you just explain to me words you used earlier, exclusive? Why do they go? I mean, you know, they could supply their data and their analysis to so many clubs, but why do they only do one per territory?

10:11Henry:Well, that's an extremely important point. And I think there are a couple of reasons for that. So we should make no bones about it. Tony is the owner of Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club and its success, which widely is credited to his application of these almost revolutionary data-driven approaches to the running of football clubs and particular player recruitment and coach recruitment. And he benefits from that in as much as making Brighton a successful football club and a more football club is in effect a return on that work. And the club in Belgium that he acquired, even more remarkably, perhaps than Brighton's success, was a club that was in the second division.

10:58Henry:Yeah, which actually within two years of Tony buying into the club using exactly the same Jamestown Analytics tools, won the first division. Jamestown's approach, the data they have, the analytical tools they use to analyze that data, you know, which they've collected and analyzed and developed their proprietary expertise over many years. This is extremely secret. It's extremely proprietary. And in the first instance would be used by Tony Bloom for clubs in which he has a direct interest. The fact they've branched out now into working with clubs where Tony doesn't have a direct interest or where he has a small interest, it only works, Henry, when you do that with one club in any given competition, because that's the way in which you maximize the success of that data in actually producing superior outcomes to your opponents.

11:59so p you are the master of crunching numbers can you actually explain because they're very secretive organization i mean i know where jamestown wharf is in camden town i was born like about 150 yards away but people don't really understand what they do i mean i've got this image of a room full of 22 year old oxbridge maths graduates drinking coffee till late into the night and working on um colombian third division players do you understand how it works is there a

12:29Henry:secret recipe coca-cola style in there there most definitely is um and that's a good analogy there most definitely is a secret sauce it's not simply about having access to prodigious amounts of data I mean, let's take a stab at simplifying this. Data in this case really means video footage of many, many years of football matches globally. That's the sort of start point here. And what we believe companies like Jamestown do is, and many companies try to do it, they've just been staggeringly successful, is they have over many years developed proprietary tools to look at that footage. Let's say to look at, for example, individual positions in the football team and over many years, analyze actions within football matches, the outcomes of those actions and the outcomes of those actions and the impact of that on success results and the development of successful footballers.

13:46Henry:So think of it this way. The way I think about it is, let's say that they had numerous video images of a hugely successful defensive central midfield player like a Busquets or an N 'Golo Kante. And they had images and analysis of that player 15 years ago when they were up and coming in their late teens. And they were able to look at how that player was, the actions that player was committing on the field of play in matches at that young age, where they moved, which direction they tended to pass the football, what the outcomes of their actions on matches were. and they're able to say, now let's take an 18-year-old in Ecuador who plays in the same position and let's match video footage of that player in Ecuador and see if there are similarities to the way in which that unknown player performs to the way that somebody who ended up being a world-class defensive central midfield player was performing at a similar age.

14:55Henry:That's what I believe to be the kind of essence here of not just collecting the information, but studying it over many years and having a very specific point of view about what drives superior results, what drives superior outcomes. What telltale signs can you see that increases the probability that this young footballer is going to turn out to be an elite footballer? And if you think about someone like signing Moises Caicedo from Ecuador for 4 million euros and ultimately selling him for 100 million euros not long later from Brighton, something in that recruitment was related to this very, very specific way to analyse the performance of players.

15:48Henry:And as I say, think of it as a combination of complex maths, probability theory, what they call game theory. You've heard phrases like zero sum games. These are all part of what you accurately describe, Henry, as the secret source of a company like Jamestown Analytics. So how does it then work? So they crunch the numbers on, say, 60 right backs who might fit the profile. they then come up with six and they then send them to hearts and is there any sort of due diligence into character i mean i've heard this phrase no dickheads which obviously is an all blacks phrase in terms of needing that sort of collectivity and you want individuals who who fit in uh do they do that sort of character assessments is there the sort of the arsene wenger uh style of sort of, you know, going in disguise and watching a player and finding out that element to him?

16:49Henry:Look, I think nobody, I've never heard it suggested that this is exclusively what the, you know, what the model tells us and we recruit. Think of it a different way. I would think of it as a screening system. It's a way in which you can reduce the hundreds of right backs in the world to a short list that these mathematical models suggest have a higher probability of being what you need. That's important. And being successful in delivering better outcomes on average than rivals. and that being like the equivalent of a shortlist in a recruitment process, that then some of these more subjective elements you rightly refer to, visual due diligence that every coach and scout in the world still thinks is important, actually getting eyes on in matches, character due diligence, as you've alluded to, another Kingred.

17:59Henry:I've never heard it suggested that Brighton don't do those things. But what they do is they're doing those things on a start point where they have genuinely uncovered through that preliminary data-driven approach an unknown talent for a relatively or low purchase price that their models are telling them has the capacity to outperform what you might expect with somebody from that background and profile. I think it's an input rather than the absolute answer. And I'm sure you mentioned him, if Derek McInnes was on here, working closely with his sporting director and Jamestown Analytics, what he would say is, you know, they have uncovered some remarkable talents that when we went to watch them, when we met with them, they fit the bill.

18:51Henry:And I was looking at the team sheet from just this weekend's game. I think half the players in the XI were recruited last summer after Jamestown became exclusive advisors to Hearts. So they're not nibbling around the edges here. This team, by the way, the team last year, you know, is on track to have, I think they were 42 points behind Celtic last year, finished seventh. And as you've already explained on Saturday, you know, if they win or draw, they will win the title. Either way, they'll be within a point or two of Celtic. So the improvement since Jamestown got involved at Hearts is absolutely spectacular.

19:30Henry:And that is not the first time. I want our audience to understand. We're not talking about something that looks kind of interesting. We're talking about Brighton, the Belgian team, Hearts' dramatic transformation this year, Como pushing for Champions League in Serie A. Four teams, all using the same company to give them this completely different approach to player recruitment and coach recruitment. and spectacular, dramatic and sudden improvements in on-field performance. That is sufficiently remarkable to say that they really do have a Coca-Cola style secret formula that everybody would like to copy.

20:15Well, let's have a look at the transfer window just before the start of the season. You mentioned the 10-11 players that they brought in. I think the net spend was between 200 ,000 and 300 ,000. Obviously, they sold to Icafins for a couple of million, which sort of offset some of the loss. But, you know, you look at some of the players that they bought in for those figures and for the countries that they come from. This is what I found fascinating about Jamestown Analytics. And I assume that other analytics companies actually do the same and look in these far-flung parts because, well, Denmark's not exactly far-flung, but they brought a player from there, a player from Slovakia, a player from where else?

21:06I mean, around the world. Norway Division 2.

21:08Henry:The centre forward was playing in the Norwegian Second Division, Braga. They paid, I think, half a million euros. And this is also crucial. I really think this is important. There are two sides to this recruitment equation. One is getting the right players in who improve performance. But the other crucial part of the rationale, and I know this drove and continues to drive Tony and Paul Barber's colleague at Brighton, is, of course, the sales side of the equation. What happens to your football club's ability to compete if you can buy low and it doesn't get much lower than half a million euros from Norway Division 2?

21:54Henry:The bloke comes in, bangs them in for fun for hearts and is worth five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 million euros. Well, in the world we live in with financial regulation that includes revenue and revenue in Scotland is low and profits from player sales. If you can get those profits, as Brighton have done better than anybody in English football, then your ability to compete in the long term is enhanced. And so these are the very, very early days of the impact that a company like Jamestown will have on Hearts because they're just getting the players in today. It's what happens when those players show their worth, perform and then are sold for profit.

22:38Henry:And those profits are recycled that enables Hearts to actually begin the process of being competitive. CP, Jamestown and Tony Bloom, they pick their clubs very, very carefully, very shrewdly. What are sort of the other characters involved in and around the boardroom? I think it's a really important point. And there's one person that looms particularly large in my analysis. I think there are two key players, actually. But the first person we should talk about is a man called James Anderson, who I think has been instrumental, probably in persuading Tony Bloom to get involved at Hearts and in particular to make Jamestown analytics available.

23:22Henry:And I'll tell you why I suspect he was crucial. So for those of our audience who don't know, James Anderson, and most people wouldn't know because he's an extremely low profile, but phenomenally successful businessman who has been one of the world's most successful technology investors. And that is a hell of a statement, but it happens to be true in his case. Running huge funds out of Edinburgh over a long career famously was a huge investor at a very early stage in two well-known, maybe the two best-known disruptors in business history. A certain Elon Musk and Tesla and a certain Jeff Bezos and Amazon and James Anderson wearing his day job hat of running a huge fund invested in those two companies behind those two disruptor individuals in the very early days of EV cars and and electronic retailing where where those two men made their fortunes.

24:31Henry:And there's something in that here, Henry, because James Anderson, at the height of Covid, stepped in as a very wealthy now philanthropist in the Edinburgh community, helping the whole of Scottish football, but becoming a regular and serious donor to Hearts Football Club. And I use that word donor carefully, H, because that is what is so unusual. Unlike most businessmen, including Tony Bloom, who, when they decide to get involved in a football club, become an owner and they invest capital and they own shares and they expect to make a return on that capital. Sometimes they lend money and they expect to be paid for their loan as well.

25:19Henry:James has decided to invest money every year over£20 million in the last five or six years nearly£4 million a year but for it to be a donation and the reason for that is due to the unique ownership structure of Hearts Football Club that he feels passionately he wants to support and that ownership is the UK's largest fan-owned club 75 % of Hearts is actually owned by thousands of Hearts fans who have paid regular small subscriptions to become effectively the owners of this football club. When James decided to help the club, he did not want to take shares and dilute those fans because he thinks that's a really important tool of unity, social unity in Edinburgh.

26:14I went on the Foundation of Arts website earlier and there's a sort of running figure on how much they have donated and it's 20 million plus, as you say, key investments at key times. it's interesting you mentioned James Anderson because there was that meeting that he had with Anne Budge who you mustn't forget and you can sort of talk about Anne's incredibly important involvement but when they went to see Tony Bloom in London when they were considering whether because he'd been showing some interest for a couple of years in well a Scottish football but increasingly Hardham Midlothian in particular he was so excited listening to Tony Bloom and what James Tan could do that he actually tripped over leaving Tony's offices because he was just so bowled over, if I can use that expression with James Anderson, so bowled over by his, you know, the intelligence and what Tony had to offer.

27:15And on the front of the Heart of Melothian, well, actually not the website, but the Foundation of Hearts website, just to actually be an owner, they say be part of the disruption. which has been absolutely key. Just, we mentioned Anne Budge, who's been such an important figure, stepped in at a key moment because they had that difficult time under Vladimir Romanov, who was this Lithuanian-Russian businessman who came in promising things and there were some good moments, but there was also the debts, the threat of administration. And Anne Budge, incredibly successful local businesswoman, she stepped in as well.

27:55So it's amazing. we've got all the sort of statistical side the data side but we've also got these people with big hearts no pun intended james anderson as you say and budge and these owners fans uh supporters

28:09Henry:of the foundation of hearts well i think the point i'd like to make about anderson's role here is that if you think about a common thread you know this is a this is a phenomenally successful technology investor. He said after meeting Tony Bloom and the people from Jamestown Analytics that he thought it was the best data set in world football. What he means there is, as we were discussing earlier, that, again, I use your phrase, that the volume of accumulated knowledge, data and the analytical tools built around that data by Jamestown, this hugely successful technology investor said it was best in class worldwide and therefore that it would be literally a game changer for hearts.

29:04Henry:And I think that for two reasons that I really want to leave our audience with for two reasons. Remember, this man is basically making, in effect, charitable gifts to this football club each year to reduce its losses. He knows better than anybody that isn't sustainable in the long run. And so if Hartz's performance can be improved in two ways, he knows That is the long term way to make the club more sustainable. And those two ways, Henry, are very clearly one by buying well and selling well. And nobody in English football has sold better than Tony Bloom. So the model is a complete loop of raw data analysis, screening the world for young talent that's undervalued, often in markets that are not followed as diligently by top Western European football clubs.

30:06Henry:And bringing those players through, developing those players through great coaching, giving them experience in the top league and then selling at the top. And if you do that and generate profit, that is a sustainable model for a club like Hearts to compete with the old firm. And that is the first ingredient. And the second ingredient is unique to Scottish football. I have been struck when looking at the numbers, just how significant European TV money can be for these clubs in Scotland if they actually get through the minefield of winning the league, now with the lower Scottish coefficient actually qualifying for the Champions League proper.

30:50Henry:But Celtic in a Champions League year where they did quite well, they made six million quid from their Scottish TV deal and they made 46 million euros from their TV money out of Europe. And so you can immediately see, and I'm sure Tony Bloom can see this, and I know James Anderson saw it, that if we can improve the on-field performance of Hearts, really develop recruitment, really develop profitable sales, go deeper in the championship, get ourselves into Europe, both of those have a dramatic effect on the revenue generating capability of Hearts, which for years has been a fraction of the old firm.

31:35Henry:Right now, Hearts' revenues are a sixth of Celtic. 24 plays 144. They're a quarter of Rangers. Rangers, I think, 96 million plays 24. So that revenue gap, a professional investor like James Anderson understands that has to be closed to make Hearts more competitive and more sustainable. And that's what I think is at the heart of this deal. And what has been fascinating, and Tony Bloom doesn't do many interviews, but when he arrived at Hearts, he did one in-house in which he spoke, A, that they can challenge the old firm within 10 years. It looked like they're going to do it in 10 months. But also that he wanted to actually help the coefficients.