Orange County SC owner paid more than $5 million to buy team

The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Baxter had an interesting profile on the raised standard of owners coming to USL in recent years on Saturday, and that included some interesting tidbits on the local independent USL team, Orange County SC.

Perhaps most interesting was that Baxter revealed in the story that Orange County SC owner James Keston, who bought the team in Sept. 2016, paid more than $5 million for it.

Keston bought the team from the Mansouri family, the original owners of the club, and while Baxter’s report does not give a precise figure of the sale price, it does note that $5 million is the current USL expansion fee. On one hand, it makes sense that an existing team should be worth more than a franchise fee. On the other, even with the increases in the professionalism and money being poured into USL, paying more than $5 million for Orange County still seems like a lot of money.

Baxter’s report also deals with Phoenix Rising FC’s ownership group, which rather resembles Los Angeles Football Club’s band of growing and often famous owners, and the general upward trend of USL as a league. There are plenty of good quotes, including from Keston, so it’s definitely worth a read.

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