Sewickley investors earn trust of Norwegian pro soccer club fanbase

Sewickley seems improbable as the setting of an international investigation.

But in June, reporters from the newspaper Fædrelandsvennen (FVN) in Kristiansand, Norway, descended on the borough.

Their objective? Learn about the group of American investors from the suburbs of Pittsburgh who were acquiring the city’s professional soccer club, IK Start.

When the Norwegian press touched down in Sewickley, Roger Loughney was in a pleasant state of shock.

It seemed surreal to him that reporters from halfway across the globe had traveled to his backyard as a result of an acquisition he was spearheading along with friends and fellow investors David Grim and Jean Bley.

“I’m tripping,” he recalled telling an acquaintance at the time. “I can’t believe reporters from Kristiansand are in Sewickley. This is so ridiculous.”

As it would turn out for Loughney, Grim and Bley, having foreign reporters comb through their lives was merely one of several interpersonal prerequisites necessary to assume majority ownership in Kristiansand’s cherished soccer club.

Courting a community

Loughney, 45, is self-employed and works in medical device sales while also keeping his ear to the ground for local investment opportunities, two of which are in Lawrenceville: Spirit, an event space, music venue, bar and restaurant on 21st Street, and Nieds Hotel on Butler Street.

Grim, 34, works as a communications and public affairs professional with PPG while the 45-year-old Bley has enjoyed a career in banking and finance.

Together, the three are the majority owners and managers within a group of investors who in June officially took over IK Start’s full managerial and operational duties.

Approximately $4 million was raised to purchase majority ownership of the club, which competes in Norway’s First Division, the country’s second tier of professional soccer below Eliteserien.

Loughney, Grim and Bley formed IK Start USA LLC to serve as the majority shareholder of Stone By Stone 1905 Inc., their Norwegian holding firm that controls the rights to IK Start.

The “1905” pays tribute to the year IK (short for Idrettsklubben) Start, was formed.

Of their majority, Loughney owns 50%, with Grim and Bley possessing 25%.

In addition, 30% of Stone By Stone 1905 Inc. has been opened up for local ownership.

Preceding the successful acquisition of IK Start was what Grim dubbed a “real political campaign” in order to get the city of Kristiansand on board.

“It was probably a seven- to eight-month process of courting the community,” Grim said. “We needed to demonstrate to them that we were not just a bunch of swashbuckling, arrogant Americans. We had to demonstrate that we cared about the community, that we cared about the club and that we were worth entrusting the stewardship of the club to for the next however many years.”

Critically, a 51% majority among the club’s dues-paying members was required to push things through.

IK Start has approximately 1,000 such members, with 445 voting on the ownership proposal.

In a testament to their efforts to woo the community, which continues to include long visits to Kristiansand, Loughney, Grim and Bley’s ownership proposal was received positively at the club’s annual members meeting, with 81% of voting members (360) casting a ballot in favor in June.

“It gives us comfort knowing that we have alignment with the community,” Grim said. “It’s more than just a stadium or a club or a sport — it’s really ingrained in the community. Knowing that we have such strong support in this approach helps us to move forward and try to get the job done. Eighty-plus percent on any issue gives you some strength to move forward, so that helps big-time.”

A connection to Kristiansand

As Loughney, Grim and Bley were making their pitch to acquire IK Start, the reaction among community members in Kristiansand was predictable.

“The first question I hear from people here is ‘Why us? How did you hear about us? Out of all places, why do you care about us?’” Bley told TribLive via video conference from Kristiansand, Norway’s fifth-largest city, with an urban population of around 125,000.

The answer of how they honed in on IK Start can be traced back to a close family connection of Loughney’s, Mick Priest, whose multi-decade career in professional soccer includes stints as head scout of the Americas for Brentford of the English Premier League, as well as coach of Manchester United’s U14 club.

Priest also served as assistant and later interim head coach for IK Start from 2017-19.

Now, he’s been tapped as IK Start’s sporting director.

It was through catching up with Priest that the opportunity with IK Start first appeared as a blip on Loughney’s radar.

“Mick was like, ‘Hey, remember that club in Norway I used to coach at? I think they’re ready for new ownership and investors,’” Loughney said.

Having a personal connection to the club, combined with the transparent approach to the acquisition undertaken by Loughney, Grim and Bley helped satisfy the local chorus of “Why us?” inquiries.

“We didn’t create a group and then go searching around the world for a club,” Grim said. “Roger’s relationship and history identified and brought us to Start, specifically. So that was one of our messaging and communication to the community — we’re not just a bunch of Americans looking to buy a soccer team. We are only evaluating Start as an opportunity for a partnership.

“I think that, over time, as we continued to explain and demonstrate that it was specifically the Start opportunity, that engendered some trust to our group that it was them, their community and club that we wanted to be involved in. Roger’s history there is what sparked that.”

Operational options

Loughney, Grim and Bley would all admit that their work is just beginning with regards to getting IK Start back to being successful on and off the pitch.

For starters, the club enters its fifth straight season playing in the First Division, with promotion to the top Eliteserien last coming in 2019.

Multiple areas in the soccer operations department require attention, but that being said, taking care of needs more in the support realm is also a priority.

“As far as where the resources need to be spent, we need administrative staff, we need help in the marketing department, we need more coaches, we need physical therapy and a strength and conditioning coach,” Loughney said. “There (are) certainly places to spend the money and the danger or the temptation, I guess, is just to spend it on players right now.

“But we’re looking long-term, like what structurally does the club need to succeed? It’s coaches, it’s administrative staff, academy — things like that. Things you’re not necessarily going to see results from right away. It’s good and bad. You want to see the immediate results, but you know that’s just going to burn through your resources if you go after it the wrong way.”

Suffice it to say, Loughney, Grim and Bley have a balancing act to pull off when it comes to allocation of funds.

All items on their to-do list, big and small, are being pursued with the hope of filling up IK Start’s 14,563-capacity Sparebanken Sør Arena.

“The downstream impact of those decisions has to translate to results,” Bley said. “The team has to win and everyone has to be excited so that people will come to the games.”

In pursuit of that goal, the three owners believe they have a pair of major advantages working in their favor: Kristiansand itself and its sizeable population of soccer fans within, who they’re hoping will respond positively to the revitalization efforts around IK Start.

Picturesque potential

Kristiansand sits on Norway’s southern coast, southwest of the capital of Oslo and separated from Denmark by the Skagerrak straight.

A popular vacation destination for Norwegians and Europeans in general, Kristiansand is, as Loughney put it, “Kind of like a Naples, San Diego, Nantucket vibe, but like Oregon coast — cliffs, pine trees and pristine beaches tied in between.”

Comprising Kristiansand is a citizenry that Loughney, Grim and Bley have found to be enthusiastic about IK Start, despite the club falling on hard times.

From local politicians to community leaders and potential investors, as well as simple well-wishers, IK Start’s new owners have found Kristiansand eager to fill their sails with wind.

“There is so much enthusiasm with the community here,” Bley said. “Basically, they look at us as injecting some fresh air. As much as we want to succeed, they want us to succeed even more, which is my impression. The amount of people that are willing to meet with us — in the political world, it might take six months to meet someone who’s never available. That person is like, ‘I want to have dinner with you guys tonight. What can we do to help you?’ From a local perspective, there is a lot of enthusiasm and this is the most difficult thing to crack.”

Loughney, who like Bley spoke to the Trib via video conference from Kristiansand, was impressed with what he saw at an IK Start match a few weeks ago.

While attendance fell well short of a sellout, Loughney took note of the fans that did show up and the atmosphere they created.

“One of the reasons why there’s such potential is it’s such a major part of the fabric of this town and it’s just gone awry over the last several years,” Loughney said. “We don’t think it would take too much to get the stadium back going.

“We had it at half capacity three weeks ago and the place was rocking. Everyone was talking about how magical the place was, and now it hasn’t been like this in so long and that this is what it should be — that’s half capacity.”

On the note of stadium and gameday atmosphere, Loughney and his co-investors believe they can lean into their experiences as Pittsburgh sports fans to redefine what it’s like to attend an IK Start match.

Strong sports fan backgrounds

The three have no qualms about admitting that they want to implement the best of what they’ve witnessed as Pittsburgh sports fans into IK Start’s gameday environment.

As far as IK Start’s appearance is concerned, they walked right into a connection to Pittsburgh, given the club sports black and yellow uniforms.

“That’s one of many, many little idiosyncratic and coincidental moments in this project,” Loughney said.

Already, results are being seen from efforts to spice up IK Start’s stadium atmosphere.

The first game Loughney attended, a local butcher provided food for hundreds of fans in attendance, something that was predictably well-received.

Tailgating on match days, free giveaways to fans as well as in-game events such as staging brief youth soccer games at halftime are all ideas that Loughney and Co. are hoping to implement with more regularity.

In short, they want word to spread that IK Start matches are fun to attend.

“Over the last couple decades, Pittsburgh’s been up there at the top in terms of championships,” Grim said. “Every day, we live what a good sporting experience looks like, as a fan. So we feel like we have a unique opportunity to bring some of those sports entertainment ideas to the club. Ultimately, you have to perform on the pitch, but there’s a lot you can do to elevate the experience around the match, as well.”

Added Bley: “A football game is not only a game, it’s an event.”

The road ahead

IK Start’s season is already in full swing and looking ahead, there’s still quite a bit to do.

The club sits in 13th place out of the 16-team First Division, making relegation to the third-tier Second Division an unfortunate possibility by campaign’s end.

Regardless, Loughney, Grim and Bley understand that returning the club to its full potential on the pitch won’t be done overnight.

“We have a plan, we have some decisions that need to be (made) and we have the resources to allocate toward the plan,” Bley said. “We want to execute this plan in a very sustainable way.”

As they plot a course for IK Start, tangible support from the community has made doing so all the more easier.

“We’re all in this together,” Grim said. “If we’re successful, we’re all successful. If we fail, well we did it together. That’s what the first couple weeks and months have shown. This is a positive step forward and we’re going to evaluate next steps and what we need to get done, but we’re going to do it as a group.”

Bolstered by the euphoria surrounding their new endeavor, it’s full steam ahead for IK Start’s new owners.

“The club just needed a kick in the (rear end), a fresh start, fresh thoughts and new people to come in, think a little bit differently,” Loughney said, “but respect what needs to be respected and is willing to try things.”