WILD GEESE: NIALL SWANFounder and president of Soccer Resort, New York
FOR NIALL Swan, work is all about the beautiful game. Founder and president of Soccer Resort, his company organises competitive and recreational adult soccer tournaments from California to Costa Rica and beyond.
But the Dubliner’s 1995 emigration to New York with a bunch of college friends was more happenstance that economic necessity, he recalls. With a masters in history and political science from UCD, he says: “I was 22 and I wasn’t sure what path my career would take so I thought, why not.”
Of course, for the kid who had played for Home Farm in school and later for Drumcondra FC, it didn’t hurt that the World Cup had taken place in the US in 1994.
Waiting tables for the first few months, as friends went home to the Celtic Tiger, Swan stayed. Joining the fledgling internet department of an US engineering society, he admits, “I didn’t really know what the internet was”.
Signs that it was going to be big were all around. “I remember reading The Irish Times online in 1995 and it was a eureka moment. It seems so natural now but in those days, it was a big deal.”
Swan became webmaster at the society and then went on to head up the digital marketing side of a Madison Avenue marketing agency, working with high-tech firms to develop brands online.
In those days, he says, it was called “cyber marketing”. “If you use the word ‘cyber’ now, you really show yourself to be a relic, right?” he jokes.
Irish internet darling Nua poached him in 1997 when, on winning clients Stateside, it hired him to set up a satellite office.
Later, he worked with Irish Continental Group, which had started what Swan describes as “an Irish Expedia” for US tourists visiting Ireland. Unfortunately, its scheduled launch in September 2001 was scuppered by 9/11.
By 2002, Swan was keen to strike out on his own. His experience in marketing and passion for the pitch coalesced into Soccer Resort. “Certain things are in your DNA that you didn’t realise you had,” he says of his venture. “My father was a professional soccer player. He played for Ireland and in England. But my mother was an entrepreneur. She has run a business since the 1970s, a boutique which is the longest running business in Drumcondra. You don’t realise these things are in your DNA, but they are.”
From small beginnings, organising his first soccer tournament in Miami in 2003, Soccer Resort is now a network of adult soccer events in the US, hosting events in 25 cities for 20,000 players a year. He also runs soccer weekends for friends wanting to get away to places like Miami, Las Vegas or Cancun for some fun in the sun.
While the company organises the games, hotels, transfers, jerseys, balls “and some happy hours”, it steers clear of flights. “That’s such a bargain shopper’s business these days, there’s not much margin in it,” he says.
At stake for teams is the glory. “You find, if you put on money prizes, it doesn’t always bring out the best in people,” says Swan. “It may only be $1,000 but people will play like it’s $1 million.”
The pinnacle of his own sporting career was a masters’ tournament he organised in Iceland a few years ago.
“The stars from the Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal teams came over and we played against the Liverpool team of the 1990s. That was amazing.”
Swan says the demographic for soccer in the US is “very middle class”, with player numbers certain to grow from a figure of 18 million. With 40 per cent of players women, he says “co-ed” tournaments are popular. For those who want to play but don’t have a team, the company can match them to a side. Corporate team building events are another feature and Swan runs the Wall Street World Cup for financial services employees in New York every summer.
So are players serious about their game? “The younger guys can be very serious about it and then when you get to 28-plus, winning is a component but not the be all and end all.”
As “adult soccer tournament partner” to Major League Soccer, the national league in which David Beckham and Robbie Keane now play, Soccer Resort is also a partner to a Canadian sports channel and is about to announce a television partnership in the US.
Swan is also in discussions to bring Soccer Resort to Europe and Asia. He says the business of sport is proving recession-proof. “If you think about it, people are quite reluctant to give up their passions.”
Of the business culture in his adopted home, he says: “I’m not sure I could have started a business in any other country. It’s an economy and a culture that is completely helpful to the entrepreneur . . . people will you on to succeed.”
