The Times of London and a number of other media outlets are reporting that Billy Beane, a minority owner of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball, is part of a consortium that is close to purchasing Barnsley FC, a team currently playing in the Championship, the second tier of English soccer.

The purchase price is estimated at close to $26M and the consortium is led by a wealthy Chinese business man, Chien Lee and American Paul Conway. Beane’s participation in the venture is expected to be 10%.

He came to prominence in the late nineties as GM of the As by applying a concept that became known as “Moneyball.”

The term has since become ubiquitous in team sports and has led to misunderstanding and mislabeling. Beane and other pioneers of the concept realized that within statistics-rich baseball there were a number of key statistics that were undervalued by scouts and general managers.

This meant that certain players could be acquired relatively inexpensively while impacting positively on a team’s performance – essentially allowing a team to punch above its economic weight.

Up to now Beane has operated generally on the periphery of soccer. He had involvement in the San Jose Earthquakes of MLS through former Oakland A’s owner Lewis Wolff, he has worked as an advisor to AZ Alkmaar of the Eredivisie of the Dutch League and has appeared at a number of events focusing on the application of statistics to soccer.

Interestingly, Barnsley FC has become known over the last few seasons as a team with a proclivity to identify and mentor young talented players – especially defenders.

John Stones of Manchester City started with Barnsley and was initially sold to Everton.

Mason Holgate is another who found his way to Everton after getting an opportunity with Barnsley while center back Alfie Mawson played only a handful of games before Swansea swopped in and paid $7M for his services.

Barnsley has spent only one season in the top flight of English soccer and that came after 99 years of trying. The one season in the sun came in 1997-98.

Barnsley’s owner Patrick Cryne bought the team in 2004 but he is terminally ill.

'I am living on borrowed time' a sad heartfelt message from #barnsleyfc owner Patrick Cryne in tonights programme pic.twitter.com/o5OPNE90gM — Jonathan Buchan (@jonathanbuchan) September 12, 2017

Caption correction - in the original posting of this article a picture of Billy Bean was incorrectly identified as Billy Beane. My sincerest apologies to the gentlemen concerned and the readers.

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