Peter Kenyon, former chief executive of Chelsea Football Club, has joined Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood talent group that represents Steven Spielberg and George Clooney, to oversee its international sports division.
Mr Kenyon recently left Chelsea, where he was hired by Roman Abramovich to run the football club following the Russian billionaire’s investment in the west London team. Before then he was chief executive of Manchester United.
CAA created CAA Sports three years ago and it has quickly become one of the biggest sports agencies in the US with more than 500 athletes and coaches on its books. It represents a range of stars, including basketball’s LeBron James, Peyton Manning of the NFL and Andy Murray, the tennis player.
The company plans to expand internationally and football is seen as the ideal sport to tackle first because of its global popularity. CAA’s roster of football stars includes David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and Fredrik Ljungberg, as well as former Chelsea coach José Mourinho.
Mr Kenyon will be based in London, where he will cover several sports, although he will initially draw on his experience in football. “After 14 years running the two most successful clubs, I decided that I wanted to move on,” he told the Financial Times.
He added that the sports division’s growth in a “competitive marketplace” was “remarkable”.
Howard Nuchow, the co-head of CAA Sports, said the agency wanted to draw on Mr Kenyon’s marketing and brand expertise. “We didn’t look at him as the president of a soccer club . . . he’s been brand-building for a long time.”
Mr Kenyon used to work for Umbro, the sports apparel group, where he redirected the company to focus on football and moved manufacturing to China. His time with Chelsea and Manchester United coincided with an explosion in the value of football media rights and the arrival of a new generation of investors and club owners.
He also had a hand in some of the sport’s top commercial deals, striking a $303m kit contract with Nike at Manchester United and a similar contract at Chelsea with Samsung.
