Tom Penn returns to LAFC with his latest venture at San Diego FC

LAFC has been among Major League Soccer’s most successful clubs since its inaugural season in 2018.

One MLS Cup. Two Supporters’ Shields for the best regular-season record. Three times finishing atop the Western Conference. Twice runners-up in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. A U.S. Open Cup title. Three different golden boot winners for the league’s top scorer. One MVP. Regular sellouts at 22,000-seat BMO Stadium in Los Angeles.

On Sunday night, LAFC will have another sellout when it hosts upstart San Diego FC, which leads the Western Conference, beat LAFC 3-2 in March at Snapdragon Stadium and is closing in on LAFC’s MLS points record by an expansion club.

The hosts shouldn’t be surprised. LAFC’s co-founder and first president was Tom Penn. SDFC’s co-founder and CEO is Tom Penn.

He has spent countless hours at BMO Stadium, during and after it was built, and a few times since he stepped down at LAFC in August 2020.

“I haven’t been back this season,” Penn said, “and I haven’t been back with the opposing team, ever. I think it will be a very different personal experience. It will be very special to go in there in chrome and azul.”

The part you might not know: Penn was a college swimmer at Notre Dame who worked in professional basketball as a player agent, front-office executive and ESPN analyst. His soccer experience, as recently as 15 years ago, amounted to just a few Portland Timbers games while serving as assistant general manager for the NBA’s Trail Blazers.

He left the Blazers in 2010 and reportedly turned down an offer to become GM of the Philadelphia 76ers. Instead, he founded the Sports Leadership Institute that organized an annual summit in Aspen, Colo., for owners across the globe and across the sports world.

A Malaysian basketball owner attended the first summit in 2011. The following year, he brought with him a Vietnamese basketball owner named Henry Nguyen, who expressed interest in a big market MLS franchise.

Penn connected Nguyen with MLS commissioner Don Garber. The wheels began turning.

“Over the three years of doing those ownership summits,” Penn said, “my network exploded and I got out of the (basketball) team operations silo and got exposed to a lot. What impressed me was how innovative and in the weeds MLS was in general because it was a charging league, a challenger league.

“I remember just thinking how all the chief business officers and presidents and everyone else were really keen to collaborate and work together. That was different from some of the more established leagues. It was intriguing.”

Penn helped Nguyen form an investment group with then-Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter Gruber and several celebrities — Magic Johnson, Mia Hamm Garciaparra, Will Ferrell, Tony Robbins — that won expansion rights for a second L.A. team after the league disbanded Chivas USA. They built BMO Stadium, initially called Banc of California Stadium, on the site of the old Los Angeles Sports Arena adjacent to the historic L.A. Coliseum.

LAFC launched in 2018, and its 57 points from 34 games remains the MLS record for an expansion outfit. SDFC sits at 53 from just 28 games.

Penn insists his departure two seasons later, while unexpected by many fans, was amicable. He had started a new venture that produced COVID-related personal protection equipment. “It was just a good time to kind of move on,” he said.

It didn’t take long, however, for soccer’s tentacles to grab him again.

Within months, Penn was contacted by Brent Lawrence, the CEO of Accelerate Sports, a boutique investment bank that specializes in assembling ownership groups to pursue expansion franchises.

Lawrence, a Sweetwater High School alum with a law degree from USD, had worked with the San Diego Loyal SC of soccer’s de facto second division. He was wondering if Penn was interested in an MLS expansion run here.

The second time they met, in February 2021, came the morning after billionaire businessman Ron Burkle had withdrawn his bid to bring MLS to Sacramento.

“All of a sudden, that 30th (expansion) spot was open and it just seemed so obvious that San Diego could, should be that 30th location,” Penn said. “I remember thinking, ‘Now I’m really interested.’”

Barely two years later, partnering local ownership in the Sycuan tribe with Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour, they were standing in Snapdragon Stadium with Garber as confetti rained down.

The blueprint was similar, from the placeholder name of the city with Football Club ultimately becoming the permanent title, to the development of passionate supporter groups, to the marquee signing of a Mexican icon in his late 20s, to preferring designated players still in their prime instead of aging European stars. (LAFC, since Penn left, has gravitated toward signing older DPs.)

LAFC got Mexican forward Carlos Vela and 20-year-old Diego Rossi from Uruguay. SDFC got Mexican winger Hirving “Chucky” Lozano and 27-year-old Anders Dreyer from Denmark.

The differences: LAFC built its own home field while SDFC, which leases Snapdragon Stadium from SDSU, built a $150 million academy and training facility on Sycuan land in East County.

Another: LAFC left decisions about style of play to GM John Thorrington and first coach Bob Bradley. SDFC, through its association with the Right to Dream Academy, had a pre-determined tactical approach that prioritizes youngsters.

“There’s this absolute clarity on how we want to play,” Penn said. “At LAFC, we didn’t have that internal system. In this case, it was clearly defined, systemized and non-negotiable. That makes all your hiring decisions, in a way, easier, to find a sporting director and a head coach who absolutely agree and fit that way.

“I’m so impressed with what Mikey (Varas) and the coaches have been able to do with so many young players. That’s remarkable and a massive statement of what we’re all about.”

The common denominator: They both win. SDFC sits atop the Western Conference. LAFC is in fifth place but has played three fewer matches, has a six-game unbeaten streak and is surging after the addition of South Korean star Son Heung-min from England’s Tottenham Hotspur for an MLS record $26.5 million transfer fee.

“Now what we have are competitive juices,” Penn said. “We’re in the same neighborhood, and at SDFC, we aspire to be as good, or better, than LAFC in every way.”

San Diego FC (16-7-5) vs. LAFC (11-7-8)

When: 7:45 p.m. Sunday

Where: BMO Stadium

TV: AppleTV+