When he arrived as the first Sporting Director in the United Soccer League’s history 18 months ago, there was one thing Mark Cartwright was immediately impressed by.
“Our clubs here are incredibly sophisticated on the business side,” Cartwright told FC Business in its latest edition. “From ticketing, marketing, commercial and gameday experience, they are phenomenal. I want to match the sporting side with that level of sophistication.”
It’s safe to say the former Technical Director at Stoke City FC is well on the way to achieving his aim.
Since his appointment in June 2021, Cartwright has helped guide clubs across both the USL Championship and League One in transfer agreements that have far surpassed those which came prior to his arrival. Both the Championship and League One transfer records have been reset multiple times in the past 12 months, with Ryen Jiba’s recent move from League One’s Union Omaha to Major League Soccer’s Minnesota United FC the latest to reset the bar for the division.
At the heart of that upward growth has been Cartwright’s work to change the mindset of how clubs look at players and approach transfer strategy.
“One of the goals was to get everyone on the same page about the values of players,” he said. “Owners would look at the [Profit and Loss] sheet and see player wages as their biggest liability. We completely flipped the thinking so they would see players as their biggest asset.
“Having focused on educating clubs around transfer values, we have broken the [USL Championship] transfer record three times in 2022. That includes a 19-year-old and a 29-year-old, so we’ve been able to show that every single player has a value. We have the data now to show the clubs what we said 18 months ago is real, and it will only continue.”
