The Arthur Blank I Know (2024)

I didn’t know Arthur M. Blank before interviewing with Atlanta United. He likes to say that he understood only about half of what I said with my English accent, so he called me back for a second interview just to find out the other half.

There was a perception at the time that he should hire someone from Major League Soccer because it’s an unusual league. But Arthur took the view of, “It’s the global game. I’m going to do a global search.” That was his approach to everything he did in building out Atlanta United. It was through the lens of, what would the fans want? He was trying to build something best in class, so he was prepared to think outside the box and do things at an NFL level for MLS because that was his commitment to the city.

This is when I knew I’d made the right decision to join him: I’d accepted the role and my wife, Faith, was pregnant with twins. We’d had some complications, so she actually had to fly out while I was still doing my notice period at Tottenham Hotspur. So Arthur paid for his private jet for my wife’s brother, who’s a doctor, so he could fly over to be with her so she could (then) fly back, because otherwise she couldn’t travel beyond a certain date. And that was when I knew I had an owner that is unbelievably caring. Then my wife had the twins and our first visitor was Arthur. Atlanta United was still a few years away from kicking a ball and he came to the hospital to visit. So, he is a guy that genuinely is unbelievably caring and considerate. Yes, he’s a great businessman for all the things that he’s done, but he’s a great human being.

When Atlanta was awarded an MLS franchise, there was a lot of negativity. No one thought soccer in the South would work. They certainly didn’t think soccer in a shared facility, which is what it was going to be with an NFL team, would work. Arthur was a visionary in that he’d seen the data, he felt he knew Atlanta better than anyone, and he knew this could succeed. And obviously, he was proved 100% correct.

When we announced the Atlanta United name, it got leaked about a week before the launch. There was then some negativity, and I remember feeling really quite low because that was the first time we’d had anything go wrong. I went to see Arthur and he said, “Look, we’ve done all the research. Our fan base wants this name. We know that.” That was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. He was really good at giving you that support when you needed it.

Of course, he’s also super smart and a shrewd businessman. When we were looking to build our training ground, we had a big meeting and had three different versions for it. The “A” version, essentially, was the all-singing, all-dancing version; “B” was in the middle; and “C” was the cost-efficient option. In the buildup to this, Arthur had said, “I want us to set a benchmark for MLS.” But as I was presenting, he was absolutely hammering me on the “A” version and I was thinking, “Wow, I read that wrong.” At the end of the meeting, he said, “I think we’ll go for ‘A.’’’ So I come out of there kind of reeling, and then Arthur comes up and says, “Sorry about that. I just had to make sure the others don’t think I’m soft.” So he can be tough.

But he also knew to put the customer first. He’d always say to me, “If I want to really know the temperature of things, it’s the support service workers who are going to really tell me if we’re successful or not.” It was a great learning experience, that those troops on the front line is where you really get the intelligence.

When we were still in Bobby Dodd Stadium, we realized we hadn’t put in a stand for the leaders of the supporter section in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. We had the on-the-field suites that are in the end zone, and we’d already sold them. So I had to go to Arthur to say, “We’ve got to have these stands for the supporter section leaders because that’s what creates the energy, but I understand we’re going lose the value of that suite we sold.” For Arthur, it wasn’t a question of the money. He said, “If that’s what the fans want, we’ll do it.” There’s not many owners that would that quickly make that decision, but that’s how he approaches it all. And that’s why Atlanta United is still getting average crowds of 50,000, because it was putting the supporter engagement first and the rest follows.

At our first game, in 2017, we were playing at Bobby Dodd Stadium and it was packed with 50,000 fans. Everyone was wearing the black and red. And when Arthur arrived, the whole stadium started singing “Uncle Arthur.” I think that’s because he’s beyond just being an owner. He’s someone that they feel connected with.

He gave me the opportunity of a lifetime. You dream as a kid of building your own soccer club, but to get to do it with an owner that was such a great mentor, that was prepared to put the resources in, that was prepared to listen to what the fans wanted, was just an absolute dream for me. The lessons that I learned from Arthur were incredibly valuable, but more importantly, I’ve got a friend for life, somebody that is a super successful businessman, but can also be someone that I can ring up if I’ve got a problem and I know he’d pick up the phone. And that’s a wonderful thing to have.

Darren Eales, a native of Chelmsford, England, was the president of Atlanta United FC from 2014 until becoming CEO of Newcastle United in 2022.