10

Thursday, August 2nd, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS

For many Americans, soccer 
is an ultimately illusive idea, a 
foreign phenomenon that the 
whole world has seemingly 
bought into and that has left 
America unaltered.
Citizens across the country 
watch 
the 
unmatched 
excitement surrounding events 
such as the World Cup or 
Champions League Final year 
after year with indifference. 
They see mega-stars such as 
Christian Ronaldo and Lionel 
Messi — two of the most 
popular 
human 
beings 
on 
planet Earth — and shrug off 
their fame. Enjoying soccer 
in America has been a niche 
pastime that has never been 
taken seriously.
But for some reason, that’s 
all begun to change.
For the first time in modern 
American 
history, 
soccer 
has 
gained 
real, 
tangible 
momentum in terms of its 
expansion 
into 
America’s 
golden sports market. All of a 
sudden, stadiums from Atlanta 
to Seattle are selling out Major 
League Soccer (MLS) games 
and 
the 
casual 
American 
sports fan is giving soccer a 
shot.
And helping lead the charge 
of spreading the world’s most 
popular sport into America 

is 
Michigan 
alum 
Daniel 
Sillman.
Sillman, 
only 
29, 
is 
currently serving as the Chief 
Executive Officer of Relevent 
Sports — a division of the live 
entertainment 
investment 
firm 
RSE 
Ventures 
that 
focuses on expanding soccer’s 
influence into the US and 
other untapped markets. Most 
notably, Relevent Sports hosts 
the International Champions 
Cup (ICC) every summer. The 
ICC serves as the flagship 
program for Relevent, seeking 
to entice American fans with 
the spectacle of European 
soccer and its stars.
“We’re 
seizing 
the 
opportunity 
in 
the 
marketplace,” Sillman said, 
“We see soccer as the biggest 
sport in the world and growing 
like crazy in America and Asia, 
and we feel that we’re best 
positioned to take advantage 
of the growth of the sport.”
While currently embracing 
the 
growth 
of 
the 
sport, 
Sillman’s 
journey 
did 
not 
begin in soccer. It didn’t even 
truly begin in sports.
At 
Michigan, 
Sillman 
studied finance at the Ross 
School 
of 
Business 
where 
he honed his analytic mind 
and eventually started his 
own 
business 
— 
Compass 
Management Group. Compass 
was a multi-family office for 

athletes 
and 
entertainers 
whose services ranged from 
accounting 
to 
estate 
and 
insurance planning.
Sillman’s staked interest in 
establishing Compass began 
through 
his 
relationship 
with 
former 
Wolverine 
football player and current 
Philadelphia Eagle Brandon 
Graham. Sillman began the 
business 
to 
help 
Graham 
out financially and use his 
newfound finance knowledge 
and increase his stock as an 
executive.
Before he knew it, Sillman’s 
company 
had 
taken 
off 
and was soon acquired by 
multi-family 
and 
business 
management firm FFO. As for 
Sillman, the Michigan grad 
served as an advisor for FFO 
while 
transitioning 
to 
his 
new position of Director of 
Business Development at RSE 
Ventures.
Throughout 
his 
short, 
yet storied career, Sillman 
has 
primarily 
operated 
in 
financial management, but he 
has found himself more and 
more entrenched in the realm 
of sports due to the clientele of 
his businesses.
While sports and athlete 
management have seemingly 
been the thread tying Sillman’s 
career together, another factor 
has blatantly helped the young 
executive achieve his success 

— 
the 
Michigan 
alumni 
network. After all, Sillman’s 
career did truly kick off due 
in part to his relationship with 
Graham.
Now, Sillman finds himself 
working for another Michigan 
man — legendary real estate 
developer and namesake of the 
business school Stephen Ross.
Ross owns RSE Ventures 
and continues to make deep 
investments 
into 
Sillman’s 
family of companies and is one 
of the early backers of soccer’s 
expansion into the states.
“The relationships I built 
at Ross School of Business 
are those that have really 
helped me my entire career,” 
Sillman said. “Ultimately, now 
I work for Steve Ross, so the 
alumni of the university have 
been relationships that I’ve 
been able to build through 
my experience at Ross and 
ultimately led to my career 
opportunities beyond selling 
my own business, but going 
to work at RSE Ventures, and 
now as the CEO of Relevent, 
working 
with 
so 
many 
Michigan alums has been a 
huge piece of my life.”
Now, Sillman is looking to 
use those connections and 
spin a miracle in soccer and 
other 
live 
entertainment 
opportunities in the states.
Beyond 
the 
men’s 
ICC, 
which most recently brought 
Manchester 
United 
and 
Liverpool to Michigan Stadium 
in front of a 100,000-plus 
person crowd, Sillman and co. 
have recently expanded into a 
women’s ICC, an ICC Future’s 
event at Disney’s Wide World 
of Sports Complex in Orlando, 
Fla. and an entertainment 
property 
called 
House 
of 
Soccer meant to inspire youth 
excitement around the sport.
While Sillman recognizes 
that 
these 
programs 
are 
undoubtedly 
a 
long-term 
investment 
into 
America’s 
future sporting landscape, he 
and his company are already 
seeing promising returns. By 
Sillman’s 
reports, 
Relevent 
affiliated 
sporting 
events 
garnered 140 million views 
last year and are on pace to 
reach as many as 160 million 
this 
year. 
Over 
a 
million 
people have attended their 
events in the past and with 
North America set to host the 
World Cup in 2026, Sillman 
firmly believes the sport is 
here to stay.

“To say, ‘Will it work?’ you 
gotta open your eyes because 
you have MLS which has 
been extremely successful,” 
Sillman said. “If you go study 
the media rights landscaping 
in North America, the English 
Premier League sold their 
media rights for $180 million 
to NBC which is double their 
last right’s sale.”
With a budding MLS and 
international stars coming to 
play stateside, it’s clear that 
America 
has 
the 
sporting 
infrastructure 
needed 
to 
support 
the 
world’s 
most 
popular 
sport. 
Now 
the 
question is whether Americans 
are ready to make the switch.
So how exactly do you make 
the pitch to the general public 
that soccer is worth the time?
Sillman says there exists a 
simple answer — storytelling.
“We do a lot to work with 
the clubs to tell the amazing 
stories behind the history 
of their formation and the 
success that they’ve had,” 
Sillman said. “We try to tell 
the stories of the mythical-like 
players and their stories and 
where they come from and how 
they’ve achieved success, and 
it’s our job to provide amazing 
entertainment 
experiences 
which is why we’ve developed 
House of Soccer which is 
very similar to NBA House 
of Hoops or NFL Experience 
at the Super Bowl, and we’ve 
expanded our investment off 
the pitch into entertainment 
properties that have really 
engaged 
the 
communities 
that we’re bringing to games 
so that people can participate 
with soccer.”
In the end, soccer still has a 
long way to go in dethroning 
the power four of football, 
basketball, 
baseball 
and 
hockey in America, but Sillman 
and Relevent seem to be taking 
all the right steps. They’re 
capitalizing off big spectacle 
events such as the World Cup, 
starting grass roots initiatives 
with kids camps and programs 
and 
are 
even 
organizing 
celebrity soccer games with 
such superstars as Drake and 
Draymond Green.
If 
currents 
trends 
hold 
and Sillman and Relevent, 
the 
silent 
workhorses 
of 
American 
soccer, 
continue 
their steadfast investment in 
the sport, it’s hard to imagine 
anything standing in their 
way.

Sillman seeks to popularize soccer in US

JACOB KOPNICK
Summer Managing Sports Editor

ALEC COHEN / DAILY
The International Champions Cup is the flagship program of Michigan alum Daniel Sillman’s company Relevent Sports