Category: Soccer

Tom Penn has the chance to do what few get to do in professional sports: build a team from the ground up. But it’s not just the launch of LAFC, the new Major League Soccer team in Los Angeles, that he’s overseeing. Penn is also helping develop a new downtown stadium set to debut in 2018 when the team begins play. Penn previously spent four seasons as vice-president of basketball operations and assistant general manager of the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers and seven years as assistant general manager of the Memphis Grizzlies in addition to serving as an NBA analyst for ESPN. But in building LAFC, he has had to engage a range of sports and entertainment luminaries as co-owners while convincing new fans to jump on the team’s bandwagon. In this interview, Penn…