"I'm starting to believe that there will potentially be a sale within the next 18 months." That's not a disgruntled fan talking — that's David Wyness, a former Everton chief executive, speaking on the Football Insider's Inside Track podcast. When ex-boardroom figures start floating full exits publicly, it usually means something is already moving behind closed doors.
Dan Friedkin and The Friedkin Group (TFG) bought Everton in late 2024 for approximately $445 million. Forbes now values the club at $930 million as a standalone asset. With the new Hill Dickinson Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock — nearly 53,000 capacity, recently completed — a sale could realistically clear $1 billion. That's more than double their original outlay in under two years.
A summer that didn't help
The timing matters. Everton's summer transfer window was a disaster by any reasonable measure — top players leaving, underwhelming arrivals, a fanbase growing restless. That kind of instability tends to accelerate ownership decisions. Stabilising the finances and delivering a new stadium, as Wyness acknowledges TFG did well, is one thing. Building a competitive squad that keeps supporters onside is a different challenge entirely, and there are real signs Friedkin may not want to take it on long-term.
The official line from TFG is more modest: a minority stake sale to bring in "strategic investors." But minority stake deals often serve as price discovery exercises. You find out what the market will pay, and then you decide how much of the asset you actually want to keep.
The NHL question
TFG is simultaneously negotiating an NHL expansion franchise for either Houston or Austin, a project with an estimated price tag around $3.5 billion when you factor in the expansion fee and a new arena. The assumption in some quarters is that an Everton sale would help fund that. Probably not — TFG's automotive distribution arm generated $13.3 billion in fiscal year 2024, and the group also holds a majority stake in AS Roma. They're not cash-poor.
But freeing up capital from a near-doubling investment, while shedding the political headache of a fanbase demanding more, is rational portfolio management. Everton's odds of retaining Friedkin as a committed long-term owner just got meaningfully shorter.
