Jay Sugarman on sports analytics
From Thinking Differently with Philadelphia Union's Jay Sugarman (Ep. 16) · · Bryn Mawr Trust
“He said, 'Possession doesn't matter.' And that's, you know, that's the first stat that if you open a newspaper, they talk about possession. He said dangerous possession matters. So we started to track things that show dangerous possession, number of corner kicks, number of throwins, number of crosses. And it turns out when you look at the stats, we were like number one in all of those. And so when you when you really study beneath the surface, you can go from rules of thumb that maybe everybody accepts but maybe aren't true. And so we've built our whole strategy around collective playing styles and really challenging the status quo.”
On , Jay Sugarman, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman at SAFEHOLD INC, spoke about sports analytics during Thinking Differently with Philadelphia Union's Jay Sugarman (Ep. 16) on Bryn Mawr Trust.
About Jay Sugarman
Jay Sugarman, chairman and CEO of Safehold and principal owner of the Philadelphia Union, discussed his career and approach to decision-making on the "Planning Perspectives" podcast in April 2026. He described founding the real estate company Starwood in the late 1980s as a contrarian move, saying he and his partner saw opportunity when real estate was "finally hated enough." He said he aimed to modernize real estate finance by applying corporate-world methods, similar to his current work with ground leases. Sugarman also explained his investment in the Philadelphia Union, stating that during the 2000s internet boom he believed soccer would grow in the U.S. as the world's sport. He said the club chose to focus on youth development, style of play, and innovation rather than trying to outspend larger ownership groups in the Eastern Conference.