Hearts fans celebrate Lawrence Shankland's goal from a penalty kick at Tynecastle Park, Edinburgh on April 11.
Photographer: Lorna MacKay/Bloomberg
How One Football Team Embraced Moneyball to Challenge Big Money Rivals
A fan-owned Scottish team joined forces with data specialists to set up Scottish football’s most exciting run-in for 40 years
In late 2023, Ann Budge, then president of Edinburgh-based club Heart of Midlothian Football Club, was facing another season of mid-table mediocrity. The last time a team other than Glasgow giants Celtic or Rangers were Scottish champions was the mid 1980s, when legendary manager Alex Ferguson led Aberdeen to the title.
Budge, a Scottish businesswoman and co-founder of an IT firm, helped save Hearts from financial collapse in 2014, and implemented a rare structure giving 75% of the 152-year-old club over to a fan-led group. In a sport increasingly dominated by hard cash, it was improbable that Hearts would discover a new Ferguson to take them to a title, or find a wealthy investor willing to let the fans stay in charge.