Like Ryan Reynolds’ Wrexham success, an American couple from Georgia are buying into British soccer. Bryan and Shannon Miles sold their staffing company for $110 million to buy U.K. team Walsall F.C. and Irish club Drogheda United F.C., stocking stadiums with their very own beer brand NoFo Brewery.
Many Americans romanticize the U.K.’s football or “soccer” culture, living vicariously through Ted Lasso and the famously Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney-owned Wrexham club. But for Bryan and his wife, Shannon Miles, running soccer clubs is their reality.
The couple started their careers like any other: 9-to-5 office jobs in immigration law and corporate America. But by the time they hit their mid-30s in 2010, they couldn’t ignore the entrepreneurial itch—so they decided to take the leap, founding remote team management company Belay and beer company NoFo Brew Co., alongside their ventures in international sports and business advisory Miles AG.
And despite not having the same Hollywood salaries as Reynolds and McElhenney to back their clubs, they’ve found themselves head-to-head against the record-breaking team. But the Miles duo have an edge on the actors—they serve their NoFo beer on tap in the stadiums.
“The point is, we’re building a brand,” Bryan tells Fortune. “The brand is pulsating—we’re feeling it in the European market. People love wearing our jerseys there, they like identifying with the brand. And they actually like our beer.”
Cashing out on their 401(k)s to build a $110 million company
To get their first of now many ventures off the ground, Bryan and Shannon Miles took a major gamble. They cashed out the $160,000 in their 401(k)s and founded staffing software company Belay.
“I’m not necessarily a risk-taker by nature—especially with money. But I thought, ‘Well, if it doesn’t work, we’re young enough. We can always go back [to our jobs], but at least we tried,’” Shannon says. “At that point, I’d rather choose risk than regret.”
The anxiety-inducing start of their business now feels very far away; 14 months after Belay was founded, the company broke even—kicking off 40 consecutive quarters of market growth. The business’s strength lies in its virtual assistant services and tech-enabled bookkeeping. After years of success, private equity started to take notice, and the couple felt it was time to sell. They transitioned a new CEO to take over Belay in 2020 and sold a majority stake of the company for $110 million the following year, keeping 18% for themselves.
“We started feeling. ‘This business is way beyond us. There’s potential beyond us, somebody else with more resources, different networks, different ideas, could come in and store it well,’” Bryan says. “We’re like, ‘This doesn’t define who we are. We’re going to be fine. There’s life after exit, and we’re going to find other things to do.’”
That payday was life-changing coin that led to a new adventure for the entrepreneurial power couple: running soccer teams and pouring pints of their Georgia beer for the club’s fans.
Living the Ted Lasso dream: selling beer and leading U.K. soccer teams
The entrepreneurial couple wanted more lively bars in their area of Georgia to bring people together—and at the time, distilleries were all the rage. By the end of 2019, they dived into their next passion project with their first brick-and-mortar brewery, NoFo Brew Co.
“By the time we started our distillery, we were already enjoying wealth. We’re ‘first generation’ in terms of wealth,” Bryan says. They no longer had to do the heavy work as chief executive. “We knew at that point we were never going to run the business.”
The couple appointed a CEO to turn the brewery, expanding to three total NoFo locations across the state: Cumming, Cleveland, and Gainesville, Georgia. But Bryan and Shannon Miles found another unlock with their beer business: connecting with sports fans, eager to throw back pints during a tense stadium match. At the height of Ted Lasso running up Apple TV subscribers, U.K. soccer was at the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist.
“We looked at England and also Ireland, and we realized this was a rabid fan base that would follow this team off of a cliff,” Bryan says. “So we’re like, ‘Well, what if NoFo was on our shirt? What if we put beer in the stadium?’ It’s the Trojan horse that got us into this market.”
The Georgia-based duo brought investors together and bought U.K. team Walsall F.C. in 2022—right around the time Reynolds made headlines with Wrexham. Then came their purchase of Irish club Drogheda United F.C. in 2023, also investing in Denmark team Silkeborg IF last December, and starting African club Trivela FC Togo more recently.
Selling their beers at their clubs’ stadiums and emblazoning “NoFo Brew Co” on the players jerseys, Bryan and Shannon Miles are living a “football” fantasy. It’s a far cry from typing away at their desk jobs just 15 years ago—and it’s proof that having an entrepreneurial knack and forecasting trends leads to huge wins.
“What we were able to do is accelerate and go into markets where just most Americans don’t have an in,” Bryan says.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
