Keston owns the Orange County Soccer Club, champion of the second-tier USL Championship in 2021, which is in Oregon to play the Timbers, the MLS team one could argue was stolen from him. In 2007, Keston said, he and his father, Michael, had the exclusive rights to put an MLS expansion franchise in Portland. Paulson said he paid between $32 million to $34 million for the Timbers, a team Forbes estimates is now worth $650 million. Keston, meanwhile, paid $5 million to buy the Orange County Blues in September 2016, rebranding the team as the Orange County Soccer Club and moving it, a year later, to Championship Stadium in the Orange County Great Park. That work hasn’t produced much on the field as of late; since winning the USL Championship title in 2021, Orange County is 8-17-16 after Saturday’s 2-1 loss to the Birmingham Legion.

Source: Los Angeles Times April 25, 2023 12:12 UTC