FRANCHISE ISSUE

BY SHAUN ASSAEL & PETER KEATING

MANY BELIEVE THE TELECOM MAGNATE AND MAGICJACK OWNER SABOTAGED THE WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL SOCCER LEAGUE WITH HIS BIZARRE BEHAVIOR. SO WHY DO THE SPORT’S BIGGEST STARS CONTINUE TO BACK HIM?

78 ESPN The Magazine 09/17/2012 illustration by BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN FRANCHISE ISSUE

Borislow looms large in women’s soccer, posing here in 2011 with members of his daughter’s U14 squad and his MagicJack team (including , near left in blue). He calls soccer “everything that is good.”

son’s speech impediment, once threatening not to talk to him until he “fixed” it. “He demanded we work, and there were no handouts,” Borislow wrote. “He was a very tough guy.” When Borislow was 13, his parents divorced, and he began spending summers in Florida with his maternal grandfather—a dapper, carnation-wearing gambler named Nathan “Nocky” Lerman. Nocky mingled with bookies and jockeys at racetracks and liked to sit his grandson down at bars while he threw back a few drinks and imparted life lessons. “His grandfather pretty much raised him,” says John Scanlan, a Pennsylvania-based horse trainer and longtime family friend. At Widener University in Chester, Pa., an Borislow’s eyes sparkled Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) league— Rampone and were part of a women’s for an even lower-paying gig on a minor or making 200 bucks a night in dingy stadiums in Borislow studied business but also developed as he plied half a dozen of a team he’d recently purchased. Sparing no national team that captured its fourth Olympic semipro team closer to home. If you’re lucky the middle of nowhere, he’s the best game in a love for soccer as the left fullback for his the greatest women soccer expense on his new MagicJack recruits, he put gold medal before a record 80,203 fans at enough to make the U.S. national team, you can town—even if the price for taking his cash is school’s team. “After how I grew up, it’s the players on the planet with them up in lavish condos and let them drive his London’s Wembley Stadium. In the glow of their earn a salary of up to $60,000 from the U.S. being subjected to his humiliating barbs and safest place I know,” he wrote of a soccer field hundred-dollar bottles of luxury fleet of Bentleys and Benzes. But as the win over Japan, the team’s stars should be Soccer Federation (USSF) to play friendlies and unpredictable behavior. in one of his emails. wine on a rainy evening in evening wore on, the wine started to wear returning to steady jobs in a pro league that international competitions like the Women’s “Nobody in women’s sports has ever seen an After graduating in 1984, Borislow was April 2011. down Borislow’s charm. caters to its fans, à la Candace Parker and her World Cup and the Olympics. But in between owner like Dan,” says Solo. “You’re not always making a living installing cable boxes and Six months earlier, According to some of the players present, gold medal teammates in the WNBA. tournaments, the options remain the same. going to get along with him, but he’s invested tending bar outside of Philadelphia when he the telecom entrepreneur, Borislow leaned into one woman and asked Instead, they arrive to find WPS out of Enter Borislow, who is moving forward with in the women’s game.” had his big idea: Thanks to the government whose MagicJack phone about her roommate: “Which one of you is the business—another casualty of the struggle to sell his MagicJack team, with or without a league. “At the end of the day, we need people to buy breakup of AT&T, it was suddenly possible to service is valued at giver and which one is the receiver?” he blurted women’s soccer to America. The league began And because he has retained the loyalty of in,” Wambach told ESPN at the Olympics in buy long-distance phone minutes at bulk $450 million, was spending his spare time out. Then he turned to another player and play in March 2009 with an ambitious plan for some of the biggest stars in the sport, including London, where Borislow paid for the national discounts and then resell them at retail on the coaching youth soccer in Palm Beach, Fla. Now asked, “Why have you never had a sexual growth. But like the failed Women’s United Solo and Wambach, he finds himself the team to have luxury dinners and got them into open market. With a $160,000 loan from a he had Abby Wambach and her teammates at relationship with a woman?” Soccer Association of the early 2000s, WPS most influential backer of women’s soccer in the sold-out men’s semifinal game. local gambler, Borislow launched a company his elbows, laughing at his jokes and watching A few of the women laughed—either because couldn’t figure out how to bridge the excitement America. “Why is it okay that the athletes In her decade-long pro career, Wambach has called Tel-Save in 1989. Eight years later, in a him throw around so much money that, as one they thought he was amusing or because they of World Cup and Olympic years. Oh, the league who represent our country the best should be now seen two women’s leagues come and go. visionary move, Borislow negotiated a deal with player at the dinner recalls, he “seemed to have were supremely uncomfortable. tried, spending wildly to create buzz and luring paid wages that leave them at poverty level?” he “It’s not always going to be easy,” she says. “And AOL to market those minutes over the web. thousands of dollars in cash in his pocket.” Shortly after that dinner, one of his new the biggest names to franchises in Chicago, wrote in one of several email exchanges with it doesn’t always need to be a feel-good.” After single-handedly building Tel-Save into a There is little that the 50-year-old Borislow recruits found herself confused about what to call St. Louis, LA and Washington, D.C., but it got The Magazine. “I would never pay someone giant with thousands of employees, he sold his denies himself. At his oceanfront mansion in her employer: Dan? Mr. Borislow? Boss? Coach? walloped by runaway costs that fans couldn’t who is best in their field these types of ridicu- Borislow’s story began in the Philadelphia shares in 1998 for a reported $300 million, Palm Beach, there’s a soccer field by the water, His reply says a lot about the man who can make support, not the least of which was a league lous wages. It would be embarrassing. We suburb of Norristown, where he grew up as making him one of the first dot-com million- not far from where he keeps his 66-foot yacht or break professional women’s soccer in America. o"ce running on a gaudy $5 million budget. By should not have a pro league in this country one of four boys. He was born with a hearing aires. “I laugh at people who say they need complete with nine flat-screens. And on this “Call me Daddy,” he replied. the end of WPS’s first year, most franchises were unless they get paid real wages.” defect that left him partially deaf as a child millions to start a business when I grew a night in Philadelphia, he was in rare form, drunk already hemorrhaging north of $2 million. To his ex-partners in WPS, Borislow is an and inhibited his ability to communicate. He company from that loan to $2 billion,” he wrote. on the celebrity he’d paid handsomely to be near. In August, a year and a half after the boisterous Now most of the league’s former players face insu!erable bully who made them choose describes his father, who held a government job In the late ’90s, Borislow settled down on a The two tables of women in Borislow’s party dinner—the details of which Borislow denies— a hollow choice: move to Europe to play elite between shutting down the league and playing as a mental health director for several counties, $20 million estate in Palm Beach with his wife, were members of a team in the fledgling key MagicJack players like Wambach, Christie soccer for as little as $20,000 a season, or settle by his rules. But to the elite women players as an imposing workaholic who bridled at his Michelle, and kids, Danny and Kylie. Living

80 ESPN The Magazine 09/17/2012 THOMAS CORDY/THE PALM BEACH POST/ZUMAPRESS 09/17/2012 ESPN The Magazine 81 T:3.25” T:3.25”

“WHY IS IT OKAY THAT THE ATHLETES WHO REPRESENT OUR COUNTRY THE B EST SHOULD B E FRANCHISE ISSUE PAID WAGES THAT LEAVE THEM AT POVERTY LEVEL?” B ORISLOW WROTE TO THE MAGAZINE.

pickups like Solo, Rampone, , sweeper, behind the defenders, and sometimes Marian Dalmy, and Tina he would bring his daughter or his employees,” Ellertson—all current or former members of says a member of the squad. “We had to play the U.S. national team who were thrilled to be 13- and 14-year-old girls.” making far more than their colleagues else- Borislow also brought his Philly tough-guy where. (While Borislow didn’t disclose his gambler act. According to several firsthand players’ salaries, the average WPS player made accounts of the scrimmages, he routinely $25,000 per season.) berated his players. “You’re f—king idiots!” he Asked why he overspent at a time when the screamed at them. One player remembers him rest of the league was retrenching, Borislow shouting, “You’re retarded!” In an email, replies: “It is not okay to treat women like crap Borislow vehemently denies these accusations. and abuse them. For some reason, many people “Until I got to preseason camp, it was all Borislow often showed think that is all right. The women to a large rainbows and butterflies in West Palm Beach,” up to MagicJack degree have accepted this treatment. They don’t one of the targeted players recalls. “But the worst practices riding this stick together and tell the USSF and Olympic times were being with him on the field as he flashy three-wheeler. committee to give them what is fair and equal.” degraded you. I wanted to hit him. All the time.” Borislow also moved his 18 players into In his emails to The Magazine, Borislow large in an early retirement, he threw himself “Dan is very e"cient,” says Mike Latimore, a condos in the heart of the luxury corridor o! likened his success at anticipating customer into horse racing. He worked closely with Wall Street analyst who notes that MagicJack the Intracoastal Waterway. Suddenly, these demand in the tech world to knowing what’s Scanlan, who describes Borislow as “probably has increased in value sevenfold, to $450 million, women, many of whom had struggled to make best for his players. “I am not running for the smartest, most loyal man I know.” But he since it went public in 2010. “All his operations a career out of soccer and a few of whom were public o"ce. I am trying to do what I think is T:12” also concedes the mogul hated to be corrected, are as scaled back as they can be.” straight out of college, were living in a building right,” he wrote. “Steve Jobs didn’t ask people, T:12” even when he was wrong. “I remember a race So in the fall of 2010, when Borislow learned with a giant rooftop pool, a private theater, a ‘What do you want?’ He figured out what they years ago where Dan wanted me to put $50,000 that the owners of WPS’s Washington sauna and, as one player puts it, “the nicest need. I believe in this philosophy.” SUPERNATURAL down on a horse that I didn’t think would make Freedom—John and Maureen Hendricks— beds ever.” On Easter Sunday, he took the team That confidence carried into MagicJack’s SUPER 8 it past the halfway point,” says Scanlan, who were losing more than they bargained on and to a nearby country club, where they shared a inaugural season. When the estimates he’s spent $25 million on horses for were considering selling the team, he was ready lobster-and-caviar brunch with Donald Trump. came to town for the team’s opening game in Borislow over the years. “Well, I wouldn’t do it. to make a deal. Late on a Sunday night, he got But if Borislow was building a world-class April at the FAU Soccer Stadium, the Breakers’ I ripped up the claim slip. And sure enough, the a phone call from the team’s GM and president, franchise in his backyard, he was also curiously coaching sta! walked the field and realized it horse broke his leg at the halfway mark. I called Mark Washo, who recalls finding Borislow uninterested in attracting soccer fans to see it. was three yards narrower than the standard Dan, figuring he’d be happy I’d saved him 50 “open and charming.” He signed a deal for the club to play at Florida 66 yards. They discovered why when the game grand. He screamed at me, ‘Next time you do Around 1:30 a.m., Washo hung up the phone Atlantic University, which had just a few started and Borislow fielded an unorthodox that you’re fired. It’s not about winning or and dialed the Hendrickses. “I think I’ve found hundred seats, despite a WPS requirement that 3-4-3 formation that placed three strikers up losing. It’s about doing what I want!’” the guy to save the Freedom,” he said. teams play in places that could accommodate front, presumably to give Wambach more Borislow is equally fanatical about his 5,000 fans. He also neglected the team’s opportunities to score. 15-year-old daughter’s traveling soccer team. WPS owners were so thrilled to have an investor website, refused to assemble a front o"ce sta! “FAU has a beautiful wide field, but Dan told He surrounded it with the best trainers and, who was willing to inject new money into the and discouraged players from doing interviews. them to make it narrower to help him play that in a move that raised eyebrows even in lavish Freedom franchise (Borislow declines to disclose “I spent all of last year o!ering him support crazy o!ense,” says Breakers GM Andy Crossley. Palm Beach, flew in top-rated kids from as the purchase price) that they rolled out the red from our league,” says Dr. Joe Meero!, a Three days later, Melanie Fitzgerald, the far away as California to play in tournaments. carpet. They let him erase any vestige of the old member of the Florida State Soccer Association league’s operations manager, wrote Borislow In 2008, he took the club to the world’s largest Freedom by moving the club from Washington, who was eager to tether the FSSA to WPS. “His to explain he needed to play on a standard youth soccer tournament in Sweden, where D.C., to South Florida and renaming it after his response was always, ‘I don’t need any help.’” field for the league to remain in compliance it went undefeated. prize invention, MagicJack. It quickly became clear that Borislow wanted with the USSF and fined him $1,000. “I don’t But the lure of making a second fortune In return, Borislow changed the scale of the to control every last detail of the insular world ask for a worthless speech from you,” he pulled at Borislow, and he eventually returned sport almost overnight. The salary cap that was he was creating for himself in South Florida. replied after several more run-ins with the to the telecom world with his next invention: a in place for WPS’s first two seasons had been He would show up at practices wearing a league. “Have somebody else respond to my small device that plugs into a computer’s USB rescinded for 2011 to let owners pay their players MagicJack T-shirt, long shorts and shin guards requests and inquiries.” He signed the missive, port and allows users to make cheap web calls less. But Borislow turned the tables by going on that he announced were “bulletproof” and “Your Boss Dan.” with their phones. Boosted by a campaign of an almost unhinged spending spree. Over 10 would scrimmage with the team, often bringing On May 12, 2011, he fired o! another email fast-talking TV commercials, “MagicJack” was dizzying days, he surrounded Wambach, whom his daughter and her teammates. to Fitzgerald: “You will be lucky,” he wrote, “if All titles available at play.google.com another hit after it debuted in 2007. he’d inherited with the Freedom, with free agent “Dan would try to play with us as our the league is still in business by the playo!s.” All titles available at play.google.com

THOMAS CORDY/THE PALM BEACH POST/ZUMAPRESS VENDOR VENDOR RELEASED TO RELEASED TO Vendor: williams Vendor: Release Date: 8/24/12 williams Vendor: Release Date: 8/24/12

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B EHIND THE SCENES, A MORE COMPLEX SUB P L O T WA S PLAY ING OUT. AS ONE RIVAL GM PUTS IT: “THE REAL FRANCHISE ISSUE SCANDAL WAS THAT THE NATIONAL TEAM PLAY E R S N E V E R STOOD UP FOR THE LESSER PLAY ERS.”

10 minutes later [Lyons] was fired.” When the news broke weeks later that WPS was Borislow was vocal on the When Wambach and her national team banning Borislow from being on the sideline for sideline of MagicJack colleagues left for a four-week stretch for the the rest of the 2011 season, his first reaction, games, to the chagrin of some of his players. 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany, according to Masar’s blog, was to tell his players Borislow began to ride those left behind even that they could either disavow the grievance or As Borislow’s responses grew sharper and the harder. “That’s when Dan really came out of have him cancel the rest of their season. Unable media began picking up on the story, a running the woodwork,” says one player. to be on the field with his team, he named focus of coverage came to be whether the WPS After a 2-1 loss to Boston, he lashed out at Wambach player-coach of the MagicJack. He could survive its new explosive owner. But his players in an email, writing, “I didn’t play also sent a fuller response to the team—a long, behind the scenes, a more complex subplot was this sh—y game, you did.” But the bluster was rueful, contradictory email. playing out. As one rival GM puts it: “The real tinged with a deep sense of personal failure “You think I needed this crap,” he wrote. scandal on that team was that the national team and frustration. “I [want to] help teach you “I should be left with little remorse about players never stood up for the lesser players.” how to be successful at whatever you want what happens to women’s soccer after the One of the midlevel players, who asked that to do in life.” In closing Borislow wrote, “I players union shot me in the head … I always her name not be used, recalls, “There was a did the opposite and helped create some thought I would be part of the solution group of our teammates who got $50,000 for even bigger losers.” instead of being part of the problem when I doing four minutes of work advertising Dan’s He also threatened to institute five-minute- donated to this charity called Women’s company. And they bragged about it.” Mean- mile runs that the women dubbed “suicide Professional Soccer.” while, he harangued those not on the national miles” and required them to take hot Jacuzzi The question is what solution he thinks he team, monitoring their Twitter feeds and taking baths before practice. “We would be in there for has to o!er. Even after the five remaining them on private walks around the field where he 15 or 20 minutes because he thought it would WPS owners voted on Oct. 25 to terminate T:12” T:12” told them how “Daddy” wanted them to act. be good for us,” one player remembers. “It the MagicJack franchise, Borislow came (Borislow denies ever telling players to call him made us so uncomfortable that he thought he up with an endgame worthy of a Russian Daddy.) “You are playing with living legends knew what was right for our bodies.” oligarch. He would walk away from WPS in SUPER with Christie, Hope, Shannon and Abby,” he Some players said they worried they might exchange for keeping the MagicJack team MUSIC, MOVIES FREAKONOMICS wrote to the team on May 23. “You have no clue not even get medical attention if they were as his personal bauble—a barnstorming how they got to the top, so I will tell you. They seriously injured. , a forward who is exhibition club. BOOKS, APPS give everything they have.” the only MagicJack player to publicly break He would, in other words, keep the world’s “It was all just a way of trying to manipulate with Borislow, wrote on her blog that when she best players living in luxury without having to AND MORE. me for reasons I didn’t even know,” says a su!ered a kick in the nose, the owner o!ered to worry about how to sustain women’s soccer as player who got one of the lectures. Adds drive her to the hospital but abruptly changed a business. But when the USSF failed to bless another: “It always feels good to get praise, his mind. “He took me to dinner with his the deal, WPS’s partners finally decided three On Android and the web. especially from a man that powerful. But he ‘boys,’” she wrote. months later to fold their league, causing changes so fast.” Masar eventually had to undergo surgery for scores of jobs to evaporate. “I felt that with all , a former Freedom and national a collapsed left nostril. the issues, there was no hope in sight,” says team player, says the complaints magnify the “People in women’s sports are softies,” Solo Thomas Hofstetter, a management guru who often subtler reality of women’s soccer: There told The Magazine in August, criticizing led New Jersey’s Sky Blue. are so few superstars that the majority of players Masar’s lack of toughness. “You have to have But Borislow’s stars are still aligned with can be easily intimidated. “A lot of people thick skin. I just don’t think [Masar] had him. He still has Hope. And Abby. And put the conflicts within that team on Abby,” thick skin at all.” Christie. And Shannon. While they’re techni- Whitehill says. “I won’t deny that people think By July 2011, the non-national players cally not on a team anymore, they all retain that. But I have a hard time believing it. I think going to take some of his punches. I was one had had enough. They met in their practice MagicJack sponsorships. And he’s in a prime the national team members never deliberately of those players. But Dan has always supported facility to vote on a grievance they wanted position to o!er top dollar to anyone else meant for the other players on the roster to get me, always loved me.” to file through their players’ union. Coinci- looking for job security. “The only way a treated badly. But it does appear that they Indeed, during a 2-0 win over Atlanta in dentally, in the middle of the discussion, league works in the U.S. is to get the best didn’t consider what standing up to Borislow May 2011, Wambach felt emboldened enough Borislow called. Ellertson, a defender, gave talent the world has to o!er and treat the would mean for the rest of the team.” to openly argue with her head coach in front him the news. When he asked who voted players with respect and fairness, only hiring Wambach was unavailable for comment of her teammates. “Abby wanted to play one which way, she simply replied that it was a real pros,” wrote Borislow. “I do not believe through her agent, Dan Levy. But in her position, and [coach] Mike Lyons told her to team decision among the players who were any league in the world will work if you dilute interview with ESPN in London, she said, play another,” says a person who was on the there to take the vote. the product. There just aren’t enough quality All titles available at play.google.com “When it comes to Dan, sometimes you are field that day. “She complained to Dan, and “Okay,” he said and hung up. players who people want to watch.” All titles available at play.google.com

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. ,” says a coach,” www.accountinfo.espnmag.com Braveheart support of the MagicJack owner. Wambach (left) and Hope Solo, two of of two Solo, Hope and (left) Wambach Borislow’s stars, have been firm in their their in firm been have stars, Borislow’s ESPN (ISSN # 1097-1998) (USPS # 016-356). Volume 15, No. 17 Sept. 2012. 17, Still, the women of professional soccer are “I love being on the field,” writes Borislow. “It’s “It’s Borislow. writes field,” the on being love “I It’s the oligarch talking, the man with 1-888-267-3684. To change your address, log on to P.O. Box 37325, Boone, IA 50037-0325. For subscription queries, call customer service at at service customer call queries, subscription For 50037-0325. IA Boone, 37325, Box P.O. and appearances, even … about the league.’ asylum.” the running up ended inmates The inside the madness. trapped U.S. againstU.S. China, walking around with “ABBY” written in thick pink paint across his was like forehead. “It who saw him that day. depend can you people find you where place a soul.” the heal can you where place A on. enough champagne and cash to o!er the best women players on the planet the kind of heedless lifestyle that the LeBrons of the world “Danenjoy. Borislow would never have had the balls to do what he did without those influential women insays his a formercorner,” coach in the league. “He basically bought the key players’ support. He gave them the chance ‘Screwto say, this, I don’t have to worry about residency near a training facility, about clinics Additional reporting by Lizzie Haldane. Additional reporting New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ESPN, ESPN, to changes address Send POSTMASTER: offices. mailing additional and NY, York, New ESPN is published biweekly, except monthly in January and July, by ESPN, 77 West 66th St., New York, NY, 10023-6201. The subscription price is $26 for one year. Periodicals postage paid at at paid postage Periodicals year. one for $26 is price New 10023-6201. subscription York, The NY,

The Magazine the womenU.S. triumphed in For the moment, Borislow seems to be going the moment, Borislow seems to be going For Left unsaid is where they would But play. wherever it is, he’ll make it hard for anyone else to compete with the expectations he’s unleashed—not to mention the deeply personal role the game plays in his life. About a week after WPS shut down in May, Borislow attended a friendly that pitted the London, several franchises—including three that were part of WPS—announced plans to start yet another league in 2013. Hofstetter, an organizer of the new league, promises that his group will deliver more with less. “The trick is to scale back the operations to a manageable he size,” says. tells direction.in a separate He Solo, Boxx, Wambach, he intends to keep Borislow Rapinoe (whom Rampone and Megan acquired from the Philadelphia Independence financial when he learned they were having and is payroll issues) on the MagicJack “to see if they want to players approaching two we would sponsor.” own a team that On the day

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