Co-owner, club ambassador, strength and conditioning coach, headgear salesman, charity fundraiser and now kit designer… nobody can accuse JJ Watt of being a passive investor at Burnley.
When the NFL great and his wife Kealia, a former United States soccer international, bought a minority stake in the club in 2023, it seemed like one of the more unusual English football/American celebrity partnerships. Watt, a giant of a man at 6ft 5in (196cm) and 288lb (131kg), played all the traditional North American sports as a youngster in the state of Wisconsin before finding his true calling: sacking quarterbacks.
Having retired in 2022 after playing at the college level for Central Michigan University and the University of Wisconsin, and then a 12-year NFL career with the Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals, Watt moved into broadcasting and continued to raise money for the various good causes he and Kealia had championed for years.
So far, so normal, albeit at Watt’s trademark high level, and nobody would have raised an eyebrow if he announced that he and his wife had bought a small stake in a baseball, ice hockey or soccer team back home. But Burnley? The one in Lancashire? The one in the Championship?
Yep, the very same. And the now 37-year-old has been answering why he would do such a thing with his actions ever since.
JJ Watt and wife Kealia watching Burnley in the Championship in 2023 (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
His latest contribution to the cause is the design of the team’s away strip for the 2026-27 season, a cream creation that leans heavily into the club’s fabled past. He is also the star of an amusing campaign film that plays on one of his NFL nicknames — “The Milkman” (as in, he always delivered). The film and kit were released today (Friday).
Last week, The Athletic spoke to Watt about that, what brought him to Burnley to begin with, the ups and downs of the past four seasons and how the club might break that cycle (by dropping the downs, not the ups). We also asked him for his take on the World Cup this summer, and if English football could learn anything from the way the United States did it.
His answers were so good that we felt they did not need any contextualising or embellishing from us, so what follows is the transcript of our chat with only a few small trims to hide our wasted questions. Enjoy, Clarets (and Chippewas, Badgers, Texans, Cardinals and all other Watt fans)!
The Athletic: What can you tell us about Burnley’s new away kit? How involved in its design were you?
JJ Watt: Very, from start to finish. I’ve been passionate about jerseys for a long time — it’s a weird passion of mine — so to have the opportunity to design a kit for Burnley, a club that’s been around since 1882, is special.
I wanted to make sure I took the time and did it right by talking to supporters and doing my research. It’s funny to say it, but it took almost two years to make. It seems like it’s just a shirt and some shorts and it’s not that hard, but we went back and forth with the factory, the designs, the materials and every little bit of stitching. I’m very, very proud of it.
It’s the old crest. The pattern references Gawthorpe Hall (the historic country house on whose grounds Burnley’s training base is located) and the lettering is based on our old programmes. So it’s all about trying to honour everything that Burnley is about. I feel like, in today’s world, everyone is trying to go modern and minimalist. I wanted to go back and do some detail.
JJ Watt was involved in the design of the shirt ‘from start to finish’ (Burnley FC)
TA: Speaking of doing things a little differently, how did you end up as a co-owner of Burnley?
Watt: As my playing career started to wind down, I knew I wanted to be in ownership in some capacity to fill the adrenaline void. So I started looking around in America at all different sports, then I started looking over there, because I was so invested in European soccer.
I looked at a couple of other clubs first and, as I was doing that, someone said, ‘Hey, have you talked to Burnley?’ I hadn’t, so they put me in touch and we started discussing things. I then went over to visit. I’m from Wisconsin, and the town felt like a small Wisconsin town: the people, Turf Moor… I kinda fell in love with it. So I said, ‘Let’s do this’, and it’s been awesome.
Obviously, the relegations haven’t been what you’d want, but the promotions have been great. It’s also been a learning experience, being around the board and the meetings. I’ve seen it all and now have a great relationship with the players and staff. It’s been incredible.
TA: Having celebrity co-owners, particularly ex-athletes, is a relatively new thing on this side of the Atlantic. These relationships often look more like brand collaborations than genuine investments. Have you put real money into Burnley?
Watt: Yes, I’ve absolutely put money in. I’ve put a significant amount of money in. Trust me, this is both a passion project and a business endeavour. There is no question about that.
But there are two different ways to invest. You can throw your money in, sit back and watch it from afar — you can post about them online and be happy when they win, or quiet when they lose, or you can be truly invested, putting your time, energy and effort in, trying to leave the organisation better than you found it. That’s what I’m trying to do.
TA: You mentioned the promotions and the relegations. There have been quite a few of those recently. How do Burnley get as good at staying in the Premier League as they are at getting into the Premier League?
Watt: You have to be able to play with the big boys in terms of money. But it’s also about making sure you spend that money as efficiently as possible. When you’re fighting at that end of the table, you don’t have the luxury of making any mistakes. You can’t miss on a £20million ($26.8m) player, because that’s curtains and you’re going back down. You need to hit on every single transfer.
So that comes down to the board, the recruitment team, the manager — every single person. But it’s not only about getting the right people in. It’s about making sure your manager is maximising their talents once they’re in your building. It’s a frustrating game. And when you go back down with these high-price players, sometimes their abilities are beyond the Championship, so they’re going to go somewhere else.
But you’ve got to make sure you keep the culture, the core of what your team means. That’s the utmost thing.
‘The Milkman’ at work (Burnley FC)
TA: Would it be fair to say that Burnley took a different approach to last season’s Premier League campaign than in the previous one in 2023-24?
Watt: If you don’t learn from the past, you’re going to keep making the same mistakes. So, yes, the first time we went up under Vinny (then-manager Vincent Kompany) there was a long-term vision. Him going to Bayern (Munich in the summer of 2024) switched that up a little, but we had young players who we were going to develop. We knew there were going to be bumps along the way, but there was some superstar talent there. Clearly, it didn’t work.
The next time we came back up, we decided we needed a little bit more experience, a few older players, more size. We did that and tried a more defensive setup. But, clearly, that didn’t work either. So, we’re constantly trying to find the right balance. It’s not a see-saw. We’re not going all the way back to young players. You’re making a cake, and you have to find the right ingredients. Sometimes you have too much sugar, sometimes too much salt.
TA: Given that ‘yo-yo club’ tag, how do Burnley approach this season? Is it all about promotion and then you worry about what happens next, or are you already thinking about how to compete at the higher level?
Watt: You’re obviously thinking forward in the hope you get promoted — so you’re not in a complete rebuild when you do go up — but our number one priority is getting back up. We cannot act like it is a foregone conclusion, even though we’ve done it with 100 points, twice. The second you feel comfortable in that is when someone snakebites you and you’re done.
Getting back up is number one, without question. The second thing is just continuing to build the core of who we want to be, so that when we go back up, we’re not starting from scratch, (and) getting in an all-star squad of 20 guys worth £20million each to see if we can compete. We need to have our identity.
TA: You have a new head coach in Nicky Hayen, who had a lot of success with Club Brugge and was at (fellow Belgians) Genk last season. What are your first impressions?
Watt: When I was in Cincinnati at our match (a Burnley friendly against MLS side FC Cincinnati earlier this month), that was the day he got here, so he was a little tired but was very eager. He’s very aggressive in what he wants his teams to do. He wants them to press, be up on the front foot, counter-attacks. He wants to work very hard, which I love.
The first thing he said was, ‘How do you feel about training twice a day?’ I said, ‘Now you’re talking my language!’ I was all about hard work. I think our fans know if our team is on the pitch giving every single thing they have for the badge, working as hard as is humanly possible, that’s all we can ask, even if there are some defeats.
The frustrating part is when you’re watching a match, you’re losing and your guys aren’t giving that effort. They’re jogging, they’re walking.
Nicky Hayen, formerly of Belgian sides Club Brugge and Genk, is Burnley’s new head coach (Johan Eyckens/Belga Mag/Belga/AFP via Getty Images)
TA: That seems like a prerequisite for a Burnley team to me. When I think about the team in the Sean Dyche era, it had a lot of fight and there was a close bond between club and town. Burnley need that to be successful, right?
Watt: I agree. But you have to put a line of demarcation at the end of the Dyche years because that group, who did something incredible, were ageing.
So then you go to Vinny, which was a complete switch and almost a bare cupboard. All of the (Dyche) guys had done it, and there was almost nothing prepared for the next stage. We switched it, and our supporters loved that time in the Championship, because we were scoring goals and racking up points, but it was very different. Since then, it’s been up and down and all over the place.
I love the mentality of the Dyche era, when it was, like, “Can you win at Turf Moor on a rainy Tuesday night?” You knew you were going to be in for a battle. That’s what I want from our club. Yes, I want the tactical excellence to be there, too, but, at the end of the day, I want you to know that when you come into our building, you better be ready.
JJ Watt, in his Houston Texans days in 2013, leaves the field after suffering a cut to his nose (Bob Levey/Getty Images)
TA: Has the bond between fans and ownership been strained by the relegation seasons?
Watt: No question. I have no illusions about that. The fans are frustrated by the up and down. They like winning 100 points in the Championship but the disappointment, two times, in the Premier League is understandable. It does make it even more difficult in a year like this, because they assume we should go up. So when you win, it’s not even as exciting as before.
TA: And this season’s Championship looks like being very competitive…
Watt: It’s going to be an incredible battle. We can’t treat promotion as a foregone conclusion.
TA: Finally, I believe you were at the World Cup final. Would you agree that it was a tournament with an American flavour? And do you think there were things English football could learn from the experience, or should we just say it was an American World Cup and leave it there?
Watt: I think it depends if you’re looking at it as a businessman or as a football supporter.
If I’m the businessman running it, I loved the way it looked. There were extra commercials, there were all sorts of opportunities. We all know why those hydration breaks were put in. We’re not naive. But, from the supporter side, I completely understand those frustrations. For me, it was still an incredible spectacle. Do I understand the purity of the game? Yes. But I also understand what growing things entails.
TA: High ticket prices?
Watt: Ticket prices are a literal supply-and-demand issue. That’s how it works. But I do think that’s something European fans have done incredibly well — how hard they’ve pushed back any time someone wants to increase the prices. They’ve managed to force owners to make any increase minimal.
Every time I talk to my American friends about our season tickets, they say, “£500 per game, that’s not too bad.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, that’s for the season.” They’re like, “No way.” It is just a different world.
But I also think that’s what makes European football so good. The chants, the cheers, knowing that if you’re a fan, you can raise your children knowing they can always come to the game.
