Goal! He Spends It on Beckham

By GRAHAM BOWLEY The New York Times April 22, 2007

Denver

ONE night here in the late 1960s, around the time that Philip F. Anschutz began laying the foundations of a multibillion-dollar fortune, a drilling supervisor at one of his Wyoming oil rigs phoned him with bad news: The well was on fire. And if the fire kept burning, it would bankrupt him.

But there was a bright side, Mr. Anschutz reasoned. The fire meant that he had finally struck oil.

He rented a plane, flew to Wyoming, and by 8 the next morning gambled more money on his oil venture by buying up land around the burning well, according to an account that Mr. Anschutz provided to the State Historical Society of Colorado in 1974. He then hired Red Adair, a legendary oil-field firefighter, to put out the blaze, and, he said, invited a Hollywood studio to shoot the episode for the John Wayne thriller "Hellfighters."

"There's always a point that if you go forward you win, sometimes you win it all, and if you go back you lose everything," Mr. Anschutz told the historian, recalling the fires. "That was that point for me."

Today, Mr. Anschutz is one of the wealthiest -- and most secretive -- tycoons in the country, parlaying early oil coups into real estate paydays, savvy runs at the railroad business, and the creation of Qwest Communications International, a telephony company that became mired in an accounting scandal. Last week, Qwest's former chief executive, Joseph P. Nacchio, was found guilty of federal stock fraud charges. (Mr. Nacchio plans to appeal the ruling).

While the Qwest debacle bruised Mr. Anschutz's reputation, his deal-making has not slowed down. In his latest act, he is now the biggest backer of professional soccer in the United States, having recruited the British star David Beckham with a five-year, $27.5 million package to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy, the highest-profile of Mr. Anschutz's three soccer teams.

He has also started free newspapers to challenge local media incumbents like The Washington Post, and he controls America's largest theater chain - giving him added heft as he pushes into film production with family-oriented and spiritually themed movies like "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," a box-office hit.

Mr. Anschutz's senior managers say he is confident that he can convert one of the world's last big non-soccer-crazy nations to the sport, while also influencing the type of films that Hollywood produces. Amid the push and shove of the global media whirl, he wants to be an arbiter of taste, fashion and even moral values.

Acquaintances say Mr. Anschutz's embrace of Hollywood and the media business amounts to a wholesale reinvention that uses business lessons first learned in the oil fields. They also describe him as an authentic visionary and one of the most exciting businessmen of his generation. His critics, however, are less laudatory, describing him as overly fond of reckless financial wagers that have helped him advance hot-button political and social issues.

For his part, Mr. Anschutz declined to be interviewed about his businesses or his aspirations. But that penchant for privacy may be tested in the months and years ahead as he draws his corporate goals and personal values more brightly and publicly on the global skyline.

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