In the early days of Major League Soccer’s restart final summer season, Jim Curtin, the coach of the Philadelphia Union, advised his gamers that he had lined up a particular visitor for a video convention name.

The Union gamers have been in the league’s bubble at Walt Disney World, exterior of Orlando, Fla., and due to well being and security protocols that restricted massive group gatherings, that they had scattered to their lodge rooms for the decision. A well-recognized determine quickly appeared on their screens. Kevin Durant, one of the team’s new owners, had arrived to ship a pep discuss.

As Durant’s speech — a message about what it takes to succeed and turn into a champion — morphed right into a nothing-is-off-limits dialogue, the gamers requested him about his N.B.A. title runs with Golden State, about his decision to join the Nets in free company and about his then-ongoing rehabilitation from Achilles’ tendon surgery.

“It hit with our players because they’ve all been injured at certain times — how lonely that can be, and getting yourself back to the top,” Curtin stated. “The interesting thing is that I have guys from 15 different countries in my group, and all of them were like, ‘That was amazing.’ I think Kevin contributed to the team in a bigger way than he realized.”

When Durant agreed to buy a 10 p.c stake in the Union final June — an funding value greater than $20 million — he joined a rising however choose membership of basketball stars who’ve acquired pursuits in skilled soccer groups. LeBron James was forward of the curve when, in 2011, he secured a small stake in the English membership Liverpool.

For a brief spell, Carmelo Anthony owned Puerto Rico F.C. of the now-defunct North American Soccer League, and the W.N.B.A. star Candace Parker lately purchased a bit of Angel City F.C., an enlargement staff in the National Women’s Soccer League.

Durant isn’t even the one soccer proprietor in the Nets’ locker room. He will get each day reminders of the N.B.A.’s fast cross-pollination with M.L.S.: Steve Nash, the Nets’ coach, is a co-owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps; Joe Tsai, the Nets’ proprietor, has a stake in Los Angeles F.C.; and James Harden, considered one of Durant’s teammates, arrived in Brooklyn this season with an possession slice of the Houston Dynamo.

“I’m sure once we play those guys, me and James will have a nice little wager on it,” Durant stated in a phone interview, including: “It’s cool to see guys in our sport stepping over and doing something different.”

The involvement of high basketball gamers in North American soccer comes at a time when athletes — notably Black athletes — are more and more leveraging their wealth and their public profiles to upend the normal athlete-owner dynamic. Consider that the N.W.S.L.’s possession ranks now embody not solely Parker but in addition Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, tennis stars who perceive their affect and are seizing alternatives to wield it past the court docket.

“I think players are realizing now that they have the opportunity to not just play for these teams and get paid by these owners,” Parker stated. “They have the opportunity to actually write the checks. This generation has a different mind-set.”

Parker stated she grew to become extra critical in regards to the concept of staff possession in latest years as a player for the Los Angeles Sparks. She received to know the homeowners, she stated, and was intrigued by what occurs behind the scenes — and the profound impact of these choices.

Durant stated that he had thrown himself into the Union’s affairs. He participates in the possession group’s weekly convention calls. He has chatted with the coaches about growth and coaching. He has provided opinions on all the pieces from jersey design to neighborhood outreach. He has conferred with the gamers about social justice points, becoming a member of a name that helped result in the team’s role in a voter-registration drive final yr. And he has proven a willingness to opine on dubious refereeing decisions, like some other good Union fan.

After the Union parted with two of their greatest gamers in the low season — midfielder Brenden Aaronson now plays in Austria and defender Mark McKenzie left for Belgium — Durant often is the staff’s most high-profile addition in the final yr.

Durant was not precisely a soccer aficionado rising up in Prince George’s County, Md., exterior of Washington, D.C. Tall for his age and 6-foot-10 by highschool, he spent most of his time engaged on his soar shot. But he would kick the soccer ball round along with his buddies, he stated, and he shortly recognized a parallel between the sports activities.

“I swear one of the things he loves about it is that it’s reliant on scoring a bucket,” stated Rich Kleiman, Durant’s supervisor and enterprise accomplice.

Early in his N.B.A. profession, Durant took a few promotional journeys to Europe on behalf of Nike, considered one of his sponsors, and met among the firm’s different international pitchmen. They occurred to be soccer gamers. Durant’s publicity continued to develop when he joined the Warriors and developed a relationship with Nash, who was then working with the staff as a participant growth guide. Nash, who has been a co-owner of the Whitecaps since 2008, is an avid soccer participant whose brother Martin as soon as performed for Canada’s nationwide staff.

“Steve is huge into soccer,” Durant stated. “We’ve talked about what it is to be an owner, and how much traveling he does to stay up with the team and how often he goes over there.”

Durant recalled a formative expertise in 2019, when he noticed a information launch asserting that Harden had joined the possession group of the Dynamo and the Houston Dash of the N.W.S.L. “I got more and more interested when I saw some of my peers get into this,” Durant stated.

For athletes like Durant, Kleiman stated, soccer franchises are “a realistic entry point” for staff possession. Current gamers usually are not allowed to accumulate stakes in N.B.A. or W.N.B.A. groups, and the valuations of N.F.L. franchises and high European soccer golf equipment can attain into the billions, placing vital possession stakes out of attain even for rich athletes. (There are exceptions, in fact: James bought a minor stake in the Boston Red Sox final month from the identical companions who personal Liverpool.)

Parker stated the driving pressure behind her involvement with Angel City F.C. was her 11-year-old daughter, Lailaa. Parker, a two-time winner of the W.N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award, has lengthy been vocal about encouraging others to assist and make investments in ladies’s sports activities.

“And my daughter, she’s the main one who kind of calls me on all my stuff. She was the one who was like, ‘But Mom, are you doing it?’” Parker stated. “So I kind of had her in my brain when I decided to go about this, because I think it’s so important for us to not just say it but do it as well.”

Parker stated soccer, not basketball, was her past love. She performed till she was 13, she stated. “Until my parents crushed my dreams because I was going to be tall and they told me that they didn’t ever see any 6-foot-2 soccer players,” she stated. “I wanted to be Mia Hamm or Brandi Chastain.”

Durant had talked with a special M.L.S. staff, D.C. United, about investing in the staff earlier than these negotiations stalled. After The Athletic reported on those discussions in October 2019, Jay Sugarman, the Union’s majority proprietor, reached out.

“Sort of fortuitous timing,” Sugarman stated. “We were looking for different voices in our ownership group.”

Two months later, Durant and Kleiman visited with staff officers on the Union’s coaching facility. Curtin operated as a tour information. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little star-struck,” he stated.

Any preconceived concepts that Curtin had about Durant’s potential function — that he solely wished to connect his superstar to the staff with out having any precise involvement — dissolved as they went across the constructing. Durant had questions.

“You could tell right away with Rich and with Kevin that they were serious,” Curtin stated.

Sugarman stated he sensed that Durant and Curtin have been philosophically aligned. In the burden room, Curtin talked about how “beach muscles” are out and core energy is in. In the cafeteria, he launched Durant to the staff chef and emphasised the significance of weight-reduction plan to restoration. In the movie room, Curtin talked about how he preferred to maintain these classes as tight as attainable, in any other case he risked shedding the gamers’ consideration.

“I feel the same way,” Durant replied.

Curtin additionally defined how he averted the locker room as a result of he thought of it the gamers’ “sacred space,” and the way the staff prioritized its youth academy and innovation. Philadelphia has experimented with GPS trackers, he advised Durant. The staff flies drones at coaching classes. It digs into analytics.

“He was interested,” Curtin stated. “Not only interested in the game of soccer but also interested in what we do on the field and how we get our players ready.”

By final June, the deal was official. Durant’s possession stake features a advertising and marketing partnership with Thirty Five Ventures, the sports activities, media and leisure firm that he co-founded with Kleiman. But can also be has given him a championship aim in one other sport.

The Union completed with the most effective file in M.L.S. in final yr’s shortened season however have been eradicated in the primary spherical of the playoffs. They, and Durant, need a greater ending this yr.

“We just want to keep building,” Durant stated. “It’s a lot of work to be done.”