- Barnsley are set to be sold to a Chinese-American consortium in near future
- Billy Beane – minority owner of the Oakland Athletics – is among the investors
- He was a pioneer of moneyball and was played by Brad Pitt in film of same name
- His consortium will buy 98.5 per cent of shares in the club for £20million
Billy Beane – the baseball legend portrayed by Brad Pitt on the silver screen – is part of the consortium buying into Barnsley.
Sportsmail can reveal the Oakland Athletics minority owner is set to bring Moneyball to Yorkshire as part of the Chinese-American group which is locked in discussions to purchase a stake in the club.
The 55-year-old made his name with his use of sabermetrics at the Athletics, placing emphasis on statistics over traditional scouting methods in the recruitment process with huge effect.
Billy Beane is one of the members of the consortium looking to buy into Barnsley
The approach turned the A’s into a competitive force on one of the smallest budgets in Major League Baseball, and the 20-game winning streak masterminded by Beane in 2002 became the focus of the 2011 movie ‘Moneyball’, starring Pitt.
Beane, whose consortium will acquire current owner Patrick Cryne’s shares, is no stranger to football and in 2015 was hired by Dutch club AZ Alkmaar as an adviser.
He is now set to turn his hand to the Championship, with Barnsley currently sitting 15th after six games of the new season.
As revealed last month by Sportsmail, Chien Lee – the owner of French club Nice who has previously been interested in Middlesbrough and Hull – and American businessman Paul Conway complete the consortium.
Patrick Cryne, the current owner of Barnsley, has been suffering from terminal cancer
The deal, which could be completed as soon as the end of this month, has been brokered by Alexander Jarvis and Blackbridge, a company which has advised on a number of foreign investments in English football.
The Beane-Lee-Conway consortium, who are set to buy 98.5 per cent of the club for £20million, was one of several parties interested in Barnsley as Cryne who is suffering from terminal cancer, looked to sell up.
The current Tykes owner was forced to step down from his day-to-day duties at Oakwell in November to fight the disease.
On Tuesday, prior to his side’s Carabao Cup victory over Derby, he wrote an emotional note to supporters in which he said he did ‘not expect to live’ to the end of the season.
Cryne, who made his wealth through the sale of computer software company iSoft in 2007, assumed control of Barnsley in 2004.