Small Biz

Accidental Entrepreneurs

Enzo Francescoli

GolTV North Bay Village, Fla.
Founded: 2003
Employees: 100
Revenue: n/a

International soccer star Enzo Francescoli never thought about starting a business while he was on the field. But during a trip to the U.S. after retiring, he realized there was little international soccer on American TV. "So I decided to bring the best soccer leagues from around the world to America by launching GolTV, the first all-soccer network," Francescoli says in an e-mail.

The bilingual network has TV rights to premier leagues in Germany and Spain and reaches 16 million households. GolTV was one of the top three Hispanic cable networks in the first quarter of 2008, according to Nielsen.