Here's the deal:

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9340102

Quote :

"Here comes Fanchester United Jun 14th 2007 From The Economist print edition Buying a football team used to be a rich man's game. Not any more. Young football fans dream of playing for their favourite teams; older fans dream of buying them. For most people, however, a club is beyond their means, so they must indulge their managerial ambitions in other ways, such as fantasy-football games or computer simulations. But now Will Brooks, a British football journalist, has devised a novel scheme to allow fans to own and manage an English club for real. Through his website, launched in April at myfootballclub.co.uk, Mr Brooks hopes to sign up at least 50,000 fans prepared to pledge £35 ($70) each. (So far he has signed up nearly 35,000.) The syndicate will then use at least £1.4m of its funds to target a team for a takeover bid. Mr Brooks stresses that this is a non-profit venture for genuine fans who want to make a real difference to a club in need. Because the acquisition will not be financed by debt, there will be no interest payments, and since no money will be taken out as dividends, any profits can be reinvested. “The club should therefore be on a much more secure financial footing than the standard shareholder-ownership structure,” says Mr Brooks. Leeds United is top of the fans' shopping list, according to votes cast online. Catastrophic financial mismanagement and spiralling debts lie behind the club's demotion from the top flight of English football to a division two tiers below in only five seasons. Last month the club said it could not even afford to pay the expenses of medical volunteers who attend its matches. But Leeds may not be the eventual takeover target. Mr Brooks has brought in Michael Fiddy, a lawyer and former managing director at Fulham, to make sure that the target club is in good financial order. Once a club has been bought, every decision—from picking players for the squad to choosing tactics to identifying candidates for transfers—will be made by the syndicate's members. Instead of a manager the club will have a coach who will say what he thinks is best for the team; his proposals will then be put to an online vote. It may not be easy to find a coach willing to agree to these terms, but if the club is successful, the coach “will become well known and respected for having the courage to try something new,” says Mr Brooks. And if things go wrong? For once, the fans will not be able to blame the manager."

I thought I'd put the idea of fan ownership of a team out for discussion - I think this is a very intriguing idea, and though I'm not sure I'd like to see a team like Leeds subjected to the whim of something that may turn out to be very gimmicky, the team is in fact in dire straits. Obviously, in this case, football = soccer... but think about this in terms of any sport. Think about having weekly team meetings on a nationally syndicated TV broadcast. And just for grins, imagine NC State at the mercy of its fanbase.

Here's the link to the actual website if you want to take a look around

http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk

[Edited on June 19, 2007 at 3:46 PM. Reason : ]

6/19/2007 3:45:38 PM

that's awesome

6/19/2007 3:46:51 PM

sounds like a money making scam to me...they make a $3 million offer and what happens if the team doesnt want to be taken over for $3m? also how would 50,000 people with equal voices be able to make any decisions

6/19/2007 3:48:30 PM

May work as long as people or groups aren't buying more than one share and skewing the ownership and online voting. Like 10,000 TWW'ers buying shares and only voting State grads to join the team and telling UNC grads to GTFO.

6/19/2007 3:50:33 PM

every single decision the franchise makes with have to be public knowledge. who to trade for, who to cut, what coaches to acquire. doesn't seem like a great idea.

6/19/2007 4:08:29 PM

The Green Bay Packers Foundation would be surprised to hear about this new idea.

6/19/2007 4:17:45 PM

Quote :

"that's awesome"

i'd do it if i knew anything about that football. i wonder if they shares are transferable? i'd do it in the hopes that I could sell back (to another shareholder) at a higher price, maybe during a critical voting period?

6/19/2007 4:30:05 PM

WE HAVE 25,000 VOTES BUT NEED 25,001 VOTES...HERE'S $100,000,000 FOR YOUR 1 SHARE

6/19/2007 4:41:29 PM

didn't a minor league baseball team try this a few years ago

this is such a horrible idea

6/19/2007 4:56:11 PM

capital markets for sports teams

i love it!

6/19/2007 5:19:49 PM

Quote :

"every single decision the franchise makes with have to be public knowledge. who to trade for, who to cut, what coaches to acquire. doesn't seem like a great idea."

It's already reached the point where that's pretty much the deal with most high-profile professional sports teams anyway thanks to 24/7 avenues like NFL Network

I wonder what the plan is as to how much of a majority vote would be required for different kinds of internal decisions to be made, finalized, and pushed through - I can imagine fanatics taking the fight to the streets if any vote was resting at 51%-49%

but i am willing to bet there are some clubs mired in the lower tiers in England who would take this deal, if for nothing more than exposure

6/19/2007 5:41:27 PM

this idea will never work

6/19/2007 6:16:31 PM

Who cares if it works or not.

$75 is a fairly worthless amount of money.


Owning a sports franchise (albeit a small part) is pretty cool.


I dont think anyone is worrying about their rate of return, its just cool to "own" a franchise.


If I could buy a share of Carolina Panthers stock for $75 I'd do it jsut so I could nominate Lamar Lathon's jersey to be retired every year at the annual review

6/19/2007 7:07:08 PM

^it might seem "pretty cool"

but thats what the guy thought in that Alltel commercial where he owned like 1 share and he was like "yep, I own Alltel"

6/20/2007 8:41:24 PM

it would be uncanny if they fenced this equity offering on something like tradesports.com

my trader friends already do their betting futures trading on sports from there

6/20/2007 9:28:04 PM