Website trying to raise funds to buy professional sports team.

[MadFlava]

I saw an article about this website on the BBC:

http://myfootballclub.co.uk/


So this group is trying to recruit 50,000 members, all of whom will pay roughly around $70 US to raise enough money to purchase a soccer team in England. Every person that is a part of the group will have an equal vote in how the team is run and directed. It's a pretty interesting concept and I hope they do pull it off, though 50,000 people is quite a lot and I'm sure a few 1,000 will back out of paying. But if they succeed, they could raise around 3.5 million dollars to purchase a small lower division (ie minor league) team.

If this works, someone in the US should do something similar to buy a minor league baseball or hockey team.

 

[wubb]

Green Bay Packers are public owned.

From wiki:
"The Packers are currently the only non-profit, community owned major league professional sports team in the United States. Currently, a total of 4,750,925 shares are owned by 111,967 stockholders — none of whom receive any dividend.[3]"

 

[Oops! I did it again.]

That's a pretty rad concept; buying a lower level club, with the goal of having the fans lead it to the Premiership. As wubb mentioned, publicly owned teams aren't anything new, but an internet effort to put together fans of a variety of clubs under the united goal of owning one club is something I've never seen before. 50,000 committed donations is a lot, though...I doubt they'll get there anytime soon, but it'll be neat to see if they can pull it off.

The problem is obviously that they're looking at a one-time purchase here, do they have a plan for managing the finances after that? Because it's going to be hard to do much without a stream of cash beyond what the club itself is able to generate.

 

[Liquid 2]

First time that I've heard of something like this. Very cool.

 

[linkpwns]

[quote name='wubb']Green Bay Packers are public owned.

[/quote]

That is why they are the Packers... hah... packers... it really isn't that funny. I know. Anyway, that is pretty cool.