Fan Owned Winter Football League

[JB]

Why Wouldn't A Fan Owned Winter Football League Succeed?

Football is the number one sports in the U.S. Forget that BS about Baseball being America's favorite past time, it's Football, hands down.

Once the NFL and college football seasons end, dozens and dozens of stadiums across the country remain basically empty and un-used.

Most football fans feel a let down once the regular season ends, in part because the off-season is way too long. What an excellent, wide open business opportunity.

People are always pouring money into the stock market on risky companies and losing billions of dollars. Why wouldn't people be interested in investing in a fan owned league?

How many fringe players are cut every year by the NFL? Think of the level of quality players that don't make the final two cuts. How many players just need another season or two to improve their skills but never get that chance. How many of these guys would quit their current jobs just to have a chance to play football, improve their game, and get a second chance at the big money in the NFL? How many of these guys would be willing to play for a thousand dollars a week. To keep players healthy and in-shape, the new league could pay these guys all year long. As soon as the season ended, players would be required to train, workout, lift weights 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Ensuring the quality of play once the season began and also providing players the opportunity to be called up to the NFL should the need arise.

Does anybody know what it would take to start a fan owned league? To actually get it on the stock exchange and sell shares?

Any info and input, pros and con, are appreciated.

[minnfan]

What would it take? An act of god, nothing less. Every point you make is true, but it's been tried and tried and failed and failed. After the debacle of the World Wrasslin Football League nothing but an NFL owned and operated league would stand a chance.

[Herk]

There was actually an attempt at a similar league like this named the Fan Ownership Football League. Unfortunatly it never got off the ground.

[JB]

I'm looking for an outdoor league that starts play the week after the Super Bowl. The NFL off-season is way too long at 7 months. What an opportunity for a new league. Too bad Mark Cuban with his new High Definition tv network isn't interested in starting a new league. It would also be good fit for Spike TV. Starting a professional winter league would be great project for business school students,ie. Harvard Business college, Yale and others. Not to actually start the league but to research into what it would take, as a project. They could even ask questions as to what went wrong with USFL and XFL by interviewing or submitting questions to Vince McMahan or former owners of the USFL like Donald Trump. Anyone know how to make this suggestion to one of the elite business schools?

[JB]

(This article is a perfect example of how money can be raised for a fan-owned football league. What a great idea, have sports talk show hosts in the top 30-50 major cities organize fund raising for a new fan owned winter/spring football league team in their respective cities)

Sports-talk host raising funds from fans for Reds purchase

Radio sports-talk host Andy Furman is trying to raise $150 million from Cincinnati Reds fans in a bid to buy the 51.5 percent ownership stake put up for sale by three of the team's minority owners earlier this week.

"I'm real serious," said Furman, who claims to have received $50,000 in pledges while talking up the idea on his WLW-AM 700 radio show Wednesday night. "I'm telling you, I think this thing can happen."

Furman said the money could be raised by getting $2,000 each from 75,000 people or by seeking 15,000 contributions from 10,000 fans. Once secured, the cash could be placed in an escrow account and used to establish a credit line for future capital needs, he said.

"I think people would spend $2,000 to say, 'I'm part owner of the Cincinnati Reds.' People spend more money on gym shoes," he said.

Furman discussed the idea with attorney Howard Richshafer, who cautioned him that both the Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission strictly regulate how money can be raised for investmens. In the 1980s, Richshafer helped Furman put together an investor group in a failed attempt to bring a National Basketball Association franchise to Cincinnati. He said the group had trouble raising $50,000, much less $150 million.

"I love the guy and his heart's in the right place but ... realistically, it's not going to happen," Richshafer said.

Furman isn't the first to discuss broad public ownership of a big-league sports franchise. The Green Bay Packers and Boston Celtics are both owned by publicly traded companies. Hamilton County Treasurer Robert Goering proposed buying the Cincinnati Bengals several years ago. And Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune said this week that the county should explore the idea of purchasing the shares now held by minority owners Louise Nippert, George Strike and Gannett Co.

Those shares were offered for sale on March 7, when a New York-based brokerage firm Allen & Co. put out a press release on the offer. Steve Greenberg, Allen & Co.'s managing director, declined to estimate what the shares are worth. But he said a good starting point is the Milwaukee Brewers' recent sale in which the entire franchise fetched $220 million.

Greenberg said a private placement memorandum will be circulated in about a month on the Reds deal. It will follow a pre-screening process in which Major League Baseball performs background checks on potential bidders and certifies that they have deep enough pockets to both purchase and help fund the team's ongoing expenses.

He declined to identify potential bidders but said the list will likely include losing bidders from Milwaukee and Washington, D.C.

"We've had expressions of interest from Cincinnati," he added.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2005/03/07/daily39.html?jst=b_ln_hl

[minnfan]

I'm looking for an outdoor league that starts play the week after the Super Bowl. The NFL off-season is way too long at 7 months. What an opportunity for a new league. Too bad Mark Cuban with his new High Definition tv network isn't interested in starting a new league. It would also be good fit for Spike TV. Starting a professional winter league would be great project for business school students,ie. Harvard Business college, Yale and others. Not to actually start the league but to research into what it would take, as a project. They could even ask questions as to what went wrong with USFL and XFL by interviewing or submitting questions to Vince McMahan or former owners of the USFL like Donald Trump. Anyone know how to make this suggestion to one of the elite business schools?

I'd suggest you ask somebody else. If McMahan had a clue as to what he did wrong he wouldn't have kept doing it. If Trump had had any interest in the USFL rather than taking his franchise to the NFL he wouldn't have driven the final spike into the league.

Ask the people those two morons shafted, they'll tell you that what went wrong was they listened to the words of fools and cheats.

When the Fan Football League was being formed it was being built by the creators of the USFL, the original creators of the USFL, people who knew something about building a league from scratch. They failed to get past the "anybody out there interested?" stage you know. My guess is if they couldn't do it neither could anybody else.

Except the NFL. And they already failed once themselves with the WLAF.

It's going to be a long, long time before any spring outdoor football gets more than a laugh and a shake of the head from anybody anywhere.

[superscoutken]

I'm looking for an outdoor league that starts play the week after the Super Bowl. The NFL off-season is way too long at 7 months. What an opportunity for a new league. Too bad Mark Cuban with his new High Definition tv network isn't interested in starting a new league. It would also be good fit for Spike TV. Starting a professional winter league would be great project for business school students,ie. Harvard Business college, Yale and others. Not to actually start the league but to research into what it would take, as a project. They could even ask questions as to what went wrong with USFL and XFL by interviewing or submitting questions to Vince McMahan or former owners of the USFL like Donald Trump. Anyone know how to make this suggestion to one of the elite business schools?

I'd suggest you ask somebody else. If McMahan had a clue as to what he did wrong he wouldn't have kept doing it. If Trump had had any interest in the USFL rather than taking his franchise to the NFL he wouldn't have driven the final spike into the league.

Ask the people those two morons shafted, they'll tell you that what went wrong was they listened to the words of fools and cheats.

When the Fan Football League was being formed it was being built by the creators of the USFL, the original creators of the USFL, people who knew something about building a league from scratch. They failed to get past the "anybody out there interested?" stage you know. My guess is if they couldn't do it neither could anybody else.

Except the NFL. And they already failed once themselves with the WLAF.

It's going to be a long, long time before any spring outdoor football gets more than a laugh and a shake of the head from anybody anywhere.chapter 8 (‘Whose Game is it Anyway? Stakeholders, mutuals and trusts’), Jonathan Michie and Shay Ramalingam argue that mutual organisations are effective in removing stakeholder conflict. This has been demonstrated in particular in the financial services industry in the form of mutual assurance firms and building societies. Michie and Ramalingam argue that this form of organisation would suit the culture, ethos and objectives of football clubs and should be encouraged. Short of mutualisation, clubs such as Barnsley Football Club in Britain and the Green Bay Packers in the US are at least examples of widespread local and fan ownership. The chapter discusses how fan involvement might be institutionalised through the progressive transfer of shares to Trust status

[Pounder]

Many English clubs have some public ownership... and trouncing the fans with the rules is how Malcolm Glazer took over Manchester United. I'm not sure the enthusiasm for that format remains in England.

Moreover, it is my understanding that owning fans are responsible for covering the losses if (probably more accurately stated as "when") the league loses money. That might explain the lack of interest.

The only caveat I'm hedging with might be the route MLS took, with a Limited Liability Corporation. That structure has been a hot pathway for several companies over the last several years. I'm not sure stockholding is allowed within that structure, however.

Short answer is that there's just too much risk for someone like me to buy into it. That's why I don't see this happening. You really have to wait for the NFL to make some seriously bad decisions before contemplating a rival league in the first place.