AHC: Create More Community-Owned Pro Sports Too

At the present, in the USA's four major professional sports leagues(MLB, the NBA, NFL, & NHL)
only one team- the Green Bay Packers- are owned by the community(the actual city they play
in). ALL the rest are owned by a rich individual or family. Now the challenge is-

Figure out a way to get more pro teams community-owned.
 
NOBODY have any ideas?
The issue is the moment...the great depresion can help with MLB and NHL as allow chances to communities saving their local teams and supporting them in the darkest hour, NBA is trickier, maybe an scandal or a relocation attemp goes wrong.

But using OTL examples

NFL:Baltimore Colts: Emminent Domained after Irsay attemtp to flee is foiled(was rat out) and they decided self shares backed by baltimore major and later become owned like the packers.
Browns: The same, modell is given an expansion team and the browns seized by cleveland.

MLB: Expos, Loria is kicked out and Montreal mayor office restore confidence
Marlins: Again Loria.

dunno others sports.
 

Driftless

Donor
You may need to move the POD before the 1950's, when the O'Malley's moved the Dodgers from Brookln to Los Angeles. They were making money and an institution in Brooklyn, but were able to relocate for even bigger dollars in LA. That opened the eyes of numerous owners and would-be owners on how to strong arm local governments by relocation or the threat of relocation. Then the leagues (associations of and for the owners) chartered that extortion racket into their business model.
 
I wondered about if a team threatens to move like the Bucs if they didn't get a new stadium. A community team committee manages to get 51 percent of the team. The committee is made of season ticket holders, and other businesses in the area. Problem is how to get the 51%
 
I wondered about if a team threatens to move like the Bucs if they didn't get a new stadium. A community team committee manages to get 51 percent of the team. The committee is made of season ticket holders, and other businesses in the area. Problem is how to get the 51%


I like your idea docfl. Only one problem &
that concerns teams in the NFL. The wonderful owners of that league passed a law saying that except for Green Bay, NO
team can be community owned. How- if
this team is an NFL team- do we get around this?
 
Currently, the Packers are grandfathered in, and the NFL has a rule that you can only bring on so many partners in your ownership group. I believe the Vikings had to change ownership in the early 1990s because of this, when they had a group of 20ish businessmen who owned the team.

You could always create more conditions before this that were similar to how the Packers became community owned. The team was on very shaky financial footing in the 1930s, and a fan sued the team after he had a fall at city stadium. As a result, the team was almost insolvent, and Lambeau offered "shares" for people in the town to buy, leaving them with no formal owner. Now, every 15 or so years, when the Packers need an infusion of cash (for instance, they did this before their last two stadium expansions) they offer shares to the public that don't give you any rights (except to vote for the board of directors, which get elected as a slate), don't earn dividends and can't be cashed out. However, the share makes for a fantastic thing to hang in your basement, which is where the share my Dad got me for Christmas one year is located.
 
I like your idea docfl. Only one problem &
that concerns teams in the NFL. The wonderful owners of that league passed a law saying that except for Green Bay, NO
team can be community owned. How- if
this team is an NFL team- do we get around this?

Maybe get the NFL to lose a law suite about that restriction.
 
I could see a situation where you'd have something like 2010, where the NBA was begging someone to buy the New Orleans Hornets, and eventually just ended up buying them, because they couldn't find an owner. So, maybe if you had some type of recession where there aren't 10-20 billionaires eager to buy a team like right now, the league could throw their hands up and just offer an IPO. However, there are also reasons why this wouldn't work
1) The leagues don't like the disclosure stuff that comes with being public (for instance, the Packers have to open their books each year)
2) You can't sustain fiscal losses year over year
3) The team has to have a very passionate fan base. You're not going to find 100,000 people buying shares for the Florida Panthers.
 
I could see a situation where you'd have something like 2010, where the NBA was begging someone to buy the New Orleans Hornets, and eventually just ended up buying them, because they couldn't find an owner. So, maybe if you had some type of recession where there aren't 10-20 billionaires eager to buy a team like right now, the league could throw their hands up and just offer an IPO. However, there are also reasons why this wouldn't work
1) The leagues don't like the disclosure stuff that comes with being public (for instance, the Packers have to open their books each year)
2) You can't sustain fiscal losses year over year
3) The team has to have a very passionate fan base. You're not going to find 100,000 people buying shares for the Florida Panthers.
Or you establish the circumstances in which the city is in a position to acquire the team.
 
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