Letters to the Editor
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Community Ownership
The most interesting part for me is the idea of having part of the team owned by the public. I wonder how much control over any sort of team management decisions the public owners will have.
In Australia, football teams are clubs that are controlled by a board that is composed of people voted in by the members of the club. By giving the fans a chance to become a member and allow them a voice football clubs generate a much more passionate loyalty to the point where fans will go in to the streets and rattle tins to help make sure their club will survive.
Obviously there is a big difference between the Bill Hambrecht's proposed league and the Australian Football League in that none of the AFL clubs are for-profit ventures, but I think that people to have a financial stake in the team combined with some sort of voice in team decisions could make this new league really popular among fans.
To me there is nothing about NFL teams that really engender true loyalty among fans. The teams basically blackmail communities into providing them with millions in subsidies while making sure to screw the fans for every dollar they can and raking in a tidy profit for the team owners who may have no connection with the community other than to take their money.
I live in St. Louis and if there was a team that let me be involved in a similar way to AFL clubs I would switch away from the Rams in a second. Why would I care about a team that moved here from another city, exists to make money for Georgia Frontiere and would move again for the right price. There are only a handful of teams with the long, single city history that may allow them to play on a fans sense of nostalgia.