Buy our own Football Team!

[jpg75]

I'm not sure about the "gift" idea, if i wanted to give away $900 i'd find alot better ways to give it away. i think a different class of share is a better idea.

[River City]

Great points on the class A and class B share distinction as well as USL1 being unrealistic KAS.

I like the W-league suggestion as the franchise fee for a team is 25K with an annual letter of credit of 10K. Operating expenses of about 100k same as PDL. VPjr can probably include the w-league info in the spreadsheet for cost comparison.

Since it looks like this could get serious though, I think we need to figure out what the best course of action is. With Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in MLS in a few years, what is the best league to operate a franchise in? Both from a Canadian player development and from a purely business point of view? Is it USL, PDL, W-League, CSL, PCSL, a brand new league either in the Maritimes or in the Prairies?

[SoccerNewf]

How about USL-2? I know I am not much up on it but it seems most teams are in the Atlantic region.

I think it would limit us to either setting team up in Ontario or Quebec if we went that route.

[VPjr]

The people who run MyFootballClub.co.uk were on World Soccer Daily podcast yesterday and I listened intently.

I'm not overly worried about setting $100 as the price to buy a voting share. The MyFootballClub people set the price GBP 35 ($70 US) and managed to sign up 30,000 shareholders in year 1 (50,000 people have registered but 20,000 of those 50,000 have not forked over any money as of yet). I seriously doubt those people feel less enamoured with the concept because they are only 1 of 30,000. I think the opposite is true. Most people like being part of something big because it somehow validates your decision to spend the money.

As for what type of team to buy / launch, that would be up to the shareholders when enough money is raised to even fathom holding a vote. I'll keep my opinions to myself until such time.

By tonight, I'll have the spreadsheet completed and I'll post the info on the thread.

BTW, I've sent an email to the people at MyFootballClub to discuss our desire to do this here in Canada. They might be able to assist / lend advice.

[KAS]

quote:Originally posted by River City

Great points on the class A and class B share distinction as well as USL1 being unrealistic KAS.

Merci. In fairness, VPjr had already mentioned going with two classes of shares at different prices, with one voting and the other non-voting.

The difference between VPjr and myself is that I don't agree with the dividend-paying part of his idea. I think that is unrealistic and will attract people who will only put in money once at $100, and will then assume to be getting some of that back every year. I take the opposite approach and suggest that everyone commits to paying an additional 10-20% ($10-20 or $100-200) of share price every year for atleast the first five years. This seems more likely.

I would not want to bother with the complexity of non-profit status, but in the off-chance that the club shows a small profit, then that could be ploughed back into the team (better coaching, training, local advertising, ect). Conservative, even negative, numbers should be used in projections (underestimating revenues from sponsorship and attendence, overestimating costs such as advertising and travel, ect) so that shareholders are going into this with their eyes open and expecting annual cash-calls to make up shortfalls.

quote: I like the W-league suggestion as the franchise fee for a team is 25K with an annual letter of credit of 10K. Operating expenses of about 100k same as PDL. VPjr can probably include the w-league info in the spreadsheet for cost comparison.

Since it looks like this could get serious though, I think we need to figure out what the best course of action is. With Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in MLS in a few years, what is the best league to operate a franchise in? Both from a Canadian player development and from a purely business point of view? Is it USL, PDL, W-League, CSL, PCSL, a brand new league either in the Maritimes or in the Prairies?

I think PDL and W-League make the most sense. They are reasonable, cross-country, and are useful for developing talent. USL is too much and in decline. CSL and PCSL are too regional and are for lousy professionals with minimal talent/future instead of gifted/promising young amateurs (NCAA students) who might one day play for Canada. New leagues in the Maritimes or Prairies would serve underserved areas, but they are too unpredictable, too small, and there would not be enough Voyageurs in the area to volunteer to help run/support it. It is a given that no-matter where the team is, there will be many shareholders who will live too far away to attend games. The key though, is to pick somewhere that still has a large enough Voyageur base. That is one of the things that I like about the W-league - Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton are available.

[KAS]

quote:Originally posted by SoccerNewf

How about USL-2? I know I am not much up on it but it seems most teams are in the Atlantic region.

I think it would limit us to either setting team up in Ontario or Quebec if we went that route.

I think this would be the worst choice. It is even more unstable/screwed-up than USL1 will soon be, has inferior players, and is still too much money while doing damn all for development or hosting potential NT players.

It would limit choices to the East, and that is not something you want to do at this stage. You want a large number of people to buy into the concept first - with the understanding that the location will be chosen on merit at the inevitable disappointment of some - rather than exclude everyone West of Ontario at the very start and ensure that the shareholders group will be much smaller and more regional. USL2 is for lousy pros who would be crushed by MLS Development Player rosters, so it does not serve any purpose.

[KAS]

quote:Originally posted by SoccerNewf

How about USL-2? I know I am not much up on it but it seems most teams are in the Atlantic region.

I think it would limit us to either setting team up in Ontario or Quebec if we went that route.

I think this would be the worst choice. It is even more unstable/screwed-up than USL1 will soon be, has inferior players, and is still too much money while doing damn all for development or hosting potential NT players.

It would limit choices to the East, and that is not something you want to do at this stage. You want a large number of people to buy into the concept first - with the understanding that the location will be chosen on merit at the inevitable disappointment of some - rather than exclude everyone West of Ontario at the very start and ensure that the shareholders group will be much smaller and more regional. USL2 is for lousy pros who would be crushed by MLS Development Player rosters, so it does not serve any purpose.

[SoccerNewf]

quote:Originally posted by VPjr

The people who run MyFootballClub.co.uk were on World Soccer Daily podcast yesterday and I listened intently.

I'm not overly worried about setting $100 as the price to buy a voting share. The MyFootballClub people set the price GBP 35 ($70 US) and managed to sign up 30,000 shareholders in year 1 (50,000 people have registered but 20,000 of those 50,000 have not forked over any money as of yet). I seriously doubt those people feel less enamoured with the concept because they are only 1 of 30,000. I think the opposite is true. Most people like being part of something big because it somehow validates your decision to spend the money.

As for what type of team to buy / launch, that would be up to the shareholders when enough money is raised to even fathom holding a vote. I'll keep my opinions to myself until such time.

By tonight, I'll have the spreadsheet completed and I'll post the info on the thread.

BTW, I've sent an email to the people at MyFootballClub to discuss our desire to do this here in Canada. They might be able to assist / lend advice.

I listened to that podcast too and have been eating up information.

Some key points:

First of all we need a dedicated website to gauge actual interest. This would include total numbers and how much members are willing to pay for membership/ownership.

Personally I can't see two tiers working, i.e. voting and non-voting membership. I think there should be one set price for all. To be decided on what will generate the greatest revenue for the team. The spreadsheet you are working on will be the start of that.

I would think we will not get the same interest as "My Football Club", so their model can't be used exactly. It's more of like buying a real-life version of "Football Manager". I think the members should actually own the club, or at least the organization that owns the club.

We need to get some good business people in at the ground level to ensure that this runs smoothly on a legal level and that if and when the team is bought, members would not be liable if it went bankrupt.

I think that is some good points to get this whole thing off the ground. Anyway, I am just rambling now so I will stop.

Everything else can be decided down the road. All through the voting system.

[royalcity]

Well I won't be in Montreal either, I'm at sea until the day after the match. Looks like I drew the short straw again this summer.

I figure if we are going to aim to own a club we might as well aim as high as possible so my vote is for USL div 1.

It seems to me that a USL-1 team has the most likelihood of attracting a fan base as opposed to any of the other options I've seen suggested. That is short of MLS of course, and I think MLS is definately unrealisitc. The added benefit, if you can call it that, is that USL-1 games are shown on Fox Sportsworld Canada so out of town supporters have a chance of seeing our team on TV. And then there is USL live.

As for the ownership structure, I think a shareholder model is unnecessarily complex. We need to aim for something that has a low barier to entry, has lots of flexibility, is easy to participate in, offers a recurring monthly revenue stream, and is easy to opt out of if one chooses to stop participating.

I propose a membership model as opposed to a shareholder model. Memberships in the "legal entity" that owns the shares of the team. In other words much in the same way a Union collects monthly dues from it's members for belonging to the Union, I suggest a similiar structure for owning a team.

Why membership?

Well for one I think it's a whole lot easier to set up than a shareholder model.

For instance it could be done online. It could look similiar in nature to a paid, membership only website. I think a membership only website is probably essential to a venture like this anyway.

There are lots of payment companies on the web that collect memberships, handle credit card processing, hand out passwords, offer recurring montly billing, deal with customer service issues and seamlessly handle membership cancellations. Utilizing a service like this opens up participation for anyone from foreign jurisdictions to participate without the complexities of share ownership.

If you want to participate in owning and running a football club go to the website and simply buy a membership. Insert credit card number, sign up and get billed once a month. Want to stop, simply cancel your membership.

With memberships you can structure the type of membership you want to offer, for example...

keeping a low barrier to entry in mind,

$10/mo = voice and vote and access to tickets

( maybe the above doesn't guarantee one ticket for one membership. Maybe it's a ticket pool in the cheap seats. Maybe it's established on a ratio basis at this level like 3 memberships equals 1 ticket, or something like that. Maybe these get allocated on a first come first served basis. Good for out of towners who want to support the club, but don't really need tickets, but might want to come out once or twice a year to see their club play. )

Then you get creative,

+$/mo = voice and vote and one seasons ticket

+$$/mo = One voice, one vote, two seasons tickets,

maybe a family membership

+$$$/mo = one voice, one vote, four seasons tickets

maybe you want to have block memberships equalling maybe 10 tickets, 20 tickets or more but these are still one voice, one vote. Good for groups orlocal small business.

Do the same for corporate sponsoship. They get whatever block of tickets they are willing to pay for but at a price dependant on the level of profile they want, but still on the one voice, one vote model.

Some other advantages that I see,

1) a chance at easily creating growing monthly cash flow. At some point someone, or several people have to do some grunt work. They either need to get paid or at least have their expenses covered at the outset.

2) if this venture gains any traction an ownership structure like this has a novelty factor that is both doable and is simple to participate in and understand. Plus the novelty factor that might gain an interest with the media. Lets face it there is media people on this site. Sure they are Canadian soccer fans with media jobs but they are still media and if this gains acceptance they'll watch this and then maybe with luck support us with coverage. Perhaps more people will want to take out memberships, wherever they live.

3) Attaching tickets to memberships creates a seasons ticket base. That might be handy in approaching USL.

4) Attaching tickets to membership creates a seasons ticket base that might come in handy when approaching a municipal council in the chosen city.

5) Attaching tickets to membership creates a seasons ticket base that might come in handy in stadium negotiations.

6) A membership becomes an asset to the club. Maybe a corporate sponsor is willing to pay the club an extra fee for access to the membership for promotional purposes. This would have to be handled carefully, I don't want to be pitched. But membership should have added benefits, the club should benefit financially, and corporate sponsors could help with this.

If we set up a legal structure that sells small monthly memberships through a website I think we are real close to owning our own club, and soon. It does't have to be in USL 1 that I'm advocating for, it could be one of the other suggestions. This is just the way that I see it could be done.

By the way, I'm not suggesting the Voyageurs should incorporate or legalise to sell memberships. I haven't been around here that long.

[KAS]

Royalcity,

the membership formula sounds good and may offer a simpler ownership structure, and monthly fees can raise alot of money, but I see some potential problems with your idea that will have to be worked out.

- You will still have to address the ownership issue. Things like websites and copyrighted material still needs to have an owner. So, instead of shareholders owning the club, you have shareholders in the website/company that runs a membership service for those running the club. I'm not sure if there is a real difference since you would obviously want to have the venture incorporated.

- Monthly memberships are tricky. It is alot more work (paying someone to do it adds to costs), and is more volatile as people join at the start of the season or winning streaks, and stop payments at the end of the season or rough times. Keeping access and voting to current paid-up people only can be difficult. It also makes revenue projections more difficult.

- One reasonably large upfront fee, followed by annual dues where everyone pays up at the same time, is simpler and easier to manage (passwords are changed and major votes held the month after annual dues are collected from all). It is also less painful for some than seeing charges on their credit card bill in December for a team that isn't even playing while they worry about Christmas expenses. You should just ask for money once a year at a time when people can afford it and are full of anticipation for the upcoming soccer season (maybe March?).

- Since you want to have a large base from across Canada/World, you need to seperate ticket costs from membership/shareholder fees. Incorporating tickets in the fees is unfair to those who live too far away and would only increase resentment to those who live in the lucky city chosen to have the team. The fees should be for things like website access and voting privledges which everyone can ejoy regardless of where they live. The locals should have to buy their tickets as a completely seperate transaction (maybe a discount?). This would also encouage the team/FO to look past the local members and to the general population to sell tickets. Catering purely to the local hardcore fans would keep attendence down.

I personally believe that it would be easier to manage a smaller group that paid higher fees upfront, then a much larger group of less-committed people with a higher turnover. The shareholder vs membership debate probably require more info to be sorted out.

[gkhs]

I would be down for an 'A' share when/if this took shape.

I think a mid-sized fish, mid-sized pond scenario would be best. Like PDL, USL-2 level team in a place like Kingston or Guelph, or a Maritimes-based franchise.

I actually think Kingston would be perfect, its a great summer town, and in a place like that this would be an appealing afternoon out. In Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg it could be dismissed as bush league...in Kingston, its the only game in town in the summer.

[SoccerNewf]

quote:Originally posted by KAS

I personally believe that it would be easier to manage a smaller group that paid higher fees upfront, then a much larger group of less-committed people with a higher turnover. The shareholder vs membership debate probably require more info to be sorted out.

The thing is that More Then Likely this will be a small group who will want to pay a larger fee up front.

This club will have specific mandates that are related to the direction the Voyageurs and Canadian soccer fans believe in. Namely, developing Canadian talent and sustaining a successful soccer team in Canada.

Just as an educated guess (I have formal business training), I can't see thousands joining up in this as a membership for something fun to do.

People will want to join to own, as you said, an incorporated business that runs the club. Obviously that is not set in stone but their needs to be some primary research done to gauge the interest on what type of system (i.e. membership V. Ownership).

The thing is that "My Football Club" has done the membership thing, we should look more on the ownership side of things. With "My Football Club", when you pay, that's it really, your money is no longer yours. However, with ownership in a corporation, your assets are protected and if for example, the club was sold you would receive your share of the pie. Or if you wanted, you could sell your stake to someone else if they wanted to join.

An annual member fee could be collected as well at the end of the first year. This would be used for example to maintain the website, run webcast of game, etc....

Also, if you did not pay your fee then your membership could then be sold to someone else and you will be given your money back and sent on your way.

Now, I will say that corporate law is not my forte, and obviously there would have to be a lot of rules in place as compared to the normal open corporation. Such as 1 stock only, for 1 vote only, to give everyone equal say.

....but I think it really makes it our team that we own as opposed to "My Football Club", where your money goes into a trust. I think it will allow for a smaller group and from interest we can gauge how much a share will cost and how many to issue.

[Stuart]

I would also be interested in kicking in 1,000 loonies if this thing gets off the ground.

I do believe PDL is the way to go considering the costs are alot cheaper(there are no player salaries as far as I know)and who knows, If we get some fine young talent playing on our team we might just be able to sell him (them) off to bigger clubs and we'd start to see money coming back to us. Of course I think it would be great to be a non-profit club where all the money would be put back into the running of the organisation.

Of course I'd give anything for the team to be here in Calgary but I think we'd have to centalise the location to Winnipeg to make it fair for everyone.

Who knows, if this works out we could always purchase more teams spreading out in a ripple effect from Winnipeg and maybe someday we'll have teams right across this great land!!

(Okay, maybe I'm just dreaming about that last paragraph)[|)]

[Footscray]

Without a close examination I would rank Calgary as the best choice of the BC/Alberta/Sask options closely followed by Edmonton. Amongst the other provinces I would be interested in hearing more about Winnipeg, Ottawa, Halifax and Quebec City.

I would be against any city under 500,000 excepting perhaps Halifax - the potential to grow is so limited in the long run plus the player pool you start with is poor in relation to the bigger centres. The player pool is crucial at the PDL level, you won't have a ton of players moving too far to play at that level.

If Calgary isn't the 4th biggest metro area in Canada already it will be soon. Lots of disposable income as well and a total void for soccer with a big playing community, I think with or without us it will be Canada's next USL 1 or 2 city. Building a viable club there is more about location and facility than anything else and I feel the same way about Edmonton which is a great second option.

The W-League is good thinking - I do feel that the mens game has more potential to move players on and to attract spectators though. My first choice would be PDL right now - USL 1 would be amazing but might be a better idea in a few years when the organization is a little more established IMO.

[VPjr]

MyFootballClub - Canadian edition</u>

Verbally committed to buying shares

masster - $1,000

squid2 - $1,000

River City - $1,000

VPjr - $1,000 (maybe more)

VPjr's dad - $1,000 (maybe more)

jpg75 - $1,000

Footscray - $1,000 (willing to donate professional services)

BrennanFan - $1,000

Ivan - $1,000

jpg44 - $1,000

SoccerNewf - $1,000

royalcity - $1,000

An Observer - $1,000 (maybe more)

Stuart - $1,000

total committed as of May 15, 2008 - $14,000 minimum

Maybe committed to buying shares?

Cheeta

Natesta

JasonM

KAS

gkhs

- for those of you on the Maybe list, if you want to be moved to the Committed list, let me know how much you would be willing to commit to.

I will update this post every couple of days with any new people willing to commit.

Tomorrow, I will post about the various franchise options at our disposal (USL1, USL2, PDL, W-League, CSL, etc...)

I have not received a reply from the guys in the UK who stared MyFootballClub.co.uk. I have lots of questions for them.

I also want to speak to my company's corporate lawyer to get his opinion. If one of the lawyers on this site want to "lend" their services, it would be appreciated.

[Footscray]

Add me to the maybe more category for what it's worth.

I want to voice my support for the website as an important next step, perhaps not just yet but finding a willing design party with some background would be a great start. If one does not come forward from amongst us I will sound out some friends in that industry in a few weeks. Creating a registry of interest and some background info might serve as a bit of a lightning rod.

The research on corporate structures and league regulations is vital and much appreciated! I know very little about governance and ownership models and I am really curious about the NPO structure in particular - does this model of governance allow for private ownership if all funds are reinvested or would our $1,000 basically be little more than a tax writeoff? The amount of grants out there for NPOs makes this a really enticing option if we can retain ownership. Thanks for looking in to it VPjr.

[Stuart]

quote:Originally posted by VPjr

MyFootballClub - Canadian edition</u>

Verbally committed to buying shares

masster - $1,000

squid2 - $1,000

River City - $1,000

VPjr - $1,000 (maybe more)

VPjr's dad - $1,000 (maybe more)

jpg75 - $1,000

Footscray - $1,000 (willing to donate professional services)

BrennanFan - $1,000

Ivan - $1,000

jpg44 - $1,000

SoccerNewf - $1,000

royalcity - $1,000

An Observer - $1,000 (maybe more)

Stuart - $1,000

total committed as of May 15, 2008 - $14,000 minimum

Great, we only need $50,00 more and we have a PDL side!!

[KAS]

Alot of interesting posts in the last little while. I would like to to comment on a few.

@GKHS: As a former Queen's University grad student, I can tell you that Kingston is gorgeous and the stadium is more than big enough. Being a university stadium, availability in the summer would not be a problem, it is just making sure that the pitch is taken care of. The problems with Kingston is the small population base, the fact that most students are gone in the summer, and the tourist draw is to the lake and not in the direction of the stadium. Kingston is good for controlling travel costs as it is in the middle of a Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal triangle. As a GTA resident who did his undergrad at Carleton U in Ottawa, I know the Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa stretch very well.

@Stuart: You cannot sell PDL players as they are just NCAA students looking to play in the summer while preserving their amateur status with the ultimate dream of being drafted into the MLS. I don't think the team would have to be put in Winnipeg just to be fair to everyone. What would be fair, would be picking the location on merit - such as chance of financial success and the local talent pool. If a suitable place could be found in Calgary, then I think it has to be considered a strong contender.

@Footscray: I think Edmonton and Calgary would be great options if suitable venues could be found. I think Winnipeg is getting a new facility, but others know more about it and its' potential suitability than me. Halifax is probably too far from other teams (think travel costs - the death of the all-Canadian league), and maybe Quebec also. Ottawa already has PDL and W-League with the Fury. Your 500K population requirement would rule out Kingston, but not necessarily Oshawa as it is really about the whole Durham Region (over 500K), with it's high income and huge soccer playing base. Oshawa's stadium is big enough for PDL/W-League, but you should know that it has a track, and a small club has failed there before (Durham Storm? CPSL?). I also don't know if it is officially part of the Lynx territory. The Lady Lynx are playing Rochester in Oshawa on July 5th, so the Hartrells may bitch about the local competition. One last thing - I would not switch to a dedicated website for awhile. The conversation should stay here with the higher traffic to get more attention and potential investors.

@VPjr: Given the amount of posting I have done in this thread, I am obviously interested in the venture, but I would like to stay in the maybe column because I take promises very seriously so I have to be 100% certain. I could come up with the $1000 (I disagree with the "maybe more" idea if that refers to buying more than one share, but not necessarily if you mean a higher price) on short notice if needed, but I want to know what exactly I'm joining. In the interest of financial security, I would hope that everyone goes into this knowing that the chances of getting their money back would be fairly slim (that is just the way it is with most soccer clubs), but you would still want to see a plan with a reasonable chance for success.

BTW VPjr, I have not posted on U-Sector in ages (2006), but I still lurk there and know that you are a regular. Once everyone here has had their chance to comment on and shape this idea, you may want to consider starting a thread over there that links them here. Of the TFC groups, they have the most Voyageurs, are the most familiar with USL1/PDL/W-League/CSL and are perhaps the most pro-Canada. I think you could find a few potential investors there who would buy into a Canadian-development plan without skewering the location debate too much towards GTA locations.

EDIT: sorry VPjr, I just checked the U-Sector site and saw that you had started a thread there that linked to this discussion a few hours earlier. Great minds think alike eh? Perhaps you could try starting another one in the main Toronto FC forum instead of just the "Canada" forum there so that more eyeballs see it and hopefully Sean/Ryan/Rudi don't kill it (wait until they are on a roadtrip [}]). Hopefully, some Impact and Whitecaps fans will see this thread and notify their peeps as well to keep a regional balance here.

[VPjr]

quote:Originally posted by KAS

@VPjr: Given the amount of posting I have done in this thread, I am obviously interested in the venture, but I would like to stay in the maybe column because I take promises very seriously so I have to be 100% certain. I could come up with the $1000 (I disagree with the "maybe more" idea if that refers to buying more than one share, but not necessarily if you mean a higher price) on short notice if needed, but I want to know what exactly I'm joining. In the interest of financial security, I would hope that everyone goes into this knowing that the chances of getting their money back would be fairly slim (that is just the way it is with most soccer clubs), but you would still want to see a plan with a reasonable chance for success.

BTW VPjr, I have not posted on U-Sector in ages (2006), but I still lurk there and know that you are a regular. Once everyone here has had their chance to comment on and shape this idea, you may want to consider starting a thread over there that links them here. Of the TFC groups, they have the most Voyageurs, are the most familiar with USL1/PDL/W-League/CSL and are perhaps the most pro-Canada. I think you could find a few potential investors there who would buy into a Canadian-development plan without skewering the location debate too much towards GTA locations.

EDIT: sorry VPjr, I just checked the U-Sector site and saw that you had started a thread there that linked to this discussion a few hours earlier. Great minds think alike eh? Perhaps you could try starting another one in the main Toronto FC forum instead of just the "Canada" forum there so that more eyeballs see it and hopefully Sean/Ryan/Rudi don't kill it (wait until they are on a roadtrip [}]). Hopefully, some Impact and Whitecaps fans will see this thread and notify their peeps as well to keep a regional balance here.

- the "maybe more" concept reflects the reality that some investors might be willing to donate more funds to get the venture going in Year 1. However, I believe strongly in the idea of 1 member - 1 vote, no matter how much you contribute. Of course, there is nothing to stop 1 person from buying shares with their money on behalf of spouses, kids, grandkids, etc... but retaining control of these votes. It would be against the spirit of the concept but I could see it happening and there is little if anything that could be done about it.

- Yes, I posted a link to this thread on both RPB and U-Sector and I plan to do the same on other forums this weekend. If someone wants to beat me to it, feel free.

- I posted it on the Canadian sections because people tend to be quite committed to keep TFC forums as uncluttered as possible. If Rudi, Sean or Ryan want to move it to the TFC forum on the U-Sector site, that would certainly be appreciated.

[KAS]

quote:Originally posted by VPjr

- the "maybe more" concept reflects the reality that some investors might be willing to donate more funds to get the venture going in Year 1. However, I believe strongly in the idea of 1 member - 1 vote, no matter how much you contribute. Of course, there is nothing to stop 1 person from buying shares with their money on behalf of spouses, kids, grandkids, etc... but retaining control of these votes. It would be against the spirit of the concept but I could see it happening and there is little if anything that could be done about it.

- Yes, I posted a link to this thread on both RPB and U-Sector and I plan to do the same on other forums this weekend. If someone wants to beat me to it, feel free.

I would not want to see potential investors being told to keep some of their money because they are not allowed to give more, but realistically, I think it will be difficult to find people who would be willing to allow someone who paid $100 to have as much say as they did if they paid $1000 or more. We live in a capitalist system, and one of the rules of that system is that those who have/invest more, have more power.

I noticed your posting on U-Sector and saw that it has attracted three expressions of interest - two at $100 and one at $1000. Despite the complexity, I do suspect that the way to raise the most money would be to have investors at both levels.

Yes, this does mean two different classes of shares (see above about more money = more say), but I now think that both classes of shares could be voting shares. The Class B ($100) share would be worth 1/10 a Class A ($1000) share. In practice, that probably means that a Class B counts as one vote, and a Class A counts as ten votes. Class A shareholders cannot purchase additional A or B Class shares (so nobody has more than ten votes), while a Class B shareholder could purchase more - up to a max of ten to equal the ten votes of Class A.

I think this would be a workable compromise. Those who can only afford $100 are not being excluded from ownership and decision-making, while those who have $1000 are not being encouraged to just give $100 and keep $900 off the table because they are being properly rewarded with extra votes that is proportional to their investment. The cap of one Class A or up to ten Class B is still close enough to the 1 member = 1 vote principle as nobody could own a controlling stake and the Class B shareholders could purchase additional shares in the future as their finances permit until they were equal to a Class A shareholder.

I know that I have been posting too much in this thread, so I am going to stay out it and just lurk for a couple of days and hope that others jump in here with their ideas.

[VPjr]

^ i put a call into my company's corporate lawyer on Friday. shockingly, he was off early playing golf.

When I hear from him, I will discuss the issue of the pricing of voting shares.

We're not in England. Maybe he need to be realistic and realize that we're not going to get 50,000 people willing to pitch in money for the "fun" of saying you own 1/50,000th of a piece of a team.

We might want to consider the possibility of setting the minimum price for a voting share at $100 and allowing people to buy as many shares as they wish up to a certain predetermined number of shares (i.e. 10 shares max per individual investor at a price of $100 per share). Again, i'm just thinking out loud but if we really like this "Own our own club" idea and want it to flourish, we might need to be realistic about how we can best attract the largest possible number of $1000+ investments rather than dissuade them.

[finchster]

Just an idea but smaller cities would love to have a professional team to put them on the map no mater what the sport. No one should have a shortlist of cities for a team, if this is going to happen then cities would come to us to try and get a team. You could probably get some sweet heart deal from a city for a pro sports team.

[VPjr]

Someone on the Red Patch Boys posted the following, advising that this very same type of project is underway in the US.

Originally Posted by footyfan

There are some guys in the States doing this to buy a PDL team.

http://www.mysoccerclubusa.com

[Footscray]

quote:Originally posted by VPjr

Someone on the Red Patch Boys posted the following, advising that this very same type of project is underway in the US.

Originally Posted by footyfan

There are some guys in the States doing this to buy a PDL team.

http://www.mysoccerclubusa.com

That is a great find and will be a resource to us. A couple of thoughts;

-nice website, speaks for itself and acts as a recruiting tool

-heavy focus on the tv-video content for remote members which is smart

-membership fee model that royalcity spoke to seems to make sense for their model with so many members, wonder how the entity is owned.

I will e-mail them and ask about their ownership and governance structure.

Update - done, I`ve asked about their structure along with their first organizing steps. I will post any response I get to the group here asap.

[Footscray]

Trevor at mysoccerclubusa has got back to me very quickly and is very supportive of our group promising to offer any help he can. To summarize the info from him;

-his first step was to set up the website, picking a name and registering the website as a non-profit organization

-the website "owns" the club

-recommends 1)website asap and 2)building up content as we go while 3)researching markets

-also actually considered Quebec City in Canada

Edit - I discussed the issue of $1,000 initial investors vs. annual memberships and Trevor suggested appointing the initial $1,000 investors as the board. This NPO model with tiered membership might be slightly different in Canada but I think that having a group a little further down the same road will be a major asset.