Supporter Owned Team

[Bench]

Having been disenfranchised by the running of TFC by MLSE for quite awhile I have been mulling over this idea of if it is possible to have a supporter owned team in this city. Given the size of Toronto and the number of die-hard sports/soccer fans, who I think would jump at a chance to be a part owner of a team, I would think it would be possible to have 50k people pay $100-200 each for such an endeavor. I would then think that $5-10 mil would maybe be enough to put a team into the CSL. If this was successful, the team could then move up to the NASL and eventually challenge TFC for the top club in the city.

I am not proposing to stop being a TFC fan but more so to become apart of something incredible in this city.

I would love to hear your opinions on such an idea, and whether or not it would even be feasible.

[Initial B]

Intriguing, but you would have to also have a board and front office in order to get enough soccer expertise. If you leave player decisions in the hands of the supporters, that won't end well. This might have worked fifty years ago, but I'm not sure it could work now...

[Bench]

I did think about that too. I was thinking more along the lines that the supporters would vote to put members onto the board, who in turn would handle all the operations of the team. However, finding people with the proper expertise to be on said board would probably be rather difficult.

[pdubs]

Look at the Green Bay Packers ownership model

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc.

"The Packers are the only community-owned team in American major league professional sports.^[1] Rather than being the property of an individual, partnership, or corporate entity, they are held as of 2015 by 360,584 stockholders. No one is allowed to hold more than 200,000 shares,^[2] which represents approximately four percent of the 5,011,557 shares currently outstanding.^[3] It is this broad-based community support and non-profit structure^[4] which has kept the team in Green Bay for nearly a century in spite of being the smallest market in all of North American professional sports.Green Bay is the only team with this public form of ownership structure in the NFL, grandfathered when the NFL's current ownership policy stipulating a maximum of 32 owners per team, with one holding a minimum 30 percent stake, was established in the 1980s.^[5] As a publicly held nonprofit, the Packers are also the only American major-league sports franchise to release its financial balance sheet every year."

[brad]

Take a look at FC United of Manchester.

[molenshtain]

There's multiple teams in the german, english and american pyramids that are fan owned. If you want something closer to home, look at Nashville FC.

[Ossington Mental Youth]

Never going to happen in this league.

[OgtheDim]

For Toronto, it would be possible in a league without a relationship with MLS, way down the league levels. PDL maybe.

[Brooker]

Take a look at FC United of Manchester.

They're a bit of an exception to the rule.

[Bench]

I think those are all great examples of cities coming together to create their own team to support. As for the league, I agree that it would have to be something lower, and could never really work in the MLS, however, I think it could work if it started in the CSL or PDL.

In addition, I have this feeling that it would be a huge success in terms of popularity and would have the possibility to really garner some profit to expand the team.

[zeelaw]

Never going to happen in this league.

Yep, impossible.

[Oldtimer]

Try to buy the Toronto Lynx from Bruno. Throw a few bucks his way and he and his wife may be happy to part with their money-pit. D4 soccer is where it's at!

[CanadaLFC]

Wasn't there something similar done with Miltown FC?

I vaguely remember some board members pooling together money and buying that team and putting it in CSL.

[TFC07]

Isn't CSL pretty much dead? If rumours are true, then owning a team in new Canadian league (C-League?) would be best thing to do.

[Oblio2]

Ebsfleet in the UK did this......

[Ossington Mental Youth]

also find myself regularly at odds with peoples opinions on here, not sure id want to invest money with them and run a team with them

[Cashcleaner]

I doubt MLS or NASL would ever even consider such an ownership scheme, but the smaller leagues here in North America have allowed it. That said, we need to understand just how many clubs have sprung up over the years and maybe played for two or three seasons before folding due to financial difficulties. As much as I love the game, a local club is not something I would invest any large sum of cash in.

[jloome]

also find myself regularly at odds with peoples opinions on here, not sure id want to invest money with them and run a team with them

Smart man. What a flaming wreck a fan-run Toronto team would be... I'm getting more convinced the up-and-down "never 100% supportive" nature of the critical TO fanbase is part of why players always crack under the pressure.

Still... I also wonder if having the best players on such higher wages than the rest of the team doesn't lead to social divisions that prevent them from bonding as much as they should.

[james]

The advantage Europe has on USA/Canada is they often have divisions with promotions and relegation. A new team can start in a 10th division without really putting a fortune of money into it as they can start tiny with the hope of making it slowly back up the ladder with slow growth in the stands and slowly maybe make the way back to the top 5,4,3,2 and ultimitately back into the 1st division. Teams like AFC Wimbledon, FC Manchester United and SV Austria Salzburg are great examples. Problem we got is we don't work on a tier like that. You have to have money, and lots of it to climb your way up the ladder here, not just by winning division tittles. You could win 5 titles in a row and the higher division would be looking down at you like "we don't care if you won the Ontario Region tittle, you got no stadium and no money to put in my pocket, so screw off". I just think its just way more difficult here.

I also don't think we have got to that point where we need to start our own club (tho it does sound fun at times) but AFC Wimbledon was created because a owner purchased the original team (from Wimbledon a borough of South West London) and then moved the club to Milton Keynes a suburb town pretty far North of London, so not even close in English Football Club terms to where the team came from, it might as well be like a club moving from Toronto to Detroit. FCMU fans couldn't really afford high prices at Old Trafford to buy seasons or even attend any games any more plus some fans just had enough of management and SV Austria Salzburg was created because a new owner changed the name (To Red Bull) changed the colours, and the new owner himself said it is a new team with new colours, name and new history, and the old history no longer counts. So the supporters pretty much felt like they were given a big 'F" YOU. To be honest we have some seats that are very affordable and people in England dream of tickets at some of TFC season ticket prices, our team hasn't moved towns and the owners haven't taken our history or colours or anything away from us. Even tho sometimes we disagree and feel under valued, the team owners haven't been complete nobs to us (yet anyways), and in some cases they want our support still and do spend money to bring talent to the team and slightly show respect and what not. We get pissed off about some stuff (Argos being the biggest issue of all) but we don't have to jump ship just yet!

[MightyDM]

Having been disenfranchised by the running of TFC by MLSE for quite awhile I have been mulling over this idea of if it is possible to have a supporter owned team in this city. Given the size of Toronto and the number of die-hard sports/soccer fans, who I think would jump at a chance to be a part owner of a team, I would think it would be possible to have 50k people pay $100-200 each for such an endeavor. I would then think that $5-10 mil would maybe be enough to put a team into the CSL. If this was successful, the team could then move up to the NASL and eventually challenge TFC for the top club in the city.

I am not proposing to stop being a TFC fan but more so to become apart of something incredible in this city.

I would love to hear your opinions on such an idea, and whether or not it would even be feasible.

I love the idea. Sask Rughriders, Green Bay, Dortmund, Barca - lots of models of ways to do it

[C.Ronaldo]

Why not just make it a publicly traded company on some small stock exchance, and sell shares that way?

having shareholders / investors adds alot of overhead costs though, best way to do it is start a cheese empire and run it yourself

[Oldtimer]

Isn't CSL pretty much dead? If rumours are true, then owning a team in new Canadian league (C-League?) would be best thing to do.

CSL was mostly killed due to match-fixing and losing their sanction from the CSA. Anyone who plays in that league cannot play for any FIFA sanctioned team or league.

[molenshtain]

I love the idea. Sask Rughriders, Green Bay, Dortmund, Barca - lots of models of ways to do it

Barca is owned by the fans in name only. They're quite clearly run by the Qatari's.