Fan ownership
Just have a few minutes here but very excited to be part of this amazing idea. Is anyone in this group familiar with FC United - the fan-owned Manchester football team? Seems like we are trying to do something similar. Fan-ownership has really taken off in the UK despite opposition from corporate media and the sports biz. Lots of lessons to be learned here - worth doing the research and maybe reaching out to the fan-ownership association in UK Suppoters-Direct.org Cheers!
Top learnings from the fan ownership experience:
(1) keep your eye on the long term objective
(2) be prepared for big learning curve and lots of speed bumps
(3) ignore the naysayers
(4) focus on common ground, leave areas of disagreement for later.
John Richmond Wed 12 Oct 2016 2:06PM
And fan-ownership is quickly becoming the norm. Even owners who say they won't sell to fans are giving up.
Josef Davies-Coates Wed 12 Oct 2016 1:46PM
It's over 3 years old now but this documentary about FC United of Manchester is really great and well worth watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrR5e9NtV68
Note also the one of best teams in the world, Barcelona are also a fan owned co-op and that in Germany all teams in the bundesliga have to be majority fan owned too.
Alanna Irving Thu 13 Oct 2016 2:31AM
@johnrichmond very interesting to notice the parallels between these models! If you could summarise the top most valuable things that have been learned from the FC United experience, what would they be?
John Richmond Thu 13 Oct 2016 3:11PM
(1) keep your eye on the long term objective (2) be prepared for big learning curve and lots of speed bumps (3) ignore the naysayers (4) focus on common ground, leave areas of disagreement for later. FC United had many fans with a similar political outlook, but other cities have achieved the same without explicitly political framework which may work better for us
James Kiesel Thu 13 Oct 2016 2:34AM
For those not familiar with American football, the Green Bay Packers are the big success story on fan ownership in that realm.
Nathan Schneider Thu 13 Oct 2016 4:24AM
Yes, I cited the Packers example in the Guardian article, thanks to a suggestion by @dannyspitzberg. Interesting that the NFL now bans any non-profit teams like that.
Amelia Rose Khan Wed 19 Oct 2016 2:54PM
I really like creating that document, and if someone has already done that maybe on Slack, that would be great to see.
Tom McDonough · Wed 12 Oct 2016 1:39PM
Thanks @johnrichmond. I was not aware of Manchester ownership. Our PR team should be putting together for our website a series of profiles on cooperatives around the world off all types - fans, producers, workers, users - to emphasize that our effort is in harmony with the zeitgeist. @asolache