Sports Club Ownership

[jkrdevil]

What exactly does a club mean? I was of the impression that a club was just a team. Someone please clarify.

It goes back to the origins of of pro leagues over there compared to in North America. In Europe or elsewhere sport sort of evolved into professionalism. It is my understanding that teams were originally clubs and not professional teams as we see in North America. For instance Arsenal was originally a team of workers who worked at the weapons manufacturing factory. Eventually compitition evolved as such that these clubs started paying people to play for them. Thus because of their origins they are traditionally known as clubs.

It is also why you see different aspects in the leagues such as relegation systems. By comparison in North America teams and league were specifically set-up to be professional leagues and busineses. As such you don't see aspecs such as relegation systems that exist in Europe becase they are bad for business.

[Gothamite]

Not necessarily pre-existing per se, but you kinda get the idea. Ebbsfleet United, the Columbus Clippers and Memphis Redbirds are each kind-of close to what I'm referring to, but in each of these cases the franchise could technically be sold because it's a separate entity from that which owns it.

What I'm talking about is a franchise that's owned and operated exclusively by, or at least on behalf of, its own membership - to the extent that if they sell the franchise, the organization that governs it also ceases to exist. Basically a team without an owner or owners, but rather solely comprised of members who don't possess a direct ownership stake.

In that case, I think your list is going to be very short.

I'm not aware of any professional sports team in England that would fit such a description. Porto, Real Madrid and Barcelona might fit the description, but I don't think there are any in England.

[jr79]

An interesting case Mac is that of North Melbourne in the AFL here. They converted to shareholder based ownership to raise capital to merely stay afloat in the 90s. The problem was it made them vulnerable to takeover attempts, firstly by another AFL club, then an interstate club that wanted to join the AFL through the backdoor, then finally the AFL itself who wanted to either contract the team and award an expansion team or force a relocation.

Not surprisingly they've reverted to a membership-based mutual guarantee structure now