Oakland Ballers want to give fans a chance to co-own baseball team
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Oakland Ballers' players greet manager Micah Franklin before their inaugural home opener at Raimondi Park in Oakland on June 4. Photo: Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
As the Oakland Athletics are slated to become the third professional sports team to leave the city in the past decade, the Oakland Ballers are trying to show they're here to stay.
Why it matters: The Ballers, the newest members of the Pioneer Baseball League, want to be an example of how sports teams should treat their fans by giving them a seat at the table, their owners said in a press release.
State of play: On Thursday, the Ballers announced a community investment round to allow fans to invest in the team and get a say on things like moving the team, changing the brand or logos, front office hires and more.
What they're saying: "A team's fans are an instrumental part of the team's value," Ballers co-founder Paul Freedman said in a statement. "That's why fans should be treated accordingly with a real say in team management, not just hollow words."
Context: The Pioneer Baseball League is a partner of the MLB that focuses on innovation and has experimental rules, like a home run "shoot-out" round instead of extra innings.
- The league is composed of players with less than three years of professional experience.
- The Ballers, playing in their inaugural season, are the league's first team on the West Coast and play their games at the recently renovated Raimondi Park in West Oakland.
- The team spent $1.6 million to upgrade the park and turn it into a professional stadium with seating capacity for 4,100 people. The city chipped in $850,000 to clean up the site before the renovation, Bloomberg reports.
- In June, the Ballers added two high-profile investors, bringing its total number of backers to more than 50 people who have contributed funds in the "single digit millions," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The intrigue: "The Ballers want to grow that Oakland spirit from the ground up," city councilmember Carroll Fife told Bloomberg last month.
- It doesn't compare to Oakland's fraught relationship with the A's, she said: "It's apples to oranges."
- What happened with the A's is "just the latest example of a systemic problem with how pro sports teams are run in the United States," and the Ballers want their ownership model to "signal a positive change in how things are done," co-founder Bryan Carmel said.
Between the lines: The Ballers are not the first professional sports team to go this route.
- The Green Bay Packers, for example, have a fan ownership model, but there have been criticisms that fans don't have a real say.
- The organization is governed by a board of directors and seven-member executive team.
What's next: You can catch the Oakland Ballers tonight at 6:35pm against the Great Falls Voyagers at Raimondi Park.
- Tickets start at $21.