SOCCER
US company offers fans chance to buy Spanish football club
A Silicon Valley company is looking for a team in Spain for its unique collective micro-property model, emerging from the Stanford University.
The model of football club ownership is constantly evolving, and a novel approach to owning a team has just been introduced by the American company f2o Sport, based in Silicon Valley, California. Their model, named “Fan to Owner,” involves regulation crowdfunding, allowing fans from around the world to become owners of a football club in Spain.
Fan to Owner: buy a club
There are already discussions with four Spanish football teams, with negotiations with one of them being particularly advanced.
“We offer fans worldwide the chance to become owners of a club in Spain and engage in the sports industry like never before,” explains Wolfgang Muller, co-founder and CEO of the company, during a visit to our AS offices in Madrid. “We aim to ensure that fans have a say in decision-making and access to content previously reserved for a select few. All this while monetizing the units they purchase.”
The proposal originated from the sports fields of Stanford University, where a group of founders set out to decentralize, digitize, and globalize club ownership.
“There are few places in the world that blend culture with the love for sports as Spain does,” says Muller. The process is already underway with a crowdfunding round available on the portal f2osports.com/es/. In just a few days, approximately 50,000 euros (c.$55,235) have already been raised.
“We are going to make some people in the current football business feel uncomfortable”
“Invest in f2o Sports and become an owner of your favorite sports team. Make real decisions and experience the thrill of shaping the future of sports ownership,” is the official slogan of the campaign. And the problem as they see it is described this way:
“Today’s sports investments are monopolized by wealthy elites, leaving passionate fans without a voice and no real ownership. This exclusionary model deprives fans of a say in club decisions and limits their access to the benefits of ownership.
“If left unresolved, this inequity will continue to feed the top of the pyramid, sidelining the very enthusiasts who fuel the industry…the fans.”
What teams have been assessed by F2O Sports?
“In August, our founders were in Spain visiting the clubs Granada, Fuenlabrada, Sabadell, and Talavera. They witnessed first hand how these clubs operate and also understood the vision regarding fan ownership and the digitization of sports on a global scale,” Muller adds.
“We are going to make some people in the current football business feel uncomfortable, but monumental changes always do.”