It’s actually a pretty easy concept that the rich guys have been doing for years.
Most NFL or NBA teams are owned by a group of 20-30 really rich guys who each pitch in some "pocket change" and get a board seat, plus a say over the major final decisions carried out by the GM. Project Franchise is doing just that - buying a more affordable minor league team and bringing the power to a few thousand people. In exchange for real pocket change, our fanbase of like-minded sports nuts will vote on all the key decisions that face our team. No decision is too big or too small – whether its picking a new roster, or deciding if we serve spicy or yellow mustard with our hot dogs. Once a vote is reached, the elected Team Captains will act as the GM's and actually execute on the fan's decision.
Building The Fanbase
First we are working to grow our online fanbase through the Project Franchise website, our blog on SB Nation (FrontOfficeFans.com) and all of our social networking pages (Facebook, Twitter, etc). We are also working with some potential fantasy sports partners, as well as other blogs and sports media to help spread the Project Franchise gospel to sports fans all over the web and attract as many sports fanatics as possible to join the team.
Get The Sponsors
At the same time that we build the fanbase, we are working on landing a few initial key sponsors who will help fund the purchase of the team while we help promote their products and brands to our growing fanbase. Before the team takes the field, sponsors will also get exclusive access to all of our online advertising inventory and once we get in the stadium there will be a variety of opportunities for further sponsor involvement, including billboards, concession sales, merchandising and more.
Buy The Team
Once we get the fans and the cash, we will purchase an actual minor league sports franchise and kick off the season. We’ve already spoken with dozens of league commissioners and team owners from all different sports, so we have a good idea of how much money we need to buy the team and fund the first year operations. At the same time, we’ve received a very warm reception from everyone we’ve spoken to and are extremely confident that actually buying a team is going to be pretty easy. There will be some fan voting before we get the team, to help determine stuff like what sport or league or actual team we purchase, but once we own the squad we expect the opportunities for fan involvement to increase tremendously.
Play Ball
In the early going there will be fan nominations and voting on things like the team name and logo, while we will also host an open tryout that will be webcast so the fans can pick which players actually make the roster. We will also have the fans determine what the stadium experience is like, so there will voting for all types of decisions, such as the type of beer we have on tap and who gets to throw out the first pitch. There is really an endless flow of decisions that will need to be made for the team and we plan to let the fans decide basically all of them through simple online voting.
For each vote there will be open nominations, then the Team Captains will do the real world research and present the final possibilities with as much detail as possible so the fans can be fully informed when voting on the decision. Once the votes are tallied, the Team Captains will be entrusted to execute the fan’s decision to the best of their ability, so as to ensure that the Project Franchise is really run the way the fans see fit.
If you have any questions or just want to know more, feel free to drop us an email, or check out our FAQ’s for answers to some of the more popular questions we get.
