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As a shareholding fan you benefit not only from these multiple sources of team revenue (some of it yours to begin with) but also from a chance to "do something about it" if the team is having a lousy year. You can make your suggestions for improvement directly at the annual meeting of the corporation, the way a disgruntled fan did at the recent gathering of the Tribune Co.
The guy shows up wearing a license plate around his neck that reads, CUBS WIN! and a hat that says, SOX SUCK! In the question-and-answer session he gets up to chide the management cheapskates for ruining Cub pitching. He's figured it out mathematically: "For less than 10 cents a share, you could have got three of the top pitchers in the game."
You will never have this chance with any of the N.F.L. teams or the baseball teams still owned by rich individuals, such as Gene Autry and his mediocre ball club, the California Angels, but what can disapproving fans do -- stop watching Autry's old movies? If this were the Federal Expresses, the fans could switch to United Parcel, or DHL, or another delivery service and force the company into beefing up the lineup.
For the fans' sake, we need more teams selling shares directly to the public, the way the Green Bay Packers and the Boston Celtics did. Green Bay is a nonprofit organization, so owning a Packers share is like supporting the local museum. The Celtics is a limited partnership, the only team that trades on the New York Stock Exchange (BOS).
When the Celtics first came out, at $18.50 a "unit" (another name for a share), the Boston papers scoffed and said it was a sucker play because the team was worth maybe $5 a unit at the time. But the fans are having the last scoff because all along they've got a 7% to 13% annual tax-sheltered distribution, and even without Larry Bird the value of the team is catching up to the original price.
A share of the Celtics has been better than money in the bank, and 90,000 unit holders can say the team belongs to them. Team officials once received a copy of a newspaper story about a Bostonian who got married in Ireland. The headline said: CELTICS OWNER WED AT BLARNEY STONE. They looked the guy up. He owned two units.