This post isn’t completely technology-oriented but it still shows how organizations can give up some centralized control to members/customers and harness the power of community production. It’s also just a cool story.
Drew Carey is the part owner of the
Seattle Sounders Major League Soccer club. Seattle is playing its first season in the league, but is already a local and national sensation. Before the team had played its first game it had sold more season tickets for a 15 game home season than the Seattle Mariners. The team has sold out the 29,000 seats allocated for soccer in Qwest Field and is adding 4,000 more for next season.
Atmosphere, one of the best reasons to attend a football game in person… Seattle has raised the bar to European heights.
How have they done it in a city without a large, football-loving expatriate population? By embracing their fan base, and letting them have a say in how the club is managed. These novel ideas were, in fact driven by Drew Carey. From a recent profile in the LA Times:
Joe, forget the wrist, I want to own part of the team,” Carey recalls saying. “But, oh, by the way, there are two conditions.”
Condition No. 1: A marching band. Carey was in his high school’s band and wanted to re-create that experience. Condition No. 2: Involve fans in a way no other team in America had. Carey trotted out prominent European examples: soccer juggernauts Barcelona and Real Madrid. Both hold elections to fill the singularly powerful role of team president. A pricey bond must be secured to seek the office, but anyone can run. Candidates campaign, often promising to sign the best players, and season ticket holders vote.
Roth remembers squirming, and Carey pressing for compromise. Reserve the right to hire the general manager, the comedian said. But every four years let the fans vote on whether the GM should stay. If there’s enough anger, fans can call for a no-confidence vote once a year.
“The fans can do your dirty work for you,” Carey argued.
Roth was sold, and Carey was in. The team has the band, of course, and all it takes to oust the GM is a majority vote by the 22,000 season ticket holders and fans who pay $125 to join a booster group.
The match begins. Sometimes Carey is calm. Just as often he balls a fist, bites a nail, cusses like the Marine he once was. “I like the idea of this being a movement,” he says. “There’s no reason a team like the Clippers can’t do this, or a team like the Detroit Lions. What do teams like that have to lose?”
Control, someone suggests.
“That was the argument against democracy in the United States,” Carey replies, launching into a soliloquy in which he dismisses monarchies and applauds the masses.
“Let the fans vote for the GM? Don’t you vote for judges you’ve never heard of? I believe fans know way more about sports teams than they know about judges, and judge is a pretty important job. Look, the only way fans can ever have a say in the way a team is run right now, with most teams, is to stop coming. And that’s no way to run a business. We’re going to have lean years. When that happens, I want them to keep coming, and we do that by having them really involved.”
