Eurostar sponsors crowdsourcing February 22, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ebbsfleet, crowdsource, London , 5commentsEurostar sponsors crowdsourcing
Readers of this blog may be aware of the unique football club Ebbsfleet United in Kent. The website “Myfootballclub.com” mobilised 28,000 online football fans to chip in £35 each and make a successful bid to buy a 75% controlling interest in the club. So its the first football club in the world ever to be owned by an online community. Some say it’s the first business in the world ever to be taken over by an online community (do you know better?)
Myfootballclub: http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/
Eurostar
Now Eurostar is a well known and prestigious brand who were already sponsoring Ebbsfleet international football club, since it helps to publicise the new Ebbsfleet International railway station which is part of the high speed rail route from St Pancras to the Channel Tunnel. Eurostar’s reaction to the takeover is to embrace the change and piggyback onto the extra interest in the club, which generates free publicity for Ebbsfleet and everybody associated with it. They’ve also taken out some full page newspaper advertisements congratulating the new owners of the club - and naming each of us individually.
“Congratulations to the new owners of Ebbsfleet United”
One further step which showed that somebody at Eurostar does actually ‘get’ the whole crowdsourcing social media thing is that they submitted alternative versions of proposed advertisements to the online community at myfootballclub to be voted on. I voted for it too. The one which won was then sent for publication. It emphasises the fact that Ebbsfleet International is now really owned by 280,000 ordinary football fans whose names have been dumped (with individual permission) onto the pages of The Times.
Eurostar blog: http://fortomorrow.eurostar.com/
Crowdsourcing - what’s next?
So what’s next in line for being taken over by an online community? It would be trivial to buy a top quality racehorse, small syndicates have been doing that for years. What about a Formula 1 racing team? A national radio or TV station? How about setting up a website to accumulate enough people to buy a brewery, a supermarket chain or a bank? You can only buy one share each, so no individual gets control.
Social Media Café
On a smaller scale could we get a couple of thousand Social Media people in London to sign up to buy a little cafe together? Of course we could. Then we’d have somewhere to go that pays for itself, with free access for shareholders.
London social media cafe: http://londonsocialmediacafe.pbwiki.com/
I bought a football club - name revealed November 13, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ebbsfleet, crowdsource , 2commentsThrough myfootballclub thousands of internet users and myself have now fully bought out a real football club in order to run it using our own collective crowd wisdom, including picking the teams, until it at least reaches the UK Premiership.
And the name of the football club can now be revealed, it’s :
Ebbsfleet United FC
currently 9th in the Blue Square conference national league, above Kidderminster and below Exeter.
Ebbsfleet is in North Kent and may be familiar as one of the International Eurostar stations on the new route which opens on November 19th. Eurostar is a sponsor of Ebbsfleet United FC.
own the club
pick the team
IT’S NOT A GAME
MyFootballClub reaches 50,000 target August 2, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ebbsfleet, crowdsource, UK , add a comment
On July 17th I reported that MyFootballClub was close to reaching the target of 50,000 registered interests and today this has been overtaken. This means that email invitations have gone out to join for real and cough up the membership fee. So do you really get to own part of a football club for £35? I looked into it a bit further and found out a few things. Let’s see if we can add some more.
Q. Is it a one-off price for a genuine share issue?
A. No. The £35 is an annual membership fee.
Q. But do I still get to own a club?
A. Yes. The club will be owned and controlled by the membership through the MyFootballClub Trust. This is a not for profit organisation separate from MyFootballClub Ltd, which runs the website.
Q. So if the club is successful, will I make any money?
A Not in any obvious way. The Trust is registered as an “Industrial and Provident Society” and is protected against carpetbaggers by a clause which directs that if the club is sold, all proceeds will be donated to charity. So it won’t happen.
Q. Right. So what do I get for my £35 a year then?
A. Effective part ownership of a football club. The opportunity to vote on a whole range of decisions, including team selection. Access to the members area of the website. The fun of being part of a unique crowdsourcing experiment. A real sense of grassroots ownership of the first club to be directed by fans.
Q. And what does my £35 get spent on?
A. £27.50 will go towards purchasing a football club, buying new players and other club expenditure. £7.50 will go towards the administration of the MyFootballClub Trust and the building and management of the MyFootballClub website.
Q OK how do I sign up?
A http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk
myfootballclub
Buy a football club for £35 July 17, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : ebbsfleet, crowdsource, UK , 7comments
Crowdsourcing does fantasy football
- with a real club.
Own the club,
pick the teamIT’S NOT A GAME
This is going to be interesting. There are almost enough people registered already, so if you want to own part of an English league football club you’d better hurry. The organised crowd of 50,000 fans will then seek to buy a club and run it, through some kind of mass democratic ownership scheme. No manager, no big shareholders, no chairman of the board. Just armchair decision making. The wisdom (or folly) of crowds gets a chance to prove itself in a competitive situation against the conventional setup of an experienced management having to deal with the vested interests. Exciting times!
50,000 MyFootballClub members are about to bid for an English football club. They will make history together, voting on team selection and on which players to buy and sell.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
