Plenty of ideas abound on rescuing ailing newspapers. Lately we've seen debate on the non-profit model and the micropayment model. Now comes the community-owned model.
As in: Green Bay Packers, the NFL team owned and operated by its community. The proposal in this post emanates from concerns the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is nearing collapse. Its union is exploring the idea of community members essentially owning shares of the ongoing operation.
Now, a few things to bear in mind in reading the post here: The Packers are part of a league that performs many of the most important functions for it. The NFL jointly sets payroll caps, negotiates television contracts, and operates many of the front- and back-office functions commonly across franchises so there are no market advantages. The Packers can theoretically win as much as a big-market team. I'm not sure the community ownership is the saving grace as much as the collective league and player agreement in controlling costs and ensuring competitiveness.
But, a concept worth exploring.
