List of fan-owned sports teams


This is a partial list of professional or semi-professional sports teams that are owned by fans from all over the world sorted by home country. Teams playing at every level in each country are shown. In some cases the line is blurry between these teams and :Category:Publicly traded sports companies|teams whose ownership is publicly traded.

Association football

Argentina

All association football clubs in Argentina are owned by their members. Every club is organised as not-for-profit organization according to Argentinian law.

Australia

Protest Clubs

All football clubs in Bosnia & Herzegovina are registered as not-for-profit associations of citizens. However, in practice, only one club allows its members to democratically participate and vote in its General Assembly.
Although since 1993 Brazilian law allows for privately owned sport clubs, most of the hundreds professional association football clubs in Brazil are owned by their members as not-for-profit organizations. These include all the traditionally considered 12 major clubs in the country:

Protest clubs

Community created

In Germany a majority control by a single entity is not permitted by the Deutsche Fußball Liga, and is the German law for clubs. The law suggests a registered club should have minimum 7 members. The league requires that either a club, or a limited company which is controlled by a club with 50% + 1 vote can get a license to participate in the German first or second league. In the lower leagues, it is required to be a club.
An exception to the 50+1 rule allows a company or individual investor that has substantially funded a club for at least 20 years to gain a controlling stake in that club. This exception most notably applies to Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg. Both were founded as sports clubs for employees of major corporations long before the 50+1 rule was established. More recently, SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp has gained control of 1899 Hoffenheim—where he had been a youth player—after having funded the club's rise from the lowest reaches of German football to the Bundesliga.
RB Leipzig have been accused of bypassing the law through legal loopholes, essentially not being fan-owned and undermining the system.
Shares of Borussia Dortmund, a German Bundesliga Club, are traded on the German stock market and are largely held by fans.
TC Freisenbruch, a club which was founded in Essen in 1902, is managed completely by the fans. The team currently plays in the ninth division of the German football league. Since July 2016, the club is managed via a webpage, where the fans can make their decisions about, for example, the starting line-up or the prices for the jersey.

Greece

Almost all Primeira Liga clubs are majority owned by associated fans who pay a monthly fee.

Romania

In Spain 99% teams of Third Tier and below are fan-owned. The fan-owned pro teams are:
All sports clubs in Sweden are owned by its members. The Swedish Sports Confederation allows clubs to create limited companies together with investors as long as the club controls a majority of the votes.

Turkey

Almost all sports clubs in Turkey are owned by its members.

Ukraine

Of these clubs, six will operate sides in the AFL Women's league in 2019—Carlton, Collingwood, Geelong, Melbourne, North Melbourne and Western Bulldogs. Richmond and St Kilda will add AFL Women's sides in 2020.

State Leagues

Tasmania

TSL
[North West Football League]
Division One
Division Two

American football

Canada

Australia