Putting stock in the Sliders

A few comments on this blog have hinted that the Wild Things are going to sale stock in the team to the public. Well, if that's true, the Midwest Sliders seem to have beaten them to the punch.

Here's a story from Crain's Detroit Business about the Sliders' plan to sell up to $5 million in stock to help fund a new ballpark in Oakland County's Waterford Township. The move is a result of the team's ownership being unable to get bank funding for the project.

Shares will be $10 each and sold in blocks of 100.

The Sliders are awaiting awaiting federal Securities and Exchange Commission approval for the public offering.

The Sliders are playing this season in Ypsilanti, Mich., at Eastern Michigan University.

I tried attaching a link to the story but it kept redirecting to a subscription page. Here's part of the story:

Minor-league baseball's Sliders plan stock offering
By Bill Shea

Backers of a new local minor-league baseball team plan to sell up to $5 million in stock as part of a bid to raise funds for a new stadium in Oakland County's Waterford Township — a move forced by bank unwillingness to loan money for such a venture.

Owners of the Midwest Sliders in Ypsilanti, part of the independent 12-team Frontier League, are awaiting federal Securities and Exchange Commission approval for the Regulation A public offering. There is no approval timetable or sale date yet.

The money is needed to build a $9.5 million, 3,900-seat stadium on an 11-acre site to be called the Diamond at the Summit stadium, next to the Summit Place Mall, in 2010 — a plan that could be scaled back depending on how much the stock sale raises.

The original plan, announced early last year, was to use debt-financing to construct the stadium. The global economic crisis that erupted last September dried up the debt financing market, team President and CEO Rob Hilliard said, forcing the Sliders to explore alternatives.

“We're in the epicenter of the economic morass,” he said.

The goal now is to go the “Green Bay Packers route” and sell shares of the newly formed company in a bid to raise enough money for the stadium, Hilliard said.

The National Football League's Packers are the most widely known example of publicly owned teams, having been a nonprofit governed by a board since 1950. The Sliders will continue to have majority private owners who maintain controlling shares of the team.

Shares will be priced at $10 each and sold in blocs of 100, with a maximum of 500,000 shares for sale, said securities attorney Michael Raymond of the Ann Arbor office of Detroit-based law firm Dickinson Wright P.L.L.C., who is handling the deal for the Sliders.

Until the sale, it's impossible to know if enough people are interested in spending $1,000 to own a piece of such a team, but if there are it's a boon for the Sliders.

“It's perfect for the team owner if they can pull it off — lose no control, get the money, pay it back only if you feel like buying the shares back,” said Rodney Fort, professor of sports management at the University of Michigan.

As part of the public offering bid, backers converted the assets of the original ownership partnership, Baseball Heroes of Oakland County L.L.C., into $2.9 million worth of stock in Diamond Heroes of Southeast Michigan Inc., according to an SEC filing from March 31.

Backers already have invested $4 million in the project and hired Leonard Capital Markets of Troy and Dickinson Wright to raise the remainder, Hilliard said.

A parking deal was made with Timina L.L.C., which owns Summit Place Mall, for 800 spaces, and with Summit West Investments and Summit North Investments for 500 spaces.

The Sliders are averaging a league-worst 246 fans per game over eight home games this year at Oestrike Stadium, their temporary home on Eastern Michigan University's campus, according to league statistics. The Southern Illinois Miners lead the league with 24,873 fans at six home games, or 4,146 per game.