Oakland Ballers want to give fans a chance to co-own baseball team

As the Oakland Athletics are slated to become the third professional sports team to leave the city in the past decade , the Oakland Ballers are trying to show they're here to stay.

Why it matters: The Ballers , the newest members of the Pioneer Baseball League , want to be an example of how sports teams should treat their fans by giving them a seat at the table, their owners said in a press release.

State of play: On Thursday, the Ballers announced a community investment round to allow fans to invest in the team and get a say on things like moving the team, changing the brand or logos, front office hires and more.

What they're saying: "A team's fans are an instrumental part of the team's value," Ballers co-founder Paul Freedman said in a statement. "That's why fans should be treated accordingly with a real say in team management, not just hollow words."

Context: The Pioneer Baseball League is a partner of the MLB that focuses on innovation and has experimental rules, like a home run "shoot-out" round instead of extra innings.

• The league is composed of players with less than three years of professional experience.
• The Ballers, playing in their inaugural season, are the league's first team on the West Coast and play their games at the recently renovated Raimondi Park in West Oakland.
• The team spent $1.6 million to upgrade the park and turn it into a professional stadium with seating capacity for 4,100 people. The city chipped in $850,000 to clean up the site before the renovation, Bloomberg reports .
• In June, the Ballers added two high-profile investors, bringing its total number of backers to more than 50 people who have contributed funds in the "single digit millions," the San Francisco Chronicle reports .

The intrigue: "The Ballers want to grow that Oakland spirit from the ground up," city councilmember Carroll Fife told Bloomberg last month.

• It doesn't compare to Oakland's fraught relationship with the A's, she said: "It's apples to oranges."
• What happened with the A's is "just the latest example of a systemic problem with how pro sports teams are run in the United States," and the Ballers want their ownership model to "signal a positive change in how things are done," co-founder Bryan Carmel said.

Between the lines: The Ballers are not the first professional sports team to go this route.

• The Green Bay Packers, for example, have a fan ownership model, but there have been criticisms that fans don't have a real say.
• The organization is governed by a board of directors and seven-member executive team.

What's next: You can catch the Oakland Ballers tonight at 6:35pm against the Great Falls Voyagers at Raimondi Park.

• Tickets start at $21 .