Member-owned football clubs model utopian non-capitalist competition.

Evidence

A non-profit making association owned and controlled by its members, Barcelona’s slogan is “more than a club”. Do Barca, with their foundations and educational activities, give a hint as to how football might operate in a utopia? Proletarian artistry the beauty of teamwork, competition, yes, but not the dog-eat-dog combat of capitalist realism. There could surely be no utopia that didn’t include something like this… — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1555

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: has the member-owned model since been tested/eroded? Barcelona’s eventual financial crises and Super League involvement complicate the neat counter-example here.
• SEED: An essay angle: football (and sport generally) as the last public arena where genuinely non-capitalist ownership and utopian collectivity still visibly exist, and what their erosion portends.
• XREF: connects to: Sport preserves and theatricalizes a competition that monopoly capitalism has abolished — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 129; In social games players perform the very structure of society itself — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 379; Sport reduces people to the objects capitalist society has already made them — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 129 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Sport preserves and theatricalizes a competition that monopoly capitalism has abolished #contradicts (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 129
• In social games players perform the very structure of society itself #expands (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 379
• Sport reduces people to the objects capitalist society has already made them #contradicts (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 129