The Welsh Rugby Union have on two separate occasions raised money to partly fund major stadium upgrades by offering "debentures" whereby individuals and corporations "lend" the WRU money for a specified period in return for the right to purchase seats for every game. A sort of season ticket membership but for an extended period of time. It has been oversubscribed on both occasions. The first was the redevelopment of "Cardiff Arms Park" some forty years ago, the second was "Millenium Stadium".
A less grand version is the "Wallaby First" membership whereby for an upfront fee of a few grand one is a member for the next twenty years and guaranteed tickets for Wobblie matches in Australia (and get opportunities to buy tickets for overseas matches as well - eg Hong Kong
). An annual fee of a couple of hundred dollars to maintain membership. The membership is oversubscribed with a waiting list to join (it took me four years from joining the waiting list to becoming a member).
Both instances demonstrate that such schemes work with demand outstripping supply.
Now this is just a thought ...............
Take 1,000 diamond members and ask for $10k each to be repaid in ten years.
Take 5,000 gold members and ask for $7.5k
Take 10,000 silver/nickel/iron members and ask for $5k
Unless the IQ's gone walkabout, that's $97.5 million.
Corporate debentures would of course be more expensive and raise quite a sum of money in itself.
Then consider Perth Glory organising the same arrangement for their supporters to attend the soccer. Not the same support base but it could be another contributor.
The essence of debentures is that the holders accept that when they are repaid, the value of their loan has reduced substantially and they are in effect providing an interest free loan. It's also not a substitute for annual membership renewal so that there is an ongoing base of financial support. (The membership fee might be reduced if annual running costs are lower ??)
The numbers above are just indicative and I'm not sugesting that everyone that is currently a member would be interested or have the financial capacity. Divide the above calculation by two and it's still a significant sum of money.
The point being that whilst such a scheme might not in itself be sufficient to fund a significant stadium redevelopment it could provide the impetus to make a step change in ambitions.
It's also the case that ME is not a dedicated sporting venture that is directly linked with a major sporting organisation. Hence there are issues that would need to be resolved for such a scheme to be sufficiently attractive to get the support it would require.
Now I'll get back below the parapet ............