Lower Wombley Sports Club Floats £4 Million After Selling Rights To Its Shadow
The club says its newly monetised shadow is already worth more than the team, the pitch and several perfectly ordinary buildings.
LOWER WOMBLEY, The Lower Wombley Indoor Moonball Club has raised £4 million by selling commercial rights to its shadow. Officials said the shadow had been underperforming for years. The transaction leaves the club as the town’s wealthiest sporting institution, although it owns no moonballs and its pitch is largely carpet.
Treasurer Niblet Quarn announced the sale on Tuesday. He had discovered that the shadow became legally separate from the club during a particularly confident team photo. “It had its own outline, its own schedule and a suspicious interest in private equity,” said Quarn, the club’s treasurer and emergency eclipse coordinator.
The club has split the shadow into 400,000 small sponsorship rectangles. Local businesses can lease them, as can passing clouds and one ambitious duck. A buyer’s logo will appear briefly within the outline whenever the team assembles near a lamp. There are worse places to advertise.
“Our supporters deserve a silhouette with sporting dignity.”
The club’s fictional accounts say the deal has already paid every player in loose weather. It has also funded a replacement clubhouse roof, which is slightly larger than the old clubhouse roof, and a luxury changing room for the shadow. The room has a mirror. Nobody has said what it reflects.
Chief Revenue Warden Plim Sallow said the club turned down a larger offer from the International Association of Things That Are Technically Attached. The organisation had wanted to rename the shadow and put it in a waistcoat. “Our supporters deserve a silhouette with sporting dignity,” Sallow said beneath a ceremonial lampshade.
The town’s Generic Office of Financial Arithmetic has confirmed that the money is real, in the limited sense that it can be counted, stacked and exchanged for a sandwich. It has yet to settle whether the shadow is taxable, insurable or entitled to vote at the annual meeting.
Club chairwoman Loola Vex said the next phase involves floating the shadow on the Lower Wombley Exchange. Investors will then be able to trade fractions of its left elbow. Training for the next match will continue, she said, provided the floodlights remain emotionally available.
The shadow declined to comment. It was later seen stretching across the car park and making a small gesture that resembled a dividend payment. The club expects its value to climb once it learns to stand in front of the sun.