Well there is no equity as there is no equity in any non profit corporation. That doesn’t make nonprofits a scam.
The shareholders elect the board and the board elects the officers and the officers control the day to day operations.
>It's still controlled by a small group of people aka the board of directors, the stock structure is setup that fans could not mount a hostile takeover
Well stockholders do get invited to the annual meeting and vote for a number of those directors.
You can claim all you want investor won’t invest when they can’t get their investment back, but again the Packers are proof you are wrong, no shareholder can recoup their investment much less make a profit, but they have no problem raising as much as $250M when they had their last 2 public offerings.
Edit: another example is the Gates foundation, supporters donate because the believe in the organization (like the Packers) yet supporters have even less rights than the Packers shareholders and obviously no chance of a “hostile takeover” and yet people “invest”/donate.