NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Anyone who believes Oracle CEO Larry Ellison got his heart's desire by finally grabbing PeopleSoft earlier this week hasn't been listening to his comments about the company that remains out of his reach: the San Francisco 49ers.

Oracle (Research) completed its 18-month hostile takeover battle for rival business software company PeopleSoft (Research) Monday, paying $10.3 billion for the company.

But Ellison has bemoaned the fact that he can't make the same kind of hostile bid for the once-proud 49ers, who are 2-11 heading into this weekend under the leadership of Denise DeBartolo York and her husband John York.

At a shareholders' meeting earlier this fall, one shareholder asked Ellison if he would please buy the 49ers. And at an investors' conference earlier this month he was asked when he would buy the team.

Both times he said it wasn't for lack of interest or trying, adding that he had contacted the Yorks without success.

"They're certainly the worst team in football, but the owners would like another year," he said. "Unfortunately, it's not a publicly held company, you can't vote them out of office. So I can't buy the 49ers because the Yorks don't want to sell."

Now Ellison will probably be the starting quarterback for the 49ers before the NFL allowed any of its teams to be publicly traded, and to be subject to such hostile takeover efforts.

Publicly-traded companies such as Walt Disney (Research), Comcast (Research) and Time Warner (Research) (parent of CNN/Money), have all bought and sold teams in other sports. But they are prevented by NFL rules from owning a football team.

Ellison's next takeover target would probably be the moribund 49ers, if he were allowed to do so.

Still Ellison's comment that it's "unfortunate" he can't make a run at the team, coupled with his nabbing PeopleSoft this week, does raise a question that's fun to consider -- what if raiders weren't just a football team playing across the Bay in Oakland? What if all teams were publicly traded and vulnerable to hostile takeover bids?

The idea brought mostly chuckles from Sal Galatioto, managing director of sports advisory and finance group at Lehman Brothers, and one of the leading investment bankers involved in team sales.

"It'd be a disaster. Would the shareholders get the better seats? Would the league still get to approve the owners?," he said. "Of course, everyone would love the annual reports with cheerleaders."

Galatioto said that some teams in Europe that have fan ownership see prices fluctuate more because of won-lost record than profits off the field, causing problems for investors.

"How do you value the team if it's publicly traded? Is it on financials? You've got some guys who own teams for ego gratification reasons," he said. "They're private entities for a reason."

Perhaps the closest that any American has come to such a hostile bid is Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Malcolm Glazer, who since October has been trying to buy control of Manchester United, Europe's most successful soccer team. But while he has been able to amass a bit more than a quarter of the shares of the publicly-traded team, he's had trouble getting major shareholders to sell enough to give him majority control.

Shawn McCarthy, of the Ralph Nader-founded League of Fans, probably doesn't agree with Lehman investment bankers about much. But he also thinks fans would probably be worse off if the teams were subject to hostile takeovers.

"Teams would always be more accountable to shareholders than they would to fans," he said. "Any moves or deals that are made would simply be to increase profits without regard to any other variable such as pleasing fans, winning more games, keeping a popular player. And teams would be even more inclined to threaten cities for new stadiums and leave whenever they want."

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Two recent teams did have their own publicly traded stock -- the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Indians. But both teams sold only a minority stake to the public with no opportunity for voting control. And the shareholders didn't benefit as much as the majority owners when those teams were eventually sold.

Still it might take publicly traded teams for most eager billionaires to ever get a chance to be an NFL owner.

Unlike teams in most other sports, an NFL franchise is as close to a sure-thing investment as you can find. An even split of television rights fees and other league-wide revenue more than covers the maximum allowable team payroll.

Other sports can see mounting losses lead to a regular turnover in team ownership. But in the NFL teams generally only come up for sale upon the death of the owner, as in the case of the past two sales -- the New York Jets and the Washington Redskins.

There are reportedly many other owners in the NFL who would like to see Ellison or almost anyone else buy the 49ers. The franchise is too important to the league to be this bad for long.

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While the games are still technically sold out every week, the number of no-shows is growing. The sale of licensed 49er merchandise apparel is off 21 percent from a year ago, while league-wide sales are up 3 percent, according to SportScan Info, a service that tracks it. And just like TV money, the merchandise sale is split evenly throughout the league.

But just as Ellison can't oust the Yorks, neither can the league.

It does make you wonder whether leagues would be better off if hostile takeovers were possible. There are plenty of entrenched ownerships whom sports leagues would be better off without. Players and coaches get the boot for non-performance all the time. Owners should be subject to that as well.