By Michael C
September 27th 2008 @ 7:21am
Loading ...Super 14 tipping now live for sign-ups. Join now and invite your mates..
---------------
AFL fortress Victoria to be consolidated
With much discussion around AFL expansion and the number of clubs in Victoria, a lot of people have pointed to the need for the AFL to ‘prop up’ a number of clubs. This has been sited as a weakness, and a contrivance.
However, I’ve pointed out before that the AFL mainly has to assist clubs such as North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs on the basis of crappy stadium deals. The result is North Melbourne hosting the Swans this year at Telstra Dome, drawing a respectable 28,000+ crowd. And the net result was a $1000 loss.
Compared to Geelong at their own oval in Geelong which can turn a profit of around $600,000 for a modest home crowd of 24,000.
Well, in recent times there have been some enthusiastic whispers and today the article that confirms it.
“Demetriou, who has pledged to attract a fairer deal for all the MCG and Telstra Dome home teams”.
Bring it on I say.
It must be remembered that the AFL effectively forced clubs down a path of departing suburban venues and then left them to fend for themselves to not always be in their greatest position of strength when negotiating independent deals with, for example, the private consortium who operate Telstra Dome.
It was always incumbent then upon the AFL to do something about assisting those clubs - in the interim it’s been via cash grants - but, this becomes money ‘lost’ to the game.
Far more effective would be to reduce that outlay. If $6 million could be reduced to $3 million for each of 3 clubs - that would be an extra $9 million annually that could do great things in South Africa for example.
Super 14 tipping now live for sign-ups. Join now and invite your mates.
Free Email updates:
Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...
(7)
Loading ...
The Substitute said | September 27th 2008 @ 9:35am | Report comment
It will be good to get the stadium deals sorted out asap. I would hate to see a salary-cap like deal where clubs are on equal footing, but the lesser clubs need to at least be able to compete.
And once that is settled, its sink or swim. No more “propping up”.
Boston Tangler said | September 27th 2008 @ 3:19pm | Report comment
Can the AFL ever do wrong in the mind of Michael C?
And the word is “cited” not “sited”.
oikee said | September 28th 2008 @ 3:37pm | Report comment
The more clubs pooring into melbourne would only weaken his strong 10 club venture would it not M.C , there is talk of another a-league and i also know that rugby want a club there soon, take into acccount juniors and you start to get the picture, learn from sydney if you must, you cant support them forever. Sooner or later its going to come back to bite you.
I think from what gallop has said about not giving up on teams in sydney has been the afl reasoning behind this move, i dont believe that gallop can support all sydney teams, i think a relocate policy is being put forward. With other codes moving in it becomes very hard to keep fighting them off,.Nobody wants to lose clubs but its getting harder to keep them, if sydney only had 5-6 clubs then they could expand, as it is they are waiting to see what happens with the relocate offers.
A.F.L needs to grow these other teams after 2012, that gives league plenty of time to think about there future, if your melbourne teams keep failing then you are looking very vunuable, weak under belly, and we all know where that leads.
To be honest, the more Demetrie opens his mouth the more trouble he invites. In the paper today we got a report about how good it was that the a.f.l only had victorian teams in the final, how do you think that comes across outside your fortress.??
Michael C said | September 28th 2008 @ 8:43pm | Report comment
Boston Tangler -
type dear sir, I’m well aware the word is ‘cited’, but thanx if that’s your only grammatical/spelling/semantic concern.
The AFL bloody CAN and DOES do things wrong - - and if you took note of the following passage from my article :
It must be remembered that the AFL effectively forced clubs down a path of departing suburban venues and then left them to fend for themselves to not always be in their greatest position of strength when negotiating independent deals with, for example, the private consortium who operate Telstra Dome.
It was always incumbent then upon the AFL to do something about assisting those clubs - in the interim it’s been via cash grants - but, this becomes money ‘lost’ to the game.
PLEASE, interpret the above as a sledge for the AFL - - they got co-erced into the Docklands stadium that would be privately run, they forced clubs like North, the Doggies etc to negotiate their own deals - - and perhaps it was at a time where the AFL privately hoped to rail road a Fitzroy Mark II. Well, that didn’t work and now they’ve decided that - - and perhaps by simply lifting their vision to look at the fundamental weakness of the NRL in their Sydney citadel - - perhaps the AFL have realised that they actually need to nurture and consolidate their greatest strength which is the dominance in it’s ‘heartland’.
Perhaps they’ve figured it out. Because, they owe these clubs - and earlier during this season we heard comments from Presidents of clubs such as Hawthorn, or Adelaide, who effectively suggested that the ‘propping up’ should cease and clubs should effectively be kicked out……….but, the AFL would then have way too much blood on their hands.
Michael C said | September 28th 2008 @ 8:58pm | Report comment
Oikee -
long term - - who ever knows. The AFL are doing what they need to to achieve the goal of a game a week in Qld AND a game a week in NSW.
If a couple of Melb clubs fall by the wayside as a natural consequence - so be it, if the AFL admin at least was on the record as stating support (rather akin to a club board stating ‘full support’ for a coach under fire. ;-), …..), and the AFL may just figure anyway that subsequent to establishing the 2 new teams that the ideal would be one team going more full time to Tassie and one team perhaps merging into West Sydney and then they’re back to 16 and having no blood on their hands.
For now - - a 2nd A-League team into Melbourne is no dead certainty to succeed, MVFC has been dropping Telstra Dome crowd averages from 32K in season 2, to 26K last year and are around 23K so far this year with the optimism of their first ACL campaign, a successful pre-season and table topping start…………..perhaps soccer folk have gotten just a tad bit ahead of themselves??? (that’s another wait and see)
Rugby in Melb - - I still reckon that the NRL would be nervous about a RU team in Melbourne - - but again, wait and see.
Remember with Gallop and Sydney, that the Sydney teams have the weakest core revenue fundamentals via falling crowds, stuff all membership, a problem with small suburban venues and hugely unpopular white elephant Stadium Australia. Through in pokies taxes and inflationary pressures on wages from Union both on shore and off shore and Superleague - - - along with a lot of work to be done around the NewsLtd conundrum………………it’s going to require a few cards to fall correctly to sustain the current Sydney Clubs.
The AFL by comparison, the only current blockage for Melb clubs is the stadium deals - - and the picture further down the track is the AFL fully owning Telstra Dome. The reality is that clubs needing $40 million turn over isn’t so much the make or break point - - in that the majority of total player payment is covered by the AFL (and that figure is often included when people have looked at the amounts being ‘handed out’ to clubs like North Melb - - - and that’s a bit unfair because EVERYONE get’s that base distribution). Clubs need not go broke other than living beyond their means ‘off the field’, and part of the key there has been a round of facilities up grading.
One thing though now is assistant coaches are being paid $200K………that seems a bit silly to me. So, problem presently is perhaps a little bit of ‘fat’ is being built in………..
Note Hawthorn are looking at a profit of around $4mill, and Geelong around $1.4mill. Not bad.
Pippinu said | September 28th 2008 @ 9:31pm | Report comment
Yes, I read today that Hawthorn may have moved ahead of both Collingwood and Essendon as Melbourne’s most profitable AFL club.
The key thing for people to note is that about 10 or 11 of the AFL clubs make decent profits.
In 2007, West Coast made a net profit of $5.6 mill on gross turnover of $94.5 mill - both numbers, in the context of domestic Australian clubs, are staggering figures.
Michael C said | September 28th 2008 @ 9:39pm | Report comment
Pippinu -
was that turnover figure right?
this was on theWest.com.au
West Coast Eagles announce record profit
8th February 2008, 13:59 WST
The self-confessed image of the West Coast as a club off the rails has not translated to the bottom line, with the Eagles revealing an operating profit of more than $6.5 million last year.
A record for a club already considered one of the financial powerhouses of the AFL and Australian domestic sport, West Coast registered an operating profit of $6,636,808 to the year ending October 31, 2007.
After a royalty payment of $2,766,450 to the West Australian Football Commission and a further $3 million in rent payments for Subiaco Oval, the club retains around $3,870,000 out of a turnover of some $46 million.
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=457974