“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark,” Marcellus said to Horatio in the first act of Billy Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The line – one of Shakespeare’s most recognisable – was a blunt description of the feeling in 15th century Denmark, where even the local peasants recognised something was amiss.
The Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide football clubs, who are currently locked in an urgent review of the Adelaide Oval financial deal, must be muttering something similar.
Something is rotten in South Australian football.
The Adelaide Oval in the last four months has gone from being the feel-good story of last AFL season to a cosmic black hole where money promised to both AFL clubs has disappeared without a trace.
In a complex deal, all football revenue was to be shared between the SANFL, the Adelaide and Port football clubs, and the Stadium Management Authority (SMA) which holds the lease.
Both AFL clubs were promised an extra $4 million in revenue at the Oval compared to what they would receive if they stayed at Football Park.
While both clubs have earned the promised extra cash, the devil is in the detail.
The $4 million promise was based on the clubs averaging crowds of 36,000, with the Crows and Power also having memberships of 50,000 and 32,000 respectively.
In 2014 the Adelaide Crows averaged 48,000 at the Adelaide Oval while signing up 57,000 members, yet they will be lucky to make a profit of $200,000.
Port Adelaide on the other hand, averaged 44,000 (8000 more than projected) at the Adelaide Oval while signing 55,700 members (23,000 more than projected), however they earned no more money than the original projection and will still report a loss of $2 million in the coming weeks.
To add further intrigue, the Adelaide Advertiser revealed last Thursday that the SANFL earned $14.9 million from the Adelaide Oval, despite no longer having ground management rights or costs associated with running a stadium.
That figure is a staggering $3.7 million more than 2013, when the SANFL owned and operated Football Park.
These confounding developments have forced the AFL and SA Premier Jay Weatherill to be drafted into the negotiations to resolve the gridlock.
For all the back and forth, there is a question that still has no clear answer: where has the extra money gone?
A number of factors have been floated to explain how clubs have not received the extra cash despite attracting more fans than projected.
Theories proposed include the cost of police to patrol the venue, the cost of setting up roadblocks on the streets surrounding Adelaide Oval, and the need for maintenance of the ground.
I don’t disagree that the costs mentioned above are reasonable. But surely the amount needed for police, roadblocks and maintenance would have been worked into the revenue projections that were used to entice football back to Adelaide Oval?
If the Government and SMA failed to do this, then questions have to be raised as to whether they hid information in their bid to unite football and cricket at the same venue.
Scrutiny must also be applied to the SANFL as to how the governing authority is nearly $4 million better off despite no longer having the responsibility of operating and maintaining a stadium. Adding to the mystery, the SANFL no longer has control of the AFL clubs’ licenses and therefore doesn’t have the burden of investing money into the two professional clubs, but still makes more money off AFL than it ever did at Football Park.
It’s ridiculous that the Crows and Port are not being rewarded for their crowds yet the SANFL is reaping the benefits.
SANFL President John Olsen is currently hiding behind confidentiality agreements and won’t offer a public explanation, but he’ll need to be wholly transparent, otherwise there will be dire consequences.
There’s an old saying that if something looks and smells bad, it generally is bad. Adelaide and Port both exceeded crowd expectations and have no reward as promised, whereas the SANFL and SMA celebrate record revenues.
If this situation doesn’t look and smell suspicious to you then William Shakespeare didn’t write Hamlet.
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