With much change about to occur in the Australian football landscape over the next few years, I thought it might be instructive to look at end of year financial performances of the AFL clubs for 2009.
Such a study confirms a few of our expectations for the coming years, and allows us to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the current AFL competition vis-à-vis its clubs.
I’ve listed the clubs in order of their memberships for 2009, although, as you can see, the correlation of members to overall operating result is not strict.
Source: The Sunday Age, March 7, 2010
Hawthorn: 52,496 members; $2.72 million profit
Adelaide: 46,472 members; $0.10 million profit
Collingwood: 45,972 members; $0.60 million profit
West Coast: 43,927 members; $0.24 million profit
Carlton: 42,408 members; $0.75 million profit
Essendon: 40,412 members; $0.76 million profit
Fremantle: 39,206 members; $0.59 million profit
Geelong: 37,160 members; $0.63 million profit
Richmond: 36,981 members; $0.08 million loss
St Kilda: 31,906 members; $1.14 million profit
Melbourne: 31,506 members; $0.02 million profit
Port Adelaide: 30,605 members; $1.57 million profit
North Melbourne: 28,340 members; $0.60 million profit
Western Bulldogs: 28,215 members; $0.24 million profit
Sydney: 26,269 members; $0.75 million loss
Brisbane: 24,873 members; $0.60 million loss
No surprises that Sydney and Brisbane have both the lowest memberships and the largest losses. In fact, only one other club recorded a loss, and that was Richmond’s small loss of some $80,000.
It’s becoming clear that you need a membership base of around 30,000, as a minimum, to compete in the AFL, and the two clubs operating in non-AFL territory are starting to lag behind a bit. Of course the interesting aspect is that it’s in precisely these two areas where the AFL is seeking to establish new clubs over the next two seasons.
It just goes to show, if we needed any reminding – and this goes for all four codes – that it’s very tough to establish new clubs at the best of times, let alone in areas where the game has not been followed traditionally.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Thanks for the tip - will be watching out for it. Hopefully dogs and saints can kick it off in style tonight (in fixture that five years ago may only have got 30,000)
Michael C
Roar Guru
exactly - by all international metrics - - both absolute and relative - - the AFL stacks up super well. Sure - the dollar value of the playing list is limited relative to larger, wealthier markets such as NFL or the pointy end of the global soccer player market,
Redb
Roar Guru
It's possible that the all time attendance record (367,000) for the AFL will be broken this round.
Alfa
Guest
It's strange that NRL fans in particular have this misconception that it rivals the AFL. It's nowhere near the scale of the AFL. HAL fans also seem to have this idea they're on the brink of 'knocking off' the AFL. They seem to ignore the math that to do so they'll need to get more people to follow A-League than the Premier League has supporters in England with double or triple Australia's population - it is nowhere near being realistically achievable. It's also strange the Australians tend to undersell their own national league, assuming everywhere must be bigger/better when the AFL is one of the premier leagues in the world. That's a massive achievement for a small country and should be a source of pride for all Aussies. NOTE: NONE OF THIS MEANS THOSE OTHER CODES CAN'T BE ENJOYED OR THRIVE IN AUSTRALIA.
Michael C
Roar Guru
that 600,000 figure was as over end of March I believe, at that time North Melb was around 22,000 and are now a couple of hundred below 27,000. Not saying all clubs will have increased 5,000 or 23% since then......that would be astounding........but, 600,000 end of March - what will end April figures be?? (how many 3 game packages did Collingwood sell with reserved seat last Sunday??). btw - interesting looking at NRL figures and how they report often quoting inclusive of un-ticketed memberships vs actually ticketed memberships. They're getting there but are a long way behind on club revenues and local suburban fields will limit their growth as well.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
Thinking about having breached the 600,000 figure in memberships in recent weeks, it got me thinking the other day that this actually represents triple the number of all other memberships of all other football codes combined. That's an extraordinary statistic. One that all Roar posters should keep in mind when they start talking on here as if their preferred competition somehow sits alongside the AFL as some sort of equal, or that their preferred competition (the smell the fear league) is somehow on the verge of getting anywhere near the operations of the AFL. People like Craig Foster look plain silly when they suggest such things. We're talking about completely different levels of activity, a bit like comparing a corner milk bar and a national brand supermarket.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
In case people haven't heard, the AFL has breached 600,000 memberships for the first time in history. The figure had been bouncing around the 590,000 mark for the last couple of seasons. The official cut-off for memberships tallies is 30 June, so no doubt another 10,000 or two will be added to that tally between now and then.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
AFter the first two rounds, the AFL had got 656,000 fans through the gates at an average of exaclty 41,000 per game. It wasn't an average that was likely to be sustained, and I regret to say that we the decline has commemced already. Only 290,000 to the games that round, giving an average per game of 39,400. Alas, we have dropped below the 40,000 average.
bever fever
Guest
20 clubs ??... Can't see it happening for many years, depth of players is not there, although ATM the % of players being recruited from O/S is increasing and will increase further which does increase depth, the penetration of Australian football from Newcastle to Wollongong must be a lot higher to create that depth of player. If you dont have that depth you are placing to much pressure on your traditional recruitment areas. One area that should really pick up with the introduction of GWS is the ACT/Riverina Whilst Sydney and Wollongong have pockets of decent support for footy, Newcastle must rank with Townsville as the weakest Australian football cities.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
If the AFL ever does move to 20 clubs, I reckon a 3rd Perth team is a no-brainer - for precisely the reasons you mention.
bever fever
Guest
I did hear that the Eagles have a waiting list of 24 thousand, i thought that cannot be right, however i am reliably informed that currently it is over 7,000. Here is the catch though, if you are on the waiting list and recieve the go ahead to purchase a membership, you can purchase up to 4 memberships, so its possible that the eagles have 28,000 potential members waiting, not many people just buy 1 membership, family or a couple of mates who want to sit next to each other are the norm. Of course how many people are there in Perth who that would purchase a membership if they could but have not bothered to put their name (a couple of hundred bucks) on the waiting list, this is something that Victorian members/clubs do not have, how many Victorian clubs are knocking back members. This is a very good reason to bring a 3rd team into WA, the Dockers are nearly in the same boat, couple of early wins and they will sell out of memberships. If a bigger stadium is built it is possible that memberships may go down, as if their is a glut people may not bother but just pay at the gatefor the 2 or 3 games that they wish to attend.
Wayno
Guest
Tigers and Hawks both have a major advantage in calling the MCG home which gives them massive capacity to grow their memberships. The Crows and West coast memberships would be through the roof but as you mentioned earlier are restricted by their stadiums to 40 odd thousand capacity and a 2 year waiting list for new members.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
There are quite a few complications of that ilk in preparing such figures, so it's very hard to draw to make one for one comparisons, but we can say: 1. memberships are quite healthy, even for the two clubs from non-AFL territories 2. 13 of 16 clubs ended the year in the black (and a similar number did the same the previous year), and the world of professional football, that's a damn good effort for such a small market as ours 3. Sydney and Brisbane still need a watching eye, and therefore, we can safely say that the two new teams will need more than just that for the next 20 years.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
rr I think that's right - you need to watch at least 9 home games to make it really worthwhile (if you are viewing it from purely a financial perspective) - and there are plenty of reasons why people can't do that, even if they wanted to. The limited game memberships goes a long way to resolving that. They are also a good fit for games that are unlikely to sell out - so you could probably offer a massive discount on the 3 game membership if it were limited to, say, the 6 lower drawing home games of the year (you could virtually sell that for the price of one game, and everyone is ahead). I've been reading the past week that Richmond are seriously aiming at 75,000 members (as is Hawthorn), and they mount a compelling case as to why they can achieve it. They reckon that 100,000 different members have lapsed over the past decade, i.e. been a member for a while, but aren't now. AFL clubs have been collecting such data for the best part of 15 years, so they all have huge lists of names and addresses of people that have been a member for at least one year over that period, and they're all getting smarter at using online technology and periodic payments to sell more memberships. I now have a perpetual membership with the club plonking a set amount on my credit card on a monthly basis - it even includes one new top per annum! The point Richmond make is this: even if of the 75,000 members, about a third were limited game memberships, so what? Which ever way you look at it, it beats the hell out of scrounging around for 30,000 fully paid members.
ruckrover
Guest
Interesting about the limited game memberships. It could be the way of the future. I don't have a Crows membership but might consider a 3-game or 5-game one if they were available. I just don't have time to go to 11 home matches. All clubs (any code and country) could maybe do better offering say 70% of memberships as traditional all home games, and split another 30% - e.g. for AFL it could be into 4 x 3-game packages (if we get a 24 round season with 18 teams). Still leaving a few for single match purchases. Would that idea work better for clubs and leagues??
Moonface
Roar Guru
AFL Dictatorship - the AFL moderator is deleting my comments :)
Al
Guest
Yes I do, I live in St.Kilda heartland (Mentone). I was being facetious. The Red, Black And White all over the place was a bit sickening last September.
bever fever
Guest
I did actually notice that West coast only had a tiny profit, this is somewhat inaccurate as the Eagles must pay high rentals to the WAFC for subi and a high % of their yearly profit goes back to them as well. This has started to apply for the Dockers as well,
Mr Real Australian it's called Football Man formerly known as Kurt
Guest
Let's not to be too harsh on Moonie, at least he hasn't continued with his silly little charade of claiming to be an AFL fan!
Redb
Roar Guru
Yep, Tall Poppy Syndrome is alive and well. :-)