There remains no news as to whether Brisbane Roar owners the Bakrie Group have been successful in finding a buyer for their franchise license.
This follows in the wake of the Newcastle Jets having their license taken over by the FFA.
The narrative has often focused on the owners being overdue on various fees, such as player payments becoming sporadic.
But in the case of the Roar, there is the pheonomenon of officials from another sporting code criticising the ownership structure, while going as far as to filing wind up motions which speaks of a form of spillover effect.
It is worth considering these are only symptoms. In the case of owners, the end-game symptoms of their involvement are where it comes to the point they simply aren’t willing to lose money anymore.
Often the belligerent personality of owners – such as mining magnates who weren’t required to develop a diplomatic customer service professionalism in building their business – has attracted criticism. The football fraternity have been critical of these owners, without fully analysing the merits of their grievances.
That is to say the governance approach of the FFA has fostered a climate that is not only investor unfriendly and in need of improvement, it is arguably hostile.
There’s a real sense the FFA want to have their cake and eat it; they want to offload the losses and then take a substantial cut out of any profitable aspect of the A-League.
This hampers any capacity for owner investors to make up losses.
A good example is the revenue raised from off-season matches against notable overseas clubs. The introduction of the All-Stars concept is of a similar vein to the FFA negotiating league-wide sponsorship rights for its own profit, and then preventing constituent A-League teams from negotiating sponsorship rights with competitor companies.
This becomes a problem in the future because ultimately it means the FFA have to step in to fully subsidise a sizeable portion of teams when the franchise licenses are handed back.
This in turn means any profits they had gleaned are not only wiped out but they have to spend more money than would be the case with a robust self-sufficient A-League meaning there is less money for socially beneficial women’s and youth programs.
An appropriate mix for the finals series would be that participating teams would get 50 per cent of gate takings as prize money. Of that, 25 per cent should be invested back into the league as a whole via distribution to the other teams (or a central marketing fund) and 25 per cent should go the FFA (aka the game as a whole).
The All-Stars concept should be scrapped, as it directly undermines the credibility of the A-League’s constituent teams, it is a form of throw-back to a time when Manchester United would have to play the Socceroos.
A-League teams can gain valuable cut-through in brand building via the higher drawing teams. Financially the gains can make up for losses throughout the season.
At the same time we need to be able to look far into the future and prevent future issues.
If the league is to be one day attractive to investors in a similar mould to the English Premier League, there is always the potential for interests to become invested in the game that don’t have the sport’s best interests at heart.
This is why fan and local business ownership should be incorporated into the ownership operating structure. This isn’t actually too hard if membership becomes exactly that, instead of a different name for season tickets.
There comes the issue of control. On the one hand there is a need for private investors to have scope to implement innovative ideas – through website and online content in particular – and forge strategic sports business partnerships.
It would not however be too problematic for fans to essentially be given voting rights and control over aspects such as playing kit design for example.
Another benefit of partial fan ownership is stability. If an owner suddenly has to pull out for economic reasons, as it stands currently a sizeable vacuum is left in its wake.
However if fans half own and fund the team there is less of a vacuum.
All of this has to take place within the realms of an autonomously run A-League – not a fully independent A-League – as is often advocated.
TheMagnificent11
Roar Guru
Great blog, totally agree that the FFA has to share more of the revenue derived from the A-League with the clubs. Furthermore, I think the PFA is not considering the financial state if the clubs in the CBA stand-off. In most businesses you try to raise revenues and cut costs when you don't turn a profit. The blog highlights a few ways to raise revenues but a normal response to cutting cost in the business world is to lower or freeze salaries. The PFA want the salary cap to go up at a tine when most clubs cannot afford to meet the current level.
Lionheart
Guest
Good comments here Waz. Some advertising would do wonders. The AFL, NRL and rugby advertise regularly on TV and radio, but nil from the FFA. I can only recall hearing the Roar advertise before one game, and attendance was better than expected then.
jimmy snuka
Guest
firstly there is no money in the aleage, media coverage is pathetic and afl nrl do everything in their power to take up every bit of tv coverage..40 million a yr will attract no one poor owners have to fork out the cash and the fans still dont go...afl is a sleazy corrupt6 sport it just gets covered up by the media and gov because they dont want their sport becoming a scape goat..give aleague 100 million a yr and 4 more teams like sth melb you see how big it can become and attract decent young players, we need excitement and more internationals face it aus sports players are not skilled enough..look at hayne or whatever his name is..all over the news buyt hell be a flop before you know it then id like to see the media talk about him 24.7..channel 7 showing his games what a waste oif cash whos guna wake up at 5 am to watch nfl..its not champions league not even on the same level...bakrie group cant find a buyer because the stupid media makes it hard for them with all this abbging crap going..i blame nrl stop being sooks youll get paid lil babtys
Waz
Guest
Mid, on costs: * Stadium, yes big expense but it has to have a minimum capacity. Roars average crowd is topical 14-18,000 so it's not fantasy to believe 20k average is Achievable. * W-League team, $500k (why do Roar have one??) * travel costs vary by location - Perth, Wellington, Addlaide, Roar all fly more than most (why dont the HAL subsidise travel instead of giving the same flat fee to everyone - surely that favours NSWs and VIC teams?) * NYL travel costs, $400k, why does the license insist clubs have one in the national comp but then not subsidise travel. Again, that favours clubs in some locations over others
Waz
Guest
I'm having a real problem this week with people constantly posting the idea that the ownership structure is the cause of Roars problems - clearly people need to do more research. Your statement "fan and local business ownership should be incorporated into the ownership operating structure" .... we didn't have fan involvement the last time around admittedly but we did have a consortium of 8-10 (very) successful local business owners running the club and guess what, Roar went bust and the license was handed back to the FFA and then sold to the Bakries who implemented the opposite model. And failed. I'm all ears to fan ownership BUT if the club remains constantly unprofitable you know what .... it will still fail!!
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Point is there that an MVFC vs MCFC or SFC vs WSW type final can generate significant revenue if sold out at Etihad or SFS, more than say finals involving smaller teams at smaller stadiums. So in this way some spread of the portion should go into cross-subsidisation. If not directly to other clubs put it into a central marketing fund for the entire league Agree about Stadiums, that's why I say that the extra revenue from TV deal should immediately be invested in capital infrastructure, eg Boutique Stadiums but also training facilities in each state which can be used at a variety of levels, eg HAL teams, womens teams, Olyroos, Socceroos when they are in town etc. This means we can effectively cut out leasing costs as a cost issue, plus training facilities which was the issue with QRU and Ballymore Of course to generate a huge surplus you need to keep player wage inflation from blowing up Sponsors can go either way, arguably the FFA can help by giving the league sponsor revenue back to the teams. If there was an autonomously run A-League this would happen. Ultimately the theme is that the A-League economy needs to be turned toward itself, there's a balance though, some aspects need to be distributed effectively (TV rights and league sponsorships) and in some cases the larger clubs need to be able to utilise comparative advantage and get higher profits, which means money for marquees basically and the ability to be competitive on the continental stage, eg Metropolitan clubs are perfect for big Euro teams and should be able to negotiate TV rights and keep the profits
Midfielder
Guest
NU Once again a well written article. Just a couple of points. Your idea of sharing finals revenue. The other codes run the identical system, thus very hard. If I were to look at the A-league and identify key cost drivers they would be stadium, an travel costs. Also sponsorships. FFA should help negotiate affordable stadium hire even if this means not playing at key stadiums. Suncorp is the perfect example. Better to find an 8 k stadium than need 23k to break even on the day. FFA should also assist with sponsors. As a spot until we have a media deal that can underwrite our league we simply don't generate the revenue to support playing out of massive stadiums.
NUFCMVFC
Roar Guru
Some do it as a glorified hobby for social status, ala the Russian and Mid East Oligarchs buying Euro teams Some do it because they think they can reform it in such a way as to generate more revenue from it, think the Glazers said this is why they bought Man utd Either way, as a glorified hobby you only want to lose money for so long which might be why bills aren't being paid, And secondly if you are in the camp where you actually care about the sport and want to grow the team as one grows a business, you need to be able to put innovative ideas in place which they simply can't do As a phenomenon I can understand, there was a need in the startup phase to streamline costs by having everything highly centralised. This needed to relax after five years but the thing with getting power is the holder is reluctant to relinquish it, hence the blowup with Clive. Eg it took five years too long for teams to get their own kit manufacturers, there is the ongoing issue of terrible generic websites which they need control of amongst other thing And then there's the FFA Cup, this should have been introduced around 2010, but they are too busy with the politics to want to give the old NSL clubs any oxygen at all People keep looking at the FFA as some kind of benevolent saviour who needs to come in to "save" the club from owners. People need to understand this is a dynamic in play, and the FFA are half the problem. Nothing against the FFA specifically, it is simply how power dynamic works, and there can't be too much concentratoin of power in one stakeholder, whether it be the clubs as the old NSL or the central governing body as it is now. This is why we have separation of powers being legislative and judiciary
Matthew Skellett
Guest
Why want anyone want to buy a huge debt-laden product the sellers are 'desperate' to get rid of ?