PDA

View Full Version : North Melbourne football club to become an AFL powerhouse ?


Anti Gold Coast
19 Apr 2008, 00:48
Definately. The North Melbourne FC is finally beginning to capatilise on it's un-riveled success in the 90s with up and coming Joey's ready at the helm, to support the club. One just needs to look at the recent membership figure breakdown, to recognise that whilst "powerhouses" like Essendon can only manage Junior memberships of 4760, the North Melbourne FC have recorded a whopping 8148 junior memberships.

It's all well and good for the Bombers and similar clubs to have good-solid memberships now, but what happens when the Baby-Boomers are pushing up daisies? Meanwhile, over at what will be the newly developed Arden St, we will be having waves of young supporters.

With this increased capital, comes increased expenditure. Now let's take a simple case study. The reason that the American economy is able to produce the best "talent" and "products" is because of the billions of dollars flowing through the economy. You have to have capital to get any organisation flowing. The North Melbourne FC is committing record amounts of capital into getting the business to function properly. So whilst many do argue "you can't sustain your memberships BLAH,BLAH BLAH" I argue that there immediate injection of capital is worth it's wait in gold. The club will be able to invest more into player payments, sport science, and just general "uncrappyfying Arden St." This in turn will lead to better performances on-field, which will lead to increased memberships, greater supporters, and greater presence in the AFL community.

Now the pessimists in you, will say "the majority of the junior memberships are pity memberships." Feasible, I have to agree. So lets look at the concession memberships. Now, negligible pity memberships are likely to be "concession" memberships, so when we have a look at the figures, we find the Roos have greater amounts of concession memberships, than clubs like Hawthorn, Port and the WEstern Bulldogs, and merely trail teams like Richmond by 8 memberships. So in total, we have 8 less- junior and senior memberships than Richmond, and 2714 more junior/concession memberships than Essendon. Very nice!

The effects of this have already started to pay off. The club has been able to unearth quality players in rookie drafts like Matthew Campbell, Scott McMahon and numerous others. It's a shame to think, that the club was intent on signing quality such as Priddis, Brett Jones and Aaron Davey, had it not been for the inability of the club to fund such acquisitions. But the day of the pauper-Roos are no more. We are a force to be reckoned with.

With imminant success, we can realistically hope for these membership numbers in both the junior and adult sectors to blossom, as we unseat clubs like Richmond from the AFL's power-broker clubs.

A little optomism never hurt anyone.

KingsCrow
19 Apr 2008, 00:59
Sustained sucess. Prove you can retain those members over 5+ years and that you can make a bit of dosh on the side, then maybe you can be considered a 'house'.

Collins-Langford-Ayres
19 Apr 2008, 01:00
Anti Gold Coast to stop hanging out with Pete Docherty and Amy Winehouse.

Hawkk
19 Apr 2008, 01:03
Yawn.

Adelaide - 47,995
West Coast - 44,746
Fremantle - 43,094
Collingwood - 40,278
Carlton - 36,756
Hawthorn - 36,325
Geelong - 35,215
Essendon - 33,874
Pt Adelaide - 33,364
Nth Melbourne - 30,960
St.kilda - 29,486
Richmond - 29,224
Sydney - 26,164
Western Bulldogs - 24,866
Melbourne - 24,382
Brisbane - 22,006

Concession memberships just mean you've got more 'Special' people supporting your club.

Even when North load their membership, they still cant crack the top 8 :)

Anti Gold Coast
19 Apr 2008, 01:06
Yawn.

Adelaide - 47,995
West Coast - 44,746
Fremantle - 43,094
Collingwood - 40,278
Carlton - 36,756
Hawthorn - 36,325
Geelong - 35,215
Essendon - 33,874
Pt Adelaide - 33,364
Nth Melbourne - 30,960
St.kilda - 29,486
Richmond - 29,224
Sydney - 26,164
Western Bulldogs - 24,866
Melbourne - 24,382
Brisbane - 22,006

Concession memberships just mean you've got more 'Special' people supporting your club.

Even when North load their membership, they still cant crack the top 8 :)

How about junior memberships? It's not the fact that we have minimal support NOW, it's the strong signs of high junior support, that should translate into good memberships in the future. Granted the thread was a bit of a piss-take, but there is no reason why we can't be a strong club with the promosing jnr memberships.

Hawkk
19 Apr 2008, 01:08
How about junior memberships? It's not the fact that we have minimal support NOW, it's the strong signs of high junior support, that should translate into good memberships in the future. Granted the thread was a bit of a piss-take, but there is no reason why we can't be a strong club with the promosing jnr memberships.

Carlton 9,339
Hawthorn 9,321
Collingwood 8,219
Nth Melb 8,148
Richmond 8,148
Fremantle 7,820
Geelong 6,996
St Kilda 6,107
Adelaide 5,668
Port 5,643
West Coast 4,876
Essendon 4,760
Melbourne 4,392
Sydney 4,162
Brisbane 2,975
W Bulldogs 2,946

Dogs are in strife based on the numbers

Anti Gold Coast
19 Apr 2008, 01:13
Carlton 9,339
Hawthorn 9,321
Collingwood 8,219
Nth Melb 8,148
Richmond 8,148
Fremantle 7,820
Geelong 6,996
St Kilda 6,107
Adelaide 5,668
Port 5,643
West Coast 4,876
Essendon 4,760
Melbourne 4,392
Sydney 4,162
Brisbane 2,975
W Bulldogs 2,946

Not bad, although you'd imagine most of the non North supporters who bought memberships this year would have bought junior memberships?

Better to use then concession memberships though

Well generally, the non-game attending memberships are around the same price ($20 cheaper if I'm not mistaken) than a junior membership. Whilst I do accept there may be some "pity" memberships comprising that figure, it is still a fair bit higher than the next placed Victorian club (behind the Tigers.)

Hawkk
19 Apr 2008, 01:15
Well generally, the non-game attending memberships are around the same price ($20 cheaper if I'm not mistaken) than a junior membership. Whilst I do accept there may be some "pity" memberships comprising that figure, it is still a fair bit higher than the next placed Victorian club (behind the Tigers.)

I'm staggered the Dogs havent been targeted by the AFL lately

fishguts
19 Apr 2008, 01:15
Um Essendon is on 38,000 members

SweetLeftFoot
19 Apr 2008, 02:56
Will we ever be a financial powerhouse like WCE or Adelaide or Collingwood?

No. Can we, and will we, be a sustainable 'boutique' club playing all our home games in Melbourne? Yes.

This isn't the EPL where cash reserves are DIRECTLY linked to your ability to recruit talent. Yes, having the cash to pay for scouting networks helps, but at the end of the day, the only way you get play AFL is through the draft. And even then, we picked some gems late in the draft recently with a low recruiting budget.

If we are paying 100 per cent of the cap, and with a our new, up to date facilities, the only things the other richer clubs will have extra is mere trimmings - low altitude flights and the like. Do they win games? No, I don't think they do. Can they add a bit, yes, probably, but are they decisive? No.

Its my view that one or two of the Melbourne teams will go in some form - sadly, as I don't want to see any of them go. And I see this as being cyclical. Different teams are vulnerable at different times and its how you respond that makes all the difference.

Hawthorn were vulnerable in the mid 90s and they have responded magnificently both off field and on in recent years. While I'd hope North doesn't have to sell any home games, hawthorn have guaranteed their future for the long term.

As the OP shows, the benefits of the 90s glory years are being felt now, which is quite fortunate. The kid who 8 when we last won a flag will be 18 next year and finally able to buy a membership. Go on the North board and you'll see people who describe themselves in precisely this way.

Not only that, but our near death experience has galvanised people. Take me old man. Has been North through and through (my grandad owned a shop on errol Street), been a member all his life, attended all our flags but up until now, left things to the club to run. The events of last year showed him that we can't afford to do that anymore and now he has staretd a Melbourne Uni Supporters Group. They only have 20-odd members at the moment but its growing and people are talking and ideas being shared. That group will keep growing and more people will be involved and the message will spead.

Once we get our shareholder issue sorted - and I see no reason why it won't be sorted in the next few months - all the basics will be in place for sustained growth.

Now to the vulnerable ones - Melbourne and the Dog. The Dogs thought they secured their future recently with their rebranding but they are still get special funding and those figures the OP cited dhow a worrying lack of youngsters coming through. But I sense the Dogs have fought before and will fight again.

Melbourne gave up once before and are neck deep in it at the moment. The AFL's briefing of La Wilson shows just how concerned they are. Melbourne need to be very concerned, especially with Gardiner talking about playing some games on the GC next year. If that's a prelude to relocation, I don't what is. Beware Demons, beware.

Hawkamania!
19 Apr 2008, 03:04
Um Essendon is on 38,000 members

Not according to the AFL. They only count ticketed members.

http://afl.com.au/tabid/208/Default.aspx?newsid=58168