Richmond records decade of profits

[Infamy]

The reason we've made profits for a decade is because the AFL started giving money out to struggling clubs in the last decade. Many of those years we actually made a loss without the handout.

Our early profits were in large part because of the assistance given by the AFL to struggling clubs(which we were one) and the grants that we were given by the state & federal governments when we rebuilt the social club to include the Indigenous Institute. Without those funds in those early years we would never have made profits. Even the last few years the profits have been boosted by the fans kicking in extra money to knock off the debt and to also contribute to the FTF. I would go so far as to suggest that it's only the last couple of years that our profits have actually come from the performance of the club more than the handouts and donations as we've made back to back finals. I'd expect 2015 to deliver a much bigger profit again given our favorable draw.

In the TW years we received a heap of government cash for the social club rebuild/Indigenous Institute as well as AFL assistance that boosted our bottom line. Without that we would have most likely made a loss in the TW years, but lets just ignore that little fact.

Sorry but this isn't true at all, we have never received "hand outs" from the AFL due to us struggling, in fact we've turned around our finances without these which are always just loans anyway.
Any payments we've received from the AFL have been those paid to all clubs due to less favourable agreements with the grounds. This is purely an equalisation payment to cover for the Collingwoods of the league who get more favourable gate takings compared to most other clubs. This isn't anything to do with our success or struggles and is across the entire competition.

In addition the profits do not take into account the government grant for the ME Bank centre, which was also paid to multiple clubs to develop their training facilities and have only affected our net asset position overall. I believe one year we reported the profits from this, but this was separated out and we still turned a profit without this one time grant anyway.

 

[DrMike]

Just because it's interesting:

 

[_RT_]

Sorry but this isn't true at all, we have never received "hand outs" from the AFL due to us struggling, in fact we've turned around our finances without these which are always just loans anyway.
Any payments we've received from the AFL have been those paid to all clubs due to less favourable agreements with the grounds. This is purely an equalisation payment to cover for the Collingwoods of the league who get more favourable gate takings compared to most other clubs. This isn't anything to do with our success or struggles and is across the entire competition.

In addition the profits do not take into account the government grant for the ME Bank centre, which was also paid to multiple clubs to develop their training facilities and have only affected our net asset position overall. I believe one year we reported the profits from this, but this was separated out and we still turned a profit without this one time grant anyway.

As shown above we did receive grants from the government for the Punt Rd redevelopment and Indigenous institute, although I did get my timing wrong. In fact if you look at the table there are a couple of years where we would have made a loss if not for them.

 

[Calcium Man]

Just because it's interesting:
View attachment 93922

Interesting we didn't increase revenue this year. A bit disappointing but I wonder if most clubs struggled due to poor crowds this season.

 

[Tiger71]

if this is true it would have converted into memberships and attendance but but it clearly didn't Much At least for Memberships. Memberships rose more so when Papa DH took over so he must be a spin doctor..


Ticketed
members

2014 66,122
2013 60,321
2012 53,027
2011 40,184
2010 35,960
2009 36,985
2008 30,820
2007 30,044
2006 29,406
2005 28,029
2004 27,133


Clearly didn't happen till Papa DH and Granpa Benny. Spikes in Attendance but memberships clearly didn't rise till after Wallace, that points to administration and planning.

I did see you say and i also remember that when Cousins was recruited it translated into significant rise in membership, you said 6k? which as you can see is about right but other than that Wallet's spin did **** all.

He was responsible for internal changes on a big scale that's about it, it got me excited at the time but it didn't take long to see he was full of s**t.

The above numbers are really interesting and tell the true story IMO. Thanks for posting it Wart.

In 05-06 Terry sold Hope, got cousins in that time, and spruked the club like nobody before him. His fault was that in spruking the club, he did it with his coaching and himself as the focus. By his third year, most were sick of the excuses of "game played, age of the list, experience of the list, 5 year plan" etc etc. Why though I regonise and credit him for making us never trade our first pick, he nearly brought the club backwards. In 5 years the total membership increase was 8,956.

Compare that to now with Ben/Hardwick who IMO still sell the club but do it with integrity. Membership increase in the same 5 year time frame 30,162. That is even without a big fish like a cousins.

 

[Infamy]

As shown above we did receive grants from the government for the Punt Rd redevelopment and Indigenous institute, although I did get my timing wrong. In fact if you look at the table there are a couple of years where we would have made a loss if not for them.

I concede the points about the government grants, I thought it was a lump sum payment, although the fact that our net assets has increased by $24 million when we were only handed out $15 million is a big positive over this period. You'll also find that most Victorian clubs received these grants and I don't even think we got the biggest one, though I am just going from memory so could be wrong there.

We still didn't receive any handouts from the AFL when we were struggling, unlike clubs like Carlton

 

[Rayzorwire]

Lets break down the players " that played there best football under Wallace"

You seem to have completely missed my point. A lot of these blokes got chances elsewhere and if Wallace was such a poor developer of players, why did none of them succeed elsewhere? Clubs lined up to take advantage of the myth that our players were poorly developed, even JON got a chance at West Coast, two years in fact. Not one of them came remotely close to achieving what they managed under Wallace.

At the same time, Wallace took a lot of rejects from other clubs and made them into significantly better AFL players. Nobody could do that with his rejects. Ever.

we did not spiral out of control and only finish with 3 wins like Wallace did

Mate, he didn't even coach for half that season, I mean seriously...

How did a thread about us having 10 straight years of profits turn into a TW is great debate?

Because he was largely responsible for half of that decade, as you well know, having written in glowing terms about him pretty much every day for half a decade.

Just think how much easier TWs job would have been had he taken a little less money for himself...

He was widely touted as worth $800k a season, he signed on for barely half that, precisely because we couldn't afford him and he helped us out because coming back to Richmond was never really about the money for him.

Bloke signs on for ~40% less than his market value, then gets pilloried by idiots for the rest of his life for robbing the club and jeopardising its success because of the size of his pay packet.

Only at Richmond.

See that is the difference between the 2, Hardwick came in with a plan to invest money in the football department, TW came in with a plan to make himself the messiah that saved Richmond,

The first thing we did after Wallace got us our first profitable season in a long time, was invest in the football department. In the meantime, he installed programs like the former greats player mentor system and a number of other forward thinking initiatives to try and paper over the massive cracks as best we could with no money to spend.

But enough from me, let's have a small sample read of what YOU ACTUALLY thought about the Wallace era - and you were right 98% of the time:

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threa...mond-football-club.327619/page-2#post-7551144

"How can Wallace be blamed for injuries that have robbed him of some of his best players?"

"What is the main judgements of a coach the amount of games he wins and if the team is improving. What I believe Wallace's problem was was that he had to show something to the Richmond faithful who want results ASAP, not willing to let him do the job by having us sitting at the bottom of the ladder for 2-3 years. He tried to win games and in the long run that is what it is all about. Winning. Last year Wallace lost the first 3 games and there were again calls saying he is no good for the Tigers and should be replaced. Yet at the end of the season we had won 11 games finished 9th and the fans went into the Pre Season thinking this was the year we return to the finals. Wallace has turned over as many, if not more players as Clarkson in the last 3 off seasons. That list I put up before shows just how much dead wood Wallace removed and if you look at this years list you would find we have about 8 players at the beginning of the season with more than 100 games to their names. The rebuild has been happening since he got to the club it is just that we did not just play kids for the sake of playing them as I mentioned before."

"Wallace has stuck fast to his plan and has not deviated one bit. When they finished 9th plast year if he believed the side was that close to a finals spot do you think he would have gone and taken 5 kids in the draft or do you think he would have said " I'll get a couple of ready mades to top the list and make a big push for the finals". Wallace took the first option brought in another 5 kids, 6 if you count Polak who is under 23 and continues to give the kids every chance to stake a spot in our best 22."

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/support-for-wallace-from-ex-players.490867/

"Hope March and the board have read that as you would think players who Wallace has coached would be in the best position to give advice on what type of coach he is. "

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/up-to-the-players-to-save-wallace-johnson.421780/

"Hadn't seen this mentioned on the board yet. Nothing out of the ordinary but it is good to see that some of the pressure is being applied to the players instead of being lumped solely on Wallace to lift the club. Here's hoping that they actually extract their digits and do something."

------------------------

It's always had me buggered why you'd turn your back on half a decade of well delivered posts like these regarding the Wallace era and then turn into his biggest hater, using the same kind of baseless junk you once spent hours every day debunking.

It's quite remarkable. Think of the above as a tribute to the common sense you once spoke.

 

[Rayzorwire]

Francis Jackson was also there. Was he responsible for the profits too?

I've asked for proof of what he did that actually generated profits, and so far you have provided donuts.

I'm not sure why you need to ask, the answer's pretty obvious to anyone I would have thought.

The breath of fresh air which was the beginning of the Wallace era meant that practically every single media article on the club was positive, not the constant negatives of past years, making us way more attractive to potential sponsors and members. In the Frawley era we were constantly begging the TAC not to cut our sponsorship off because players kept getting caught drink-driving. We weren't remotely attractive to any companies, we were a risk discipline-wise and also a risk to make the company associated with a perennial loser (hardly good advertising). Since '05 we've been able to constantly improve our sponsorship options and our membership base.

But the big kicker is game revenue.

Early in the Wallace era, we were so exciting non-supporters would turn up in droves to watch us.

It changed everything and the figures are there in black and white - this period quite literally saved the club.

 

[Rayzorwire]

Gary March joined the board in October 2002, I'd be more inclined to believe he had something to do with 10 years of profit at the club than Wallace.

We didn't make a profit in March's first two years, we lost money, gave away our early draft picks and failed miserably on the field.

All that changed for the better when Wallace arrived, but I guess you'll dismiss that as an insignificant coincidence and reconfirm once again, that your 'inclinations' can provide a far better route to enlightenment than annoying facts.

 

[telsor]

I concede the points about the government grants, I thought it was a lump sum payment, although the fact that our net assets has increased by $24 million when we were only handed out $15 million is a big positive over this period. You'll also find that most Victorian clubs received these grants and I don't even think we got the biggest one, though I am just going from memory so could be wrong there.

We still didn't receive any handouts from the AFL when we were struggling, unlike clubs like Carlton

We received 'disequal funding'...Most if not all clubs did, but I'm pretty sure we got more than most (I suspect having Benny Gale on the group that worked out the criteria helped a bit there).

 

[Tiger71]

You seem to have completely missed my point. A lot of these blokes got chances elsewhere and if Wallace was such a poor developer of players, why did none of them succeed elsewhere? Clubs lined up to take advantage of the myth that our players were poorly developed, even JON got a chance at West Coast, two years in fact. Not one of them came remotely close to achieving what they managed under Wallace.

At the same time, Wallace took a lot of rejects from other clubs and made them into significantly better AFL players. Nobody could do that with his rejects. Ever.



Mate, he didn't even coach for half that season, I mean seriously...

Sorry Razor, I believe you are confused mate. You need to check your figures again as when i referred to a season we went from 11 wins to the next year 3, i was not referring to his last year. He coached the full year when we did that. Go look

Also proper development means to me, improvement. From what you are describing is not development in my eyes. Wallace from those list of players you mentioned failed, all of them, failed at other clubs. They failed due to being very limited players as well as having had little proper development. The real question should be, why was Wallace playing these sub standard players at all times ? I excuse Tambling, he had talent but was ruined by us by being forced to play all the time, even when he did not deserve it.

 

[Rayzorwire]

Also proper development means to me, improvement. From what you are describing is not development in my eyes. Wallace from those list of players you mentioned failed, all of them, failed at other clubs. They failed due to being very limited players as well as having had little proper development.

Development is not something which only happens in the early years of a players career. Wallace developed mid-career blokes like Tuck, Simmonds and King into solid AFL players. Nobody that took on Raines, Fiora, Polo, Patterson, JON, Morton or any of our other rejects, was able to develop them into a better AFL player than Wallace did. They failed miserably in comparison, especially Thomas who took all three of Fiora, Polo and Patterson and got zero out of them.

A quote I ran across earlier today:

"Kretiuk described Wallace's positive energy as his strong suit.
"He can instil belief in a person like few others," Kretiuk said. "I wasn't blessed with talent or speed, but one thing he did was he trusted me to play on the best forwards.

"He would never degrade you in any way and it was about getting you up each week."

Dimattina agreed: "He is a master tactician and he is great at getting the most out of the playing group and the best out of a negative situation. If you were down on form, he would just make you believe.

"He was a bit of a preacher in a way and you believed whatever he said."

Until the board turned him into a dead coach walking, we had a whole bunch of C and D grade players who firmly believed they were solid B-graders under Wallace. Some of you blokes talk like you think he should apologise for that.

The real question should be, why was Wallace playing these sub standard players at all times ?

Quite simply because we had an awful list with most of the talent about to retire or already gone and our drafting wasn't changing that fast enough to be any help to Wallace.

 

[Tiger71]

Development is not something which only happens in the early years of a players career. Wallace developed mid-career blokes like Tuck, Simmonds and King into solid AFL players. Nobody that took on Raines, Fiora, Polo, Patterson, JON, Morton or any of our other rejects, was able to develop them into a better AFL player than Wallace did. They failed miserably in comparison, especially Thomas who took all three of Fiora, Polo and Patterson and got zero out of them.

A quote I ran across earlier today:

"Kretiuk described Wallace's positive energy as his strong suit.
"He can instil belief in a person like few others," Kretiuk said. "I wasn't blessed with talent or speed, but one thing he did was he trusted me to play on the best forwards.

"He would never degrade you in any way and it was about getting you up each week."

Dimattina agreed: "He is a master tactician and he is great at getting the most out of the playing group and the best out of a negative situation. If you were down on form, he would just make you believe.

"He was a bit of a preacher in a way and you believed whatever he said."

Until the board turned him into a dead coach walking, we had a whole bunch of C and D grade players who firmly believed they were solid B-graders under Wallace. Some of you blokes talk like you think he should apologise for that.



Quite simply because we had an awful list with most of the talent about to retire or already gone and our drafting wasn't changing that fast enough to be any help to Wallace.

Obviously we disagree mate but good post. I want to talk about the wallace list and how the list was left when he left but I'll leave that for another time. Just at work.

 

[Infamy]

We received 'disequal funding'...Most if not all clubs did, but I'm pretty sure we got more than most (I suspect having Benny Gale on the group that worked out the criteria helped a bit there).

Which is to compensate for gate returns which aren't as good as they should be compared to clubs like Collingwood. The only reason we would get higher than most is from the amount of fans we have turn up through the gates. It has nothing to do with us struggling like some suggest.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Interesting we didn't increase revenue this year. A bit disappointing but I wonder if most clubs struggled due to poor crowds this season.

looking at the report:

Football - down $1.244m

Sponsorship & Marketing - up $812k

Gaming - up $155k

Interest - up $43k

Jack Dyer Contributions - down $206k

So basically its looks like you're right. Dyer going down is no surprise, but every other income stream bar footy went up. With membership up, the gate would be a massive factor. Only thing Im not sure on if the AFL distribution to us may be down given all the recent changes.

Also one note for some posters. Earlier in the season some here were bemoaning our lack of investment in the footy dept, while Gale flew around the world and spent the FTF on making life cushy for the management.

Employee Benefits - up $1.774m

Football Support Expense - up $490k

Admin Expense - down $68k

 

[wart101]

We didn't make a profit in March's first two years, we lost money, gave away our early draft picks and failed miserably on the field.

All that changed for the better when Wallace arrived, but I guess you'll dismiss that as an insignificant coincidence and reconfirm once again, that your 'inclinations' can provide a far better route to enlightenment than annoying facts.

I know we didn't make a profit in the first 2 years, i don't know why you're attacking me mate i don't remember saying anything to you....

but yes i do see it as a coincidence, except for that fact that we stopped trading early draft picks and had a massive shift in culture, i have always said Wallace did good in this area but as for being resposible for RFC turning a profit no thanks, if you have some facts to throw at me that prove otherwise I'm all ears mate, i will certainly change my opinion if anyone can prove to me that Wallace was or played a big part in Richmond turning a profit a decade ago.

i think it had more to do with administrative planning than Wallace.

 

[nut]

Sorry Razor, I believe you are confused mate. You need to check your figures again as when i referred to a season we went from 11 wins to the next year 3, i was not referring to his last year. He coached the full year when we did that. Go look

Also proper development means to me, improvement. From what you are describing is not development in my eyes. Wallace from those list of players you mentioned failed, all of them, failed at other clubs. They failed due to being very limited players as well as having had little proper development. The real question should be, why was Wallace playing these sub standard players at all times ? I excuse Tambling, he had talent but was ruined by us by being forced to play all the time, even when he did not deserve it.

Ok then you must concede that we did not improve under Dimma in 2014 ... also who else was wallace ment to play?

 

[_RT_]

Because he was largely responsible for half of that decade, as you well know, having written in glowing terms about him pretty much every day for half a decade.

As Dr.Mike posted in the table above in the 08/09 seasons, TWs last 2 in charge, we would not have made a profit if not for the grants that we received for the redevelopment. 2008 without the grant our $8mil profit would have been a $2.9mil loss and 2009 would have been an $84k loss.

He was widely touted as worth $800k a season, he signed on for barely half that, precisely because we couldn't afford him and he helped us out because coming back to Richmond was never really about the money for him.

Bloke signs on for ~40% less than his market value, then gets pilloried by idiots for the rest of his life for robbing the club and jeopardising its success because of the size of his pay packet.

Only at Richmond.

Where was TW widely touted as being worth $800k? You've often posted this claim, but there is no articles that I've seen that have ever suggested that figure. Surely you're not making it up.

The first thing we did after Wallace got us our first profitable season in a long time, was invest in the football department. In the meantime, he installed programs like the former greats player mentor system and a number of other forward thinking initiatives to try and paper over the massive cracks as best we could with no money to spend.

It's always had me buggered why you'd turn your back on half a decade of well delivered posts like these regarding the Wallace era and then turn into his biggest hater, using the same kind of baseless junk you once spent hours every day debunking.

It's quite remarkable. Think of the above as a tribute to the common sense you once spoke.

I opened my eyes rather than just continued to blindly praise him.

 

[wart101]

safe to say for the most part Terry Wallace was a w***er! End of line.

 

[DrMike]

safe to say for the most part Terry Wallace was a ******! End of line.

Safe to say he's not our coach any more so it's irrelevant

 

[Livonski]

I thought Terry was very progressive with his media access, really lifted the profile of the RFC and certainly created a buzz around the place.
Pity he wasn't as progressive with his game plan (all 20 of them) because ultimately he didn't work out as a coach. And certainly wasn't an architect of any profitability surge, which is what this thread was about.

 

[wart101]

Safe to say he's not our coach any more so it's irrelevant

Why are we all talking about it then?

 

[nut]

I opened my eyes rather than just continued to blindly praise him.

One wonders if people a blindly praising Dimma .....

 

[Ned_Flanders]

One wonders if people a blindly praising Dimma .....

Dimma has nothing to do with this thread, and no one has said he and any impact on the financial performance of RFC.

The reason Wallace is being discussed is someone tried to attribute the profits the club made during the Wallace years to Wallace.

 

[Mr Magic]

We need to be very careful about our liabilities IMO.

Not saying this is a specific RFC problem but many assets globally are very overvalued so our net asset/equity position is nowhere near as rosy as the current figures suggest!