Analysis Stadium deals - what, how, when - why we need a new one and the SA footy paradigm shift happening

[PowerKat]

Story about West Adelaide and how they have to liquidate assets to service debts in the paper this morning. Funny how the SANFL would rather pay $10m as a lump sum back to the AFL then give struggling clubs $1m each to keep their head above water and use the remainder to pay $2m off of their debt. Actually, it's not funny - it just proves once and for all that the SANFL looks after itself rather than the clubs it supposedly represents.

didn't they buy a big screen recently? Richmond is going to have a venue only 2nd best to an afl venue? Lol - now they're liquidating - sounds like prudent management

 

[Papa G]

didn't they buy a big screen recently? Richmond is going to have a venue only 2nd best to an afl venue? Lol - now they're liquidating - sounds like prudent management

Kym Russell's business plan.

 

[tribey]

didn't they buy a big screen recently? Richmond is going to have a venue only 2nd best to an afl venue? Lol - now they're liquidating - sounds like prudent management

Their stated goal is for Richmond Oval to be the greatest Aussie Rules ground outside the AFL.

You couldn't make this s**t up.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

REH, that $117 mill in revenue that the WAFC pulls in, is that including all the cash the 2 AFL clubs bring in, before any money goes back to them?

$117m = is the revenue the consolidated group of WAFC + WCE + Freo earned from the world outside these 3 entities. If you add the revenue figures for the 3 organisations it equals $132.5m so you have to eliminate the rent paid to wafc of $7.2m and licence fee of $4.3m gets you to $121.0m so there is another $3.5mil the 3 organisations have paid to other members of the group. The financials of the 3 organisations dont say what that might be but I reckon its stadium related.



.

 

[PowerKat]

Their stated goal is for Richmond Oval to be the greatest Aussie Rules ground outside the AFL.

You couldn't make this s**t up.

Thanks yeah that. They're in la-la land clearly.

 

[jakey]

Buy big * off telly in May. People continue to not turn up to your games June through Sept, sell telly to stay afloat in Nov.

The circle of sanfl life.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

West Adelaide have the best $anfl oval in an industrial wasteland with no parking that no one can find in the world. #realfooty

 

[Dalphonso]

Their stated goal is for Richmond Oval to be the greatest Aussie Rules ground outside the AFL.

You couldn't make this s**t up.

This I reckon is a setup by the SANFL.Just going to show that they need more money from AO to keep their clubs afloat.

 

[finbarr]

West Adelaide have the best $anfl oval in an industrial wasteland with no parking that no one can find in the world.

You forgot this -

#realfooty

 

[Ford Fairlane]

You forgot this -

#realfooty

ta, fixed.

 

[LFC2010]

AFL should step in now and take over the SNAFL.

Run it with the AFL's money and admins... It's clear that the monkey's in SNAFL can not run the league atm without stealing our and AFC's money.

 

[OneGreatClub]

Negotiating with the SANFL is like Negotiating with Putin, there is no negotiation, just lots of spin.

 

[Papa G]

West Adelaide have the best $anfl oval in an industrial wasteland with no parking that no one can find in the world. #realfooty

It's easy to find, once you hit Apollo Stadium, take a left.

 

[Doctor Feel]

I went to the westies oval once. Once.

It was a terrible experience, food and drink were impossible to come by unless you were on one particular side of the ground, and i'm surprised everyone doesn't get hemorrhoids from those ugly concrete terraces.

#realfooty

 

[finbarr]

They always ran a good BBQ. I'll give them that.

 

[The_Wookie]

I went to the westies oval once. Once.

It was a terrible experience, food and drink were impossible to come by unless you were on one particular side of the ground, and i'm surprised everyone doesn't get hemorrhoids from those ugly concrete terraces.

#realfooty

Blues trained there before a game two years ago. Looked like any other old oval - and theres literally no parking there.

 

[manureid]

Blues trained there before a game two years ago. Looked like any other old oval - and theres literally no parking there.

I think someone stole all the car parks..... been a few light fingered larry's around that club.

 

[xflamedancer]

I think someone stole all the car parks..... been a few light fingered larry's around that club.

Did they ever find that $100k or so that went 'missing'?


#realfooty

 

[Grave Danger]

I went to the westies oval once. Once.

It was a terrible experience, food and drink were impossible to come by unless you were on one particular side of the ground, and i'm surprised everyone doesn't get hemorrhoids from those ugly concrete terraces.

#realfooty

There's a place on the edge of town
Where the kids all hang around
Cobbled streets and terraced houses
Window boxes all around
It's never changed in sixty years
And it's tumbling down
It's never really known by name
It's called Gaslight Street
Gaslight Street

In the evening when the sun goes down
And there ain't nobody else around
The lamp lighter walks down the street
Illumination, indiscreet
It doesn't have much effect it seems
He's wasting his time
The lamp light don't shine so bright
On Gaslight Street
Gaslight Street

Every night at nine
There's children playing around the street
Trying to dodge their parents
When they call them in to go to sleep

Monday morning and as a rule
The place is quiet, they're all at school
Lines of washing hang across the street
A weary policeman walks his beat
It's never changed in sixty years
And it's tumbling down
It's never really known by name
It's called Gaslight Street
Gaslight Street

 

[Portology]

This I reckon is a setup by the SANFL.Just going to show that they need more money from AO to keep their clubs afloat.

If Trigg was still at West Lakes the Cows would have already snapped up Richmond for a cool $2m or so as directed, and taken the write down on their facility at West Lakes "for all South Australians" and "for grassrootsfooty". If they had a communications manager capable of spelling the words, they would have contrasted their largesse, parochial insularity and fundamentally conflicted reasons for existing with the selfish "AFL-premiership-or-GTFO" behaviour of the Alberton crowd.

Then other SANFL clubs would have squabbled about the "unfair advantage" given to the Bloods by that sale and demanded a bigger piece for themselves of the future SANFL "equalisation fund" pie being carved from the proceeds of the sale of AAMI.

The SANFL in turn would have bleated through their usual mouthpieces that having to sell their core asset to fund day-to-day operation of their comp "proved" the SANFL-SMA had no more to give, therefore (because footy, meaning the SANFL, had to be "no worse off", right?) the AFL clubs already get their fair share of that particular "pie".

You couldn't write this sort of ****. But you could get the likes of Stupid and Jarman to vomit bits of it up on local radio.

 

[FPPF]

SANFL needs to be removed from all things Port and Crows.
The Crows should even be overseen by the AFL just to ensure that no SANFL aligned maggot sneaks in.

 

[tribey]

Seems low. Wouldn't put it beyond the realm of Olsen and his cronies to deliberately lowball themselves to strengthen their position in the current negotiations.

 

[QPower]

$71 million is enough without needing to pick pocket the AFL clubs of their revenue. Bring on an end of the review.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Seems low. Wouldn't put it beyond the realm of Olsen and his cronies to deliberately lowball themselves to strengthen their position in the current negotiations.

Depends how the deal is structured and what sort of partnership they are in and how much development risk the SANFL were prepared to take on. Its low ball compare to the $300mil argued back in 2008 by Relapse in the stadium thread on the BDC - which I knew back then GFC or no GFC was way over the top.

#PH408

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Penberthy has written an article about the SANFL - Port and the AFL. In the paper the headline is - SANFL Caught in a debt trap of Port's making. Online the headline is


David Penberthy: Will SANFL become a compliant vassal of Melbourne’s AFL House?

IT still has its critics, and they obviously have the right to be critical, but the vast majority of South Australians clearly regard the new Adelaide Oval as one of the best things to have happened in our state.

I am firmly in the latter camp. Forget footy, cricket and the Stones, you would go there to watch two Russians play chess. The new Oval is also a cash cow. Where there’s cash there is often also a fight, as is now the case between the SANFL and the AFL clubs over the twin issues of board representation on the Stadium Management Authority, and revenue sharing.


The purpose of this column is not to explore the arguments around the revenue split, but to record the financial realities facing the SANFL which have been shunted aside.

There was a jaw-dropping revelation made to the nine SANFL league directors at their meeting on Tuesday night. The league directors represent the eight non-AFL SANFL clubs, with the 9th director, former Premier Rob Kerin, representing community football.

SANFL chairman John Olsen told the directors that earlier this year Westpac, the SANFL’s bank of more than 40 years, refused to let the SANFL bank with them any more over fears about its cash flow.

Westpac called in McGrath Nichol, a consulting firm specialising in insolvency issues, to run the ruler over the SANFL. They didn’t like what they saw. Westpac told the SANFL it would have to do its banking elsewhere. The cost of the McGrath Nichol review was $420,000 and the bill for that was passed on to the SANFL, too.

The chief reason for Westpac’s concern was whether the SANFL could meet its cash flow requirements. Unlike SACA, which had its debt wiped clean when it agreed to the Adelaide Oval upgrade, the SANFL remains lumbered with debt due in large part to its previous multi-million dollar bailouts of the formerly shambolic Port Adelaide Football Club.


David Penberthy: Will SANFL become a compliant vassal of Melbourne’s AFL House?

The SANFL-owned land at Footy Park which has been rezoned may not be sold at a rate high enough or a speed quick enough to cover the cost of servicing that debt.

As per the sale proceeds story today

There is one passage in the report to the directors which helps explain why relations between the SANFL and Port in particular are so frosty. It reads:

“It should be noted that SANFL in May 2014 paid the PAFC a further $1.5m to enable it to repay its AFL creditors and start as an independent club with no more than $500,000 creditors, in other words with a clean slate. This took total PAFC funding from SANFL to $16.25m and increased SANFL debt to approximately $37m.

But its just not us

So almost half the SANFL’s debt comes from helping Port. In addition, the SANFL is still incurring a cost of about $1.3 million a year to maintain Footy Park for Crows training.

The Sanfl are struggling

To its credit, the Bendigo Bank stepped up to the plate and has taken on the SANFL as a customer. It is a five-year deal but the local league is still worried about cash flow, particularly given that the annual service fee it pays to the SMA will increase markedly next year.

This year the SANFL paid only eight months of that fee, for a total of $2.1 million; next year it rises to $3.4 million. In addition, the SANFL has also lost all the revenue it once made from catering at Footy Park, with the AFL clubs now enjoying that revenue from the new Oval.

ah but the fear of the Vics

My suspicion is that this issue is less about any apparent greed on the part of our two AFL clubs, but more a covert desire on the part of those AFL federalists to recast our SANFL as the AFL (SA), in the same way the other non-Victorian states are the compliant vassals of Melbourne’s AFL House.

#PH408