AFL Clubs delusional says Eagles chief

[Kangas_11]

Geelong have a politically motivated sweet heart deal. It is the exception, not the rule. When Port were getting those crowds we we were losing money too. North if I'm not mistaken, declared a "profit" this year. They got 4 home games in against bigger local teams in prime night time slots, got to sell a further 2 games for $1.2 million, had 2 further games against other teams from their own city, and 3 games against "interstaters", with only 1 being a Sunday twilight. They also had a good season making the Prelim Final. Seriously, what more do they actually want? Their membership numbers are rubbish. They have up to 20,000 members in Melbourne they can rely on to turn up when they are going well, and 12,000 when not going so well. That is the reality. They get $3 mill from the AFL, not because they have a s**t draw (as illustrated above), but because they don't have enough supporters.

Oh yeah, they also were on nationally televised FTA Friday night games 5 times last year too.

I think you're getting the Dogs and Kangas mixed up, I'm yet to see any North supporters on here complaining about a s**t draw. I will agree though, the Dogs are getting shafted in regards to the draw. But I don't see how taking pot shots at North is helping at all.

The supporter base of North is growing, and increased exposure when performing well will help that growth. You make it sound like the club should've had a meteoric rise in attendance on the back of one good year.

 

[#gosaintas]

There was always the have and the have nots though from what i understand. Those who got benefits where others lost out.
It seems to be a vic issue. Complain about a benefit they dont get then call a benefit or measure they do get a seperate issue. Im not saying thats what you said but just on what i see on here.

I wasn't looking for a benefit as such, just pointing out that there was a major change in the AFL's procedures wrt fixturing brought bout by dimwit's bonus

Because we have to prop up your clubs.

You don't have to

Just get the fans to pay. We've got bottomless pockets. Raise prices, keep gouging us for every cent. Just do what you gotta do...

The most important thing is that champion footballers such Tom Boyd, Travis Cloke, Kurt Tippett, James Frawley, Daisy Thomas, Tom Scully, Mitchell Clark, Nick Malceski, Jarrad Waite, Karmichael Hunt, Colin Sylvia and Sharrod Wellingham are able to set themselves up for life with big money contracts. As a rusted on AFL fan, I'm only too happy to make sacrifices and go without so that AFL drawcards such as these can continue to live the dream.

Not enough money goes to the stadium owners - they deserve a bigger share - if it wasn't for the stadiums, there would be no AFL football - we'd still be playing shitty matches at shitty suburban grounds in front of shitty crowds of 30,000 shitty people. Who wants that? We suffered through that bullshit for 100 years. Footy needs to be on the biggest stages: where the scoreboard advertising is in HD; where the hot chips are nicer and 10 times more expensive; and where all of the gate receipts go to the truly needy.

That's a pretty funny post. You wouldn't even cross the road to watch those spuds play football. Between the AFLPA and the AFL, things seem a little out of whack. I got kicked out of Etihad a couple of years ago for being too loud. Etihad crowds are pretty much forced to sit down and politely clap as though we are at the theatre for fear of upsetting some soy decaf drinking milking mother. It's all a little too sanitised for my liking and my club plays at the worst venue in this regard.

 

[Silvagnis]

As a Carlton fan, I am happy if a portion of our dividend each year goes to helping out clubs doing it rough (we haven't been exactly on Easy Street ourselves lately)

LOL.

What?

We're not a charity to support clubs who chase and sign free agents to play against our club where it really matters.

These so called batttlers like the Saints and the Dogs didn't gived us a brass razoo when we were broke and they were playing in Grand Finals and Finals.

You can't cry poor if you're chasing big name players and coaches whilst taxpayers buy facilities to give their players state of the art "backrubs".

Meh.

The AFL won't drive them out of business. It's all part of their campaign. Even Essendon have the AFL's support.

 

[El_Scorcho]

There is enough money circulating through AFL football that no club ever has to die or be genuinely at risk of falling over.

Every other major sport in the world seems to be able to get things like the fairness of the draw and relative equality in terms of television revenue correct. We probably have the unfairest deal in this regard in major professional sport worldwide.

Effectively, the AFL have signed off on TV deal after TV deal that has made things progressively worse for the smaller clubs and better for the bigger clubs. It's absolutely ridiculous that bigger clubs sook about the equalisation policies when they are gifted the best time slots and the best double up games in the best venues where they can generate a stack of money.

The AFL makes enough that they need to bargain back some of their fixturing power from the TV networks and make deals fair. We unfortunately still have a decade to wait until Etihad is released to the AFL, but it's on the horizon.

- Give every Victorian club an even number of games at Etihad and the MCG, or at least even it up a bit.
- Spread the best time slots around the league. There are 46 opportunities to have a Friday night game in the home and away season. Every club should be getting at least 2, and at least 4 Saturday night games. Obviously some time slots work in some cities better than others, but even it up in terms of national exposure as much as possible.
- Rotate the double ups somehow, whether it's a rotation over several years, or we end up with US style divisions, or whatever. It has to happen one way or the other. Who you play twice shouldn't be determined by money. Actually, nothing about the fixture should be determined by money.

The AFL acknowledge the inequities in the draw and argue that they are a necessary evil for the TV deals and stadiums. * the TV deals and stadiums. We have the biggest spectator sport in the country. Don't let them dictate to us what we should be doing. Tell them what we are doing and what games will be there and they'll still probably pay $1,000,000,000 for the next TV rights deal. Yes, Eddie will have a big cry about it because that's literally his job and he's done a really good job in getting Collingwood into a position of tremendous advantage. That's fine. It needs to be wound back.

It's about time the AFL started worrying more about the integrity of it's competition and less about the bottom line.

 

[Tas]

Geelong have a politically motivated sweet heart deal. It is the exception, not the rule. When Port were getting those crowds we we were losing money too. North if I'm not mistaken, declared a "profit" this year. They got 4 home games in against bigger local teams in prime night time slots, got to sell a further 2 games for $1.2 million, had 2 further games against other teams from their own city, and 3 games against "interstaters", with only 1 being a Sunday twilight. They also had a good season making the Prelim Final. Seriously, what more do they actually want? Their membership numbers are rubbish. They have up to 20,000 members in Melbourne they can rely on to turn up when they are going well, and 12,000 when not going so well. That is the reality. They get $3 mill from the AFL, not because they have a s**t draw (as illustrated above), but because they don't have enough supporters.

Oh yeah, they also were on nationally televised FTA Friday night games 5 times last year too.

Geelong don't have a sweetheart deal, they just don't have any other pigs in the trout.

They don't have the AFL and third parties competing against them for memberships and premium memberships at Kardinia Park, we have AFL membership access MCC membership access, Axcess One membership Access and Medallion club membership Access, we see * all of any of this revenue. This makes the gap between the break even point and the effective tickets we can sell too small a gap so we don't make enough against the high drawing games to make up for low drawing games.

We still have room to grow there, but the AFL knew before building the stadium that it was not suitable for the size of the clubs that would largely be playing there. The only way it would have been affordable was if the cost of AFL was subsidies by other events, this was the basis for the model sold to clubs, AFL has failed to get anywhere near the conservative levels of other event revenue. Rather than the AFL saying it is our *up and we will take responsibility for it, they dumped the repayment of an expensive stadium largely at the feet of the three least wealthiest clubs in the competition.

The stadium is just not suited to the size of our club, saying our crowds are s**t is not accurate, our crowds are realistic for our current supporter base size. s**t was the cardboard cutouts that were at Port games at AAMI, because your supporter base was a lot larger than what was coming out to games.

We have a few stadiums here that could have been fixed up or not left to rot, AFL went on to build a stadium that is either too small or too large for anyone to use. That isn't our fault.

 

[Beasley]

Fair points also. The stadium deal for North, Saints and Dogs was forced upon them, while others received preferential deals.

Exactly correct ... and Carlton were given serious preferential treatment at Docklands by the bloke who was running the venue at the time, Ian Collins! Yes, their former President.

 

[blueboy25]

Exactly correct ... and Carlton were given serious preferential treatment at Docklands by the bloke who was running the venue at the time, Ian Collins! Yes, their former President.

Carlton's initial deal was terrible courtesy of Collins and our current one is still not flash.

Essendon are the ones that were given the seriously good deal.

 

[Roylion]

Oakley tried to help out the lions(giving dividends early etc) but ultimately the board told him to stop.

Nup.

 

[ThatsjustDappa]

Geelong have a politically motivated sweet heart deal. It is the exception, not the rule.

I think politically motivated sweetheart deal is the norm really. Show me a stadium that has never had any funding from politicos or the like.....

 

[Tas]

I think one of the biggest problems is gambling revenue, being the whores that they are, the AFL has done nothing but welcome this blood money, even before the season starts, most clubs are $20m in revenue down on the clubs who have the money and opportunity to invest in pokies, and this is a crooked industry, the bulk of the licenses are controlled by a few parties who have affiliations with some clubs in Victoria.

Other states like QLD, probably others, put tax on gambling and a portion of that goes to a body that manages stadiums and gives them access to subsidised stadiums.

Even if the AFL will evenly distribute game day based revenue how are you going to manage the out-of-football affairs.

Collingwood pulled in $23m from social club/gaming, Dogs, Saints and North combined have $7m with my team $0. Over 5 years Collingwood will have over $100m more than us from gaming alone. Our gate receipts last year was $1.6m, if the next 5 years tracks at the same rates it will take us 71 years of playing at Shitihad with the AFL and Docklands arse ******* us to just generate what the pies made from Pokies over 5 years.

That is a road going nowhere.

 

[El_Scorcho]

I think politically motivated sweetheart deal is the norm really. Show me a stadium that has never had any funding from politicos or the like.....

Yeah look, you're going to have a very, very difficult time arguing that what Geelong have isn't a ludicrously profitable stadium deal compared to clubs of a similar size around the AFL.

It's not the stadium funding that is the issue per say, it's that Geelong keep basically all the dollars generated there and pay a peppercorn rent for the privilege.

The Adelaide Oval breakdowns aren't really known yet, but at AAMI we would have to write a cheque to the SANFL for the same crowd figure that would see you bank something like $600,000. We'll have a better deal at Adelaide Oval, but there are so many fingers in the pie that Geelong simply don't have at Kardinia Park.

 

[Back One Out]

Because we have to prop up your clubs.

The AFL spends FAR more money propping up the teams in NSW and Queensland than on any funding they give to the smaller Victorian clubs (which is partly a trade-off anyway for s**t fixtures.)

I've heard the argument that clubs such as Sydney add to the value of the AFL's television broadcast deal with Channel 7 and Foxtel... but the TV ratings are always abysmal in NSW and Queensland. Which basically means the clubs in those states chiefly exist to provide TV ratings fodder for the real audience in greater Melbourne (and to a lesser extent, Adelaide and Perth.)

It's mostly the Victorian football fans who "prop up" this competition. Let's make no mistake about that. You can call that "Victorian arrogance" if you like, but it's the reality.

Cue some genius reminding me about the financial ruin of VFL clubs back in the 80's and the supposed "life support" they received from the $5 million licenses paid by the interstate clubs. Which was partly true for some clubs at that time... But it doesn't alter the fact that the 6 million people in the Vic heartland of football are the folks who kick in most of the money to keep the AFL going. (Not just greater Melbourne. This also includes all the people from the country Victoria, NSW Riverina, ACT, Tasmania and ex-pats in Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sydney who barrack for Victorian teams.)

 

[Demonic Ascent]

I do, but the arbiter of that equality of opportunity is the AFL. And we can argue amongst ourselves all day about who is getting the best deal and who should get more, but at the end of the day decisions are always going to be made on the basis of maximum $$$ for the AFL.

Which is why you can't then complain that some clubs get "handouts" (which is really inadequate compensation) or are unable to get their houses in order enough to stand on their own when they are continually hamstrung by AFL policies.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

It already is.

The amounts going back to the smaller clubs are completely inadequate.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

I didn't post that, the reaper did but I agree with him.

It does make my club worse off as it has less money to either pay debts, get better facilities, get better staff, set up future funds etc. That's my beef with that proposal.

You already get significant handouts through the fixture each year and now you want to complain about the crumbs that get dealt to some of the other clubs who are severely negatively impacted not just through gate returns but through exposure, ability to consolidate and expand support bases, ability to sell sponsorship etc etc

 

[DaVillaBlues]

I didn't post that, the reaper did but I agree with him.

It does make my club worse off as it has less money to either pay debts, get better facilities, get better staff, set up future funds etc. That's my beef with that proposal.

That's rubbish, for a club in Collingwood's position, a 'rich/poor club' subsidy is hardly going to make your club skint, besides, isn't it better for Collingwood to have stronger teams (in terms of fiscal and on field strength) anyway, to boost your crowd numbers/tv ratings ??

You guys make zillions from your Prime Time TV game fixtures anyway,.compare that to Melbourne who have copped poo Sunday twilight home games in the last few years, ith that argument, I believe clubs like Collingwood are obliged to give clubs like that a portion of your gate-receipts/matchday income ..

 

[Ned_Flanders]

I guess people complain because the draw used to be fair. It wasn't until Dimwit's bonuses were linked to attendances that the draw became a rush to reward some clubs and penalise others.

The draw hasn't been fair since it increased from 12 teams

 

[craigvn123]

The AFL need a better revenue sharing arrangement. They bogart the TV rights money, fail to adequately prioritise club interests during stadium negotiations yet only cough up cash to pander to clubs suffering due to poor financial management.

It's called keeping them on the leash. All clubs have the ability to be solvent if the AFL changed how TV deals operate, but the AFL like having clubs on a short leash so they don't lose too much power.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

The AFL spends FAR more money propping up the teams in NSW and Queensland than on any funding they give to the smaller Victorian clubs (which is partly a trade-off anyway for s**t fixtures.)

Exactly - I've got nothing against any other side but if some people on here had their way you'd be kicking out 2-4 Vic clubs and alienating anywhere from 500k-1m supporters to save maybe $10m a year and propping up clubs in non-footy states to the tune of 10's of millions of dollars every year in the vain hope that at some point in the distant future enough people in those states will support those clubs where they are strong enough to get to the point that the current smaller Vic clubs are at right now.

It doesn't make any sense, especially when considering most of those Vic clubs would be doing a lot better if given equality of opportunity which may mean some of the bigger clubs and executive bonuses suffer a little in the short term revenue wise but will be a much healthier, vibrant, successful and profitable competition in the long run. The vision is so short term it is really quite ludicrous.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

It's called keeping them on the leash. All clubs have the ability to be solvent if the AFL changed how TV deals operate, but the AFL like having clubs on a short leash so they don't lose too much power.

This is the crux of it. They bow to the whim of the biggest clubs so they don't get them off-side and dictate to the small clubs knowing they can't say s**t lest their funding is withdrawn. Look at what they threaten Brisbane with when they looked like appointing a board unfavourable to the AFL.

 

[Papa G]

I think you're getting the Dogs and Kangas mixed up, I'm yet to see any North supporters on here complaining about a s**t draw. I will agree though, the Dogs are getting shafted in regards to the draw. But I don't see how taking pot shots at North is helping at all.

The supporter base of North is growing, and increased exposure when performing well will help that growth. You make it sound like the club should've had a meteoric rise in attendance on the back of one good year.

It is in response to Brayshaw's whinging.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

I think one of the biggest problems is gambling revenue, being the whores that they are, the AFL has done nothing but welcome this blood money, even before the season starts, most clubs are $20m in revenue down on the clubs who have the money and opportunity to invest in pokies, and this is a crooked industry, the bulk of the licenses are controlled by a few parties who have affiliations with some clubs in Victoria.

Other states like QLD, probably others, put tax on gambling and a portion of that goes to a body that manages stadiums and gives them access to subsidised stadiums.

Even if the AFL will evenly distribute game day based revenue how are you going to manage the out-of-football affairs.

Collingwood pulled in $23m from social club/gaming, Dogs, Saints and North combined have $7m with my team $0. Over 5 years Collingwood will have over $100m more than us from gaming alone. Our gate receipts last year was $1.6m, if the next 5 years tracks at the same rates it will take us 71 years of playing at Shitihad with the AFL and Docklands arse ******* us to just generate what the pies made from Pokies over 5 years.

That is a road going nowhere.

Aren't the gaming numbers revenue figures, not profit figures? As such, the amount footy depts actually receive A small portion of the total numbers being referenced

 

[Tas]

Aren't the gaming numbers revenue figures, not profit figures? As such, the amount footy depts actually receive A small portion of the total numbers being referenced

It is revenue, we have costs associated with operating costs, our revenue from match day is the nickle and dimes Docklands sends to us to pay the bills.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

It is revenue, we have costs associated with operating costs, our revenue from match day is the nickle and dimes Docklands sends to us to pay the bills.

Yes, but that's where your explanation is misleading. Sure the venues turned over $23m, but a big chunk of that is lost in govt taxes, staff, operating costs and so on. As such, the pies are not up on you by $23m, they are up on you by this amount less the costs of running the operation

 

[I am Jack]

We're a small club, there's no doubt about that, but our debt is shrinking not growing. It's all about being responsible.

I believe, but I'm not 100% sure on this, that we're still not profitable without the AFL future fund which runs out soon. However a nice new stadium deal (or the AFL buying Etihad) should do the trick.

I respect North. If the other clubs are in debt they'll just install more pokie machines - and rape coin off the disadvantaged.
Great precedent the AFL is setting here, good Job Vlad, really ethical.

At least North have integrity. It will pay in the end.