I'm pretty sure (I flicked through the WAFC report some time ago) that ticketing revenue / expenditure shifted on to the club books (rather than via the WAFC) under the new arrangements at Optus stadium
Official Club Stuff 2018 Financial Results (links, rankings - now in post #2)
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I'm pretty sure (I flicked through the WAFC report some time ago) that ticketing revenue / expenditure shifted on to the club books (rather than via the WAFC) under the new arrangements at Optus stadium
My understanding (not gospel) is that the Eagles seat their 3 & 5 game members in what are nominally GA seats, cant be certain given my Melbourne location & i'm yet to get back to try the venue out & my mates dont share my passion for such things.
RussellEbertHandball
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Not sure what you mean by that but the rent fee went thru the roof for the WCE but not so much for Freo
WCE paid rent to WAFC in 2017 $3,804,828, in 2018 to stadium operators $8,293,655
and Match expenses went from $3,215,984 to $6,121,982
Freo paid rent to WAFC in 2017 $3,698,667, in 2018 to stadium operators $4,677,291
and Match Expenses went from $3,758,683 to $5,033,806
Don't know if the expenses for the GC home game Freo bought are included in either of these expenses.
RussellEbertHandball
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It's not that hard if you just look at the foundations.
WA footy - in financial crisis in 1986 as clubs living off transfer fees for last 10 years, ANFC cut transfer fees from from $60k to $22.5k in 1986, don't own Subi, have to enter VFL, no choice but to join, 5 blokes put up $1m each to pay licence fee then float Indian Pacific, which is a flop with only about 1/3rd subscription and by end of 2nd year WCE have accumulated loss of $7.95m, then business interest rates hit 20%. WAFL clubs signed independence over to the WAFC several years earlier.
SA footy - 1986 own Footy Park, stable, not in financial crisis, SA players had only just started going across in big numbers so SA clubs weren't surviving off transfer fees yet. Footy Park gave the 10 clubs big stable cash distributions. SANFL said they refused to pay a $4m fee when a lot of clubs were technically insolvent. 10 clubs had ultimate control of SA footy and no commission appointed before 1991. The SAFC is still very closely related to SANFL clubs as takes around 20 years before first commissioner independent of a club background is appointed.
So the starting point for WA was financial imperative and then things got worse, before WA government stepped in around 1993 to stabilize things and help build up capacity at Subi and change/improve the stadium deal model, whilst SA was sound and stable financially and they didn't want to gamble and take risks.
WA footy - risk takers. SA footy - conservative
So that was ok for the 1990's when WA footy had stabilsed things, whereas the crows were a cash cow for the SANFL from day 1. Remember WCE didn't have sell out games and 40,000 members for the first 3 or 4 years of their existence like the crows did from day 1.
Crows had 25k members in 1991, 38k in 1992 and 40k in 1993. WCE had 2.8k in 1987, 8.4k in 1988, 9.2k in 1989, 17k in 1991, 25k in 1993 and hit 30k in 1997 with 33.2k.
https://web.archive.org/web/2014111...ts.freeservers.com/Footystats/Membership.html
Then the naughties was about being able to take advantage of opportunities. WA had a very handy mining boom start in 2003 when iron ore prices went from USD $20/tonne to $30/tonne in 2003, and kept going up after that towards USD $180/tonne by around 2011. 2003 was the first year WCE made $2m+ and hasn't made less than $2m a year since. The WA economy boomed, SA stagnated and then grew slower than the national average. 2003 was the first year WCE made bigger profits than the crows since the crows first recorded a million profit around 1994.
In 1986 Perth had 40k more people than Adelaide. today its over 700k difference, so Perth is now 60% larger than Adelaide.
Perth and Fremantle are 20kms away so geography comes into play when building a supporter base. West Lakes and Alberton are 5 kms apart.
The WAFC like the SANFL screwed the smaller AFL club, until the AFL stepped in, in 2001 and helped restructure Freo so that it wasn't just a WCE-lite model. The SANFL still remembered 1990 and did everything to control Port and pushed for them to be a crows-lite version. The AFL never stepped in to SA with same result as in WA.
WAFC appointed a Fremantle director, Frank Cooper, chairman of WAFC in 2010. The SANFL would never appoint an ex Port board member its chairman.
2007 GFC hits SA harder than WA. Footy Park becomes old and tired, Port crowds dropped off because of both on field and off field BS. Freo starts to get its act together on field and as WA mining boom kicks in, they start to become financially successful as well. Crows crowds drop off at Footy Park, both as on field drops away, and people know AO will be the new home of footy and drop off going.
There are some other things but these are the main reason for the difference. As the WA economy and population both grew at faster rates than the national average, and SA at less than the national average, since the mining boom started in 2003, the gap has just opened up larger and larger, year after year.
Rent more than doubled, at least that might shut down those squealing about the deal at Subi being superior to those in Melbourne - so at Subi $3.8m went to the WAFC (WA footy) & now $8.3m went outside the game.
Not critical, money well spent but it puts a light on WA footy & the cost of the WAFC consortium not winning the management rights of Optus Stadium, a net $12.1m.
Shame rental expenses are not an AFL standard reporting measure.
RussellEbertHandball
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Not everyone pays rent. That only happens where teams have signed clean stadium deals and I reckon that's only the 2 Qld teams with Stadiums Qld, GWS at Showgrounds and Geelong at Kardinia Park. The other clubs have to cover costs against ticket/gate sales and lose seating to stadium members and corporate facilites to stadium operators eg MCG and AO.
Whilst $12.1m was paid to the stadium operators and not WAFC, part of the $10.3m the government pays the WAFC is to pay for the rent lost from not playing at Subi. I'm not sure but The_Wookie might know what the split is for lost rent and lost stadium catering profits.
Also the $2.3m cap on WCE royalty fee was removed and they paid WAFC $3.9m in 2018.
I don't think that was ever reported. Part of it (if not all of it officially) might be because the state government has effectively resumed the remaining 80 years or so of the lease - a new high school is being built on the land now.
But the rent differential between West Coast and Freo is interesting - West Coast would pay slightly more because they'd cop the transperth surcharge on more tickets sold which is built into the rental fee, but I can't think of any reason why there'd be such a big gap.
Mind you, both clubs now pay easily the highest rent in the league. But they do get the whole stadium to sell, but for 1500 or so in the Bankwest Club. The difference in profit between averaging sellouts and 70% capacity is monstrous though.
RussellEbertHandball
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Yeah i was surprised by the rent figures.
My first though when I saw the difference with Freo, was the Eagles played 2 finals in 2018 at the stadium. But the way that works is the AFL get all the ticket revenue after fees/commissions and pay the stadium operator a rental fee. Don't know if Perth Stadium is different because its a clean stadium set up. I doubt it, but someone has to confirm one way or the other.
Second thought was even though 1,385 stadium members is a small number that doesn't really stop it being called a clean stadium deal, do both clubs have to pay a variable rent component that revolves around the 10,000 tickets that aren't sold to members, well 10,000 - 1,385 stadium members tickets sold. As the government forced the 10,000 on the stadium operators and clubs maybe the trade off was a rental fee is paid on selling these non members seats. WCE's match revenue went up from $2.34m to $9.79m
A third reason could be if the the Eagles host a lot more events at the stadium than Freo and they pay for that as a rental fee, on top of fee charged by the operators for catering fees.
A fourth reason might be that some of the corporate space that are for the stadium operator has access to, the Eagles want for their corporates and pay the operator a rent for that space, but Freo don't need that space.
I think the second thought is most likely the answer to go with the transperth fee.
Here is a piece from The West by one of the journos that got the original leak, i.e the story by the business journos that was published last month by The West which was then taken down, edited & republished under the name of footy journo Mark Duffield.
https://thewest.com.au/business/wes...afls-biggest-revenue-generator-ng-b881146517z
https://thewest.com.au/business/wes...afls-biggest-revenue-generator-ng-b881146517z
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Shameless self promotion, thanks anyway .. 
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Shameless self promotion, thanks anyway ..
yes it is shameless self promotion, but given i pay for and collate most of the data that makes this thread viable - and the article summarises my work here and on footyindustry (which this thread duplicates), I dont see why thered be an issue with it.
Believe me I do appreciate it, humour can be hard in the written word, certainly no offence meant.
I've posted on the Motorsport board, no offence meant but i pumped up your tyres.
RussellEbertHandball
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The_Wookie in all the figures you have collected, do you have annual broadcasting revenue per year?? ie the different amounts declared by the AFL.
I know in your 24 year spreadsheet you just took the TV/Media totals and divided them by 5 for the 5 year deal periods.
If so do you have the figures from 2012 onward, or starting from later years?
I know in your 24 year spreadsheet you just took the TV/Media totals and divided them by 5 for the 5 year deal periods.
If so do you have the figures from 2012 onward, or starting from later years?
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RussellEbertHandball
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So given radio rights are about $20m/year then TV and Telstra cash of $2,308m probably is around;
2017 $360m
2018 $370m
2019 $380m
2020 $390m
2021 $400m
2022 $410m
=========
Total $2,310m
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10m a year for radio
At last – AFL radio rights deal sorted - Mediaweek
Crocmedia exclusivity on all regional commercial radio broadcasts except those on Southern Cross Austereo stations
www.mediaweek.com.au
RussellEbertHandball
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Ok so $10m/year from other media rights sources per year. Maybe international and internet type rights as well as what AFL media might sell direct.10m a year for radio
At last – AFL radio rights deal sorted - Mediaweek
Crocmedia exclusivity on all regional commercial radio broadcasts except those on Southern Cross Austereo stations
I hear Port are having money issues again but their revenues look healthy from page 1 of this thread. What's costing them so much money?
RussellEbertHandball
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$7m from venues that don't make any real $$ can be factored in. The Pokies and pubs in SA don't make money after Xenephon's changes early in the decade. In SA you can only feed pokies with coins, in Qld its notes all the way up to $100. Think Vic pokies are limited to $20.
So Port don't have that high margin revenue stream like the Vic and Qld clubs.
We also do about $3m of community work - the money gets paid for that activity, from government and corporates and its break even activities, but the figures get shown as part of the consolidated football clubs books. Only WCE spent more on community work.
So you can effectively take that $10m off the revenue figure as there are $10m of costs.
Compare SA and WA
We can't charge Subiaco supply/demand imbalance membership prices. WCE got away with charging $770 for a shitty season seat on the HFF. Freo charged about $660 for the same seat, and we charge about $400. So far WCE and Freo have been able to charge the same prices at a bigger PS. But Freo might have to have a rethink.
In 2018 we were about $20m behind WCE and $13m behind Freo (who we should be benchmarked against as a similar sized club), in membership revenue and match day receipts, so when you factor in rent paid by the WA clubs, (SA clubs like the Vic clubs don't pay rent), we are $12m and $7m behind respectively. We were about $8m behind Adelaide in this category in 2018.
SA doesn't have the corporate HQ's like Perth and other capitals so we don't get the corporate sponsorships value of top and lower end corporates. These revenue streams are a high net margin, so we have to go find other revenue streams, which are usually lower net margins, so revenue looks ok in comparison, but its net value isn't as good.
We had about 3,000 long term members - lived thru the s**t years of 2011-12 - who refused to sign up this year because they are sick of the club's constant failures after being promised so much. There is $1m lost revenue and probably net $700k to the bottom line. Being 11-4 and missing finals last year hurt us big time. its why Hinkley will probably get the arse, despite Whateley, Rucci and Kornes gushing over him and defending him to the hilt.
China is breakeven, our benefactor Mr Gui underwrites it. What the current administration has failed to do is take advantages of the opportunities around the game. That looks set to change with the appointment of a new board member 6-8 weeks ago, who has strong links to China and Asia and he will set a new strategic course to monetize our China venture. I have had some dealings with him earlier in the year. We have spent too much time doing the community stuff and not enough commercial stuff in and around China.
We are a cyclical club. Make some money in the good years, break even in the ok years, lose money in the bad years. The club has expected to play finals in 2017, 2018, and this year and set budgets around that happening. It hasn't so those revenue streams get affected and not all the costs are eliminated.
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This is something Tassie advocates need to take note of as well
RussellEbertHandball
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Tassie probably has enough corporates for 1 AFL team, but there wont be much left over for other sports to play in a national league and local leagues sports sponsorships will also be effected.
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