Kennett's letter to Hawks members

Feb 13, 2011
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We were 2 games clear in 16th with 5 rounds left, playing at Waverley Park (after losing the last 8 games of ‘97 and first 4 of ‘98) but still had 28,000 members and turned a profit

That said, whilst I agree with Kennett I don’t feel comfortable with the president of my club commentating on the financial perils of others
That's fair.

There's a more moderate way of saying the same thing. If he said "clubs shouldn't be too big to fail. If a club ends up in the equivelant financial strife as Fitzroy in 1995 The afl should be prepared to make the big call like they did back then" then most would be more understanding.
 

big_e

Existential crisis management consultant
Apr 28, 2008
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That's fair.

There's a more moderate way of saying the same thing. If he said "clubs shouldn't be too big to fail. If a club ends up in the equivelant financial strife as Fitzroy in 1995 The afl should be prepared to make the big call like they did back then" then most would be more understanding.
Or clubs could be afforded the same opportunities to turn themselves around that just about every other club had.
 
Feb 21, 2006
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I understand where he is coming from. The AFL makes money hand over fist and one season turns to s**t and they have sfa money and in fact now have a massive loan.

So much money is given to clubs who just spend it knowing they will get the same or more again next year. How many boards fire coaches on big money etc and take no responsibility or just burn money.

Clubs need to become more self reliant. That way the AFL can have money reserved for when s**t hits the fan.

Having said that, it's easy to say it when you are one of the biggest clubs.

Sent from my CPH1879 using Tapatalk

Clubs do need to become more self reliant and make better decisions. The AFL also needs to make sure their policies aren't putting up barriers that make that task harder for some clubs. Clubs will never be equal. There are always going to be bigger and smaller clubs. If the smaller clubs can sustain themselves then that is not a problem.

Addressing your first paragraph - no-one foresaw this situation, not the AFL, not the Australian government not individual clubs not anyone around the world. Of course clubs spend money knowing they will get more next year, they have budgeted their finances based on certain assumptions, one of those major assumptions is that the league will be able to proceed as normal and not be halted due to a global pandemic. It's not like this is something they could have reasonably foreseen, a season hasn't been cancelled in over 120 years.

Clubs firing coaches or even whole football departments can be seen to be wasting money but there's often a cost-benefit to this - if a poor performing club doesn't sack their coach they risk disengaging the supporter base who will not turn up to games and not purchase memberships the following year. It's short term pain long term gain. That doesn't mean clubs don't need to get smarter but it's not as black and white as saying "sacking your coach is just burning money"
 

Kappa

Brownlow Medallist
Oct 7, 2014
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$25m last year from pokies. Not many clubs would be 'non-assisted' if you took that out of their revenue.

He has a point about the AFL raking in gazillions for years then everything going to s**t in no time at all.

Its because they spend and invest everything they make, they're not for profit and can't just keep hundreds of millions in a bank account doing nothing while players are demanding a percentage of revenue, clubs demand millions, grassroots footy needs millions all over the country, women's footy ect ect.
 
Every club gets a distribution - last year Eagles and Hawks had the smallest at $11million, with Gold Coast $24m, GWS, Brisbane and Saints over $20 million.

Yes, the BASE distribution is a share of things like TV rights. That's not 'assistance', it's just revenue the clubs have earned. (similar to signage and pourage at Docklands, and AFL members).

Pretty sure there is a contract somewhere where the clubs signed the TV rights over to the (then) VFL to negotiate collectively in return for even shares of said revenue. If you really want to get rid of this, I doubt it would turn out very well for the clubs that are less popular with the media.
 
$25m last year from pokies. Not many clubs would be 'non-assisted' if you took that out of their revenue.

He has a point about the AFL raking in gazillions for years then everything going to s**t in no time at all.

I'm not a fan of pokies, but so long as it's a legal form of income, it's not like clubs making money off them are cheating or acting unfairly.

Also, it's not $25m, it was around $12m (source, Hawthorn's annual report) of which only a fraction would be profit (it's not clear from a quick look, but they made $4m from non club sources combined, so it's definitely lower than that). You might claim this doesn't matter much, but if you can't even get basic stuff like this right, you really don't have much credibility in a discussion of club finances.
 
Its because they spend and invest everything they make, they're not for profit and can't just keep hundreds of millions in a bank account doing nothing while players are demanding a percentage of revenue, clubs demand millions, grassroots footy needs millions all over the country, women's footy ect ect.

Actually, they can, and did, for a number of years (the 'future fund'), but they spent it (on GWS & GC mostly, but anything left over would have gone on AFLW).
 
Jan 19, 2008
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Eddie and Kochi must be happy that another president looks like a complete fool

Out of interest, how would the WCE members react if you had a president that liked to tell the other clubs how to run their businesses?

Jeff being Jeff, embarrassing the Hawk supporters again. As Bunk Moreland comprehensively pointed out it is not a free market so trying to apply free market thinking to the AFL is dumb.
 

PetterdHoisted

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 27, 2014
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Why would anyone listen to Kennett about money? Vic are still paying for his slash-and-burn policies from decades ago.The bloke is our Thatcher.

To the point though, the Hawks have a section of toffee-nosed support that gifts them squillions (see recent Dingley gift).

Meanwhile the Saints chance at financial stability by moving back home to the Junction Oval got blocked by Vic gov.

ingrained privilege/disadvantage
 

NoobPie

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Sep 21, 2016
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I'm not a fan of pokies, but so long as it's a legal form of income, it's not like clubs making money off them are cheating or acting unfairly.

Also, it's not $25m, it was around $12m (source, Hawthorn's annual report) of which only a fraction would be profit (it's not clear from a quick look, but they made $4m from non club sources combined, so it's definitely lower than that). You might claim this doesn't matter much, but if you can't even get basic stuff like this right, you really don't have much credibility in a discussion of club finances.

The government released data says $24.3M. This seems a more reasonable basis of comparison. Probably a lesson in not playing the man so flippantly

Hawthorn generated the most revenue from pokies in the last financial year ($24.3 million) followed by Carlton ($18.4 million), Essendon ($11.6 million), Richmond ($5.3 million) and St Kilda ($2.09 million).

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Sep 17, 2004
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Hawks are not unaided. They are propped up by the Tassie Govt.

To be fair we can’t all have a coked up president who walks away from a deal that kept them solvent (after following Hawthorn in the first place) spent a squillion of the public purse moving to Seaford only for the players to decide that don’t like the coffee and then move back to Moorabbin (again on the public purse) and still be $20m in the red (after a $22m per season donation from the AFL)

Of course the Saints then went to China chasing the dollar (currying favour with a regime with a shocking human rights record)

For the benefit of transparency it should also be mentioned that the only reason why the Saints left Moorabbin in the first place was a dispute about pokies

An oldie but it still stands true, in fact the divide is much greater now than it has ever been before...

 
May 16, 2007
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North are not declaring themselves “unaided “

Every club gets an AFL distribution, they are after-all a part of the competition; Hawthorn's is close to the lowest and has been for 10 years. Hawthorn also is not hitting up the AFL for a loan from the money mortgaged off Docklands. Almost seems as if Hawthorn should apologise for being successful and should adopt the model of the majority of Victorian clubs in putting their hand-out for AFL money.

It wasn't that long ago that the AFL wanted to wind Hawthorn up over a $1.6M debt, compare that to the money the saints are getting from the AFL and Melbourne needing to have their football department paid for by the AFL. These are clubs only in name but in reality are owned by the AFL and have been reduced to that of franchise status.

Its just makes it embarassing to see the posts here from saints, melbourne, geelong and north supporters given the largess these clubs receive from the AFL.
 
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Aug 27, 2014
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If clubs were not restricted to grounds they play on, times they played and a million other things he may have a point, but they don't. Really AFL footy for some time has been like each club is just a branch of a whole organisation and have to run each branch virtually the same as others but all located in different areas.

When clubs had their own grounds etc and totally control of most things about their own jumpers and branding it would be fair enough. But even websites of each club are just arms off the whole AFL site system itself.

It is run much like a socialist system. We may not like everything about it but hard to just change it now it been formally set up to be an equalised system in how everything is run. Been that way for well over 20 years now. Once we went down the salary cap and draft system and ground rationalisation of the 90's, no way going back.

He meant well though...
 
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