- Oct 5, 2004
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- 12,888
- AFL Club
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Seems legit.Maybe we'll make more money from memberships from our Melbourne supporters? Or maybe we can get a new sponsor or two? Maybe better on field performance in a year or two might also help?
Like, it's not that hard to figure out where North can make some of that money.
In a broader sense, I think selling games and constantly being spoken of as a relocation candidate massively hurts our brand. It makes sponsors less likely to sponsor, and those that do spend less. Partly because you are physically getting in front of fewer people at Hobart than you are at Docklands, and partly because there's a vibe that they don't want to be associated with.
We're now debt-free, so the need for the money is reduced. If it ended tomorrow, it'd hurt a bit in year one, a bit less in year two, and so on. But there's also the "I won't buy a membership because they're a bit sh*t this year" element at play, so how much of the hurt would be Tassie related would be arguable.
Bottom line is that Tasmania don't want us to relocate, we don't want to relocate either, so assuming that we stay with the current or similar arrangement for a few years until the new Tassie side comes in would work well for all parties.
Exiting tassie seems easy.
Replace the millions from this arrangement each year through increased membership revenue and an additional sponsor (who may not be too concerned about lack of exposure, nor on field position in the short term).
Facetiousness aside, brands look to sponsorship to increase brand awareness. Good marketers see this as a ‘long’ objective- build awareness to the largest portion of their relative target market. To do so, the measure needs to be reach.
The smaller the product that is watched, the lower the appeal to the brand. North, while they play in a high reach product in AFL, wouldn’t be seen as appealing to brands with large amounts of marketing spend to be allocated to brand building through sponsorship. They don’t have the membership base, nor the viewership.
Hence the Tassie partnership is vital to their financial independence.