News A letter from the President: Mid-season Update

[Cairnsman]

It’s completely different for them than for you. St Kilda are a subsidiary of the AFL, which still has a reasonably strong balance sheet and ridiculous future earning potential. Unless you think that footy is going to disappear from the national consciousness then the AFL’s debt is very low risk.

So $10 million debt ok.

I'm onboard, in the context of the modern world....as long as I get me premiership

 

[Atomboy]

Definitely worth a listen if someone wishes to post it on here.

He may not have remembered the membership numbers but he did remember that we had broken the record.

What was more important to me is that it sounded like selling our home games and playing away could very well be a thing of the past. Gerard broached the subject, saying that members were not happy that doing this could ( and has) cost us wins, and his answer was interesting - and hopefully that'll be it because we only had a two year agreement.

What do we earn from the Cairns games, is that public knowledge ?.

 

[sunny3193]

What do we earn from the Cairns games, is that public knowledge ?.

Probably in the financial statements if you want to look.
They used to declare both Wellington and Shanghai in there.

 

[tomjoad]

Think that’s a huge generalisation.
There are many, very philanthropic people around.

Gotta launder it somehow...why not through "social" incentives and the much more applicable term "schemes" that never seem to get off the ground

 

[Mat Mann]

What do we earn from the Cairns games, is that public knowledge ?.

~$650k

 

[Diehard Saint]

Gotta launder it somehow...why not through "social" incentives and the much more applicable term "schemes" that never seem to get off the ground

Ha.
Another cynical sceptic!

 

[no1saint66]

It sounds like they can pay it off very quickly. I liked his belief that we can be a powerful club. It was refreshing for him to say that the club hasn’t had strong administration to capitalise on a reasonably large supporter base.

 

[lewdogs]

It's interesting to reflect on the letter last year. It got a lot of people in a tizzy, especially the media.

A year down the track and his assertion that we wouldn't start really challenging until 2022 looks fairly bang on.

The club is doing so many things right. Even last year amongst the chaos of some terrible losses we managed to do a lot right. Look at Essendon this year for an example of the opposite.

Bassatt has been a gun.

 

[Atomboy]

Probably in the financial statements if you want to look.
They used to declare both Wellington and Shanghai in there.

I had a look but couldn’t find it

 

[Atomboy]

~$650k

Reasonable chunk of change…

 

[Cairnsman]

What do we earn from the Cairns games, is that public knowledge ?.

What we learnt is there wasn't one person who was involved in the scheduling of the Cairns game who knows how to find weather data on the internet. A 7 year old with a keyboard could have researched the data and concluded the game should have been scheduled outside the wet season.

July and August is the perfect time to have a game up in Cairns. You are guaranteed perfect weather and it also would be a great time for a team to get away from the deep miserably cold weather in Melbourne....especially for a team looking to start their training loading in preparation for finals.

We are incompetent as a club if we don't hang onto the game in Cairns AND the huge sums of cash it brings BUT just insist on the scheduling of the game be in July or August.

 

[Remboy]

What we learnt is there wasn't one person who was involved in the scheduling of the Cairns game who knows how to find weather data on the internet. A 7 year old with a keyboard could have researched the data and concluded the game should have been scheduled outside the wet season.

July and August is the perfect time to have a game up in Cairns. You are guaranteed perfect weather and it also would be a great time for a team to get away from the deep miserably cold weather in Melbourne....especially for a team looking to start their training loading in preparation for finals.

We are incompetent as a club if we don't hang onto the game in Cairns AND the huge sums of cash it brings BUT just insist on the scheduling of the game be in July or August.

I've been to Cairns in June a few times and the weather has been perfect every time. I went up once in May and it was fine.
Their wet season is usually Jan-March but the seasons seem to be slightly later these days.

 

[Atomboy]

What we learnt is there wasn't one person who was involved in the scheduling of the Cairns game who knows how to find weather data on the internet. A 7 year old with a keyboard could have researched the data and concluded the game should have been scheduled outside the wet season.

July and August is the perfect time to have a game up in Cairns. You are guaranteed perfect weather and it also would be a great time for a team to get away from the deep miserably cold weather in Melbourne....especially for a team looking to start their training loading in preparation for finals.

We are incompetent as a club if we don't hang onto the game in Cairns AND the huge sums of cash it brings BUT just insist on the scheduling of the game be in July or August.

Really up to the AFL isn’t it….

 

[lewdogs]

What we learnt is there wasn't one person who was involved in the scheduling of the Cairns game who knows how to find weather data on the internet. A 7 year old with a keyboard could have researched the data and concluded the game should have been scheduled outside the wet season.

July and August is the perfect time to have a game up in Cairns. You are guaranteed perfect weather and it also would be a great time for a team to get away from the deep miserably cold weather in Melbourne....especially for a team looking to start their training loading in preparation for finals.

We are incompetent as a club if we don't hang onto the game in Cairns AND the huge sums of cash it brings BUT just insist on the scheduling of the game be in July or August.

We couldn't go in August, it's too late in the year and would make our end to the season really awkward.

July would be ideal, but I suspect it's dead in the water from what the pres said.

 

[Cairnsman]

I've been to Cairns in June a few times and the weather has been perfect every time. I went up once in May and it was fine.
Their wet season is usually Jan-March but the seasons seem to be slightly later these days.

If you have a look at the footywire site of the 14 games that have been played for premiership points in Cairns, one was played in March, remember the North V Suns played under water, and then our game from a few weeks ago in early May, not quite as bad as the North V Suns game, but still monsoonal. March has historically been the wettest month, and there is always a shoulder to the wet season usually stretching out to May June. Have a look at when the other 12 games were played, all in July and August and I attended most of them and they were perfect FNQ days. As I say I think our club should be holding onto the Cairns game because it brings almost 1$ million into the club and so all that needs to be tweeked is the scheduling into July and August.

 

[Cairnsman]

Really up to the AFL isn’t it….

So teams don't play interstate games in August ?

 

[Atomboy]

So teams don't play interstate games in August ?

They sure do, but while you can lodge your fixturing requests with the AFL there is no guarantee they will accommodate.

I think we would be silly to turn our back on Cairns - it’s a pretty good financial outcome and has shades of GT axing the Tassie deal in early 2000’s.

 

[Cairnsman]

Really up to the AFL isn’t it….ecery

Really up to the AFL isn’t it….

Sure, everything is controlled by the AFL, even what you think is controlled by the AFL.

And we are an assisted club which means the AFL control our finances and the Cairns game is worth almost a $million crackers which comes via the way of funding from Cairns City Council and the Queensland State government and this year the Feds also tipped in some cash as part of a grant designed to regenerate the regions economies hit hard by Covid.

We play in Cairns because the AFL tell us to and they will continue to play us in far flung places while there is free cash available.

 

[joop]

I've never really understood the worry over the debt. We (or any AFL club) aren't independently owned. The AFL own all the clubs, they distribute finances, they make the fixtures, if a club isn't doing well financially the AFL props them up because losing a team means less revenue for them.
Its not like the premier league or american sports where you have wealthy owners who need to make it work or they'll lose the team.

 

[Tyrian Lonestar]

The club reduced its debt by $4,264,806 in 2021, reducing overall debt to $9,562,300

So likely under $5M in 2022 then? Hope so with the increased membership numbers & live attendances at games.

 

[George]

So likely under $5M in 2022 then? Hope so with the increased membership numbers & live attendances at games.

I reckon we could be around 4.5m by end of this year. Record membership, increased attendance and finals football.

 

[Tyrian Lonestar]

I reckon we could be around 4.5m by end of this year. Record membership, increased attendance and finals football.

That would be a freakin awesome result given the capital investment at Moorabbin and negotiating through 2+ years of covid

A lot going right at the club these days!

 

[Mat Mann]

Really up to the AFL isn’t it….

and if the AFL can place Carlton/Richmond, ANZAC day Queens bday, and any other regularly scheduled game then surely its not too hard to say Saints vs port/crows in X 4-6 week block isn't so hard to organize.

I've never really understood the worry over the debt. We (or any AFL club) aren't independently owned. The AFL own all the clubs, they distribute finances, they make the fixtures, if a club isn't doing well financially the AFL props them up because losing a team means less revenue for them.
Its not like the premier league or american sports where you have wealthy owners who need to make it work or they'll lose the team.

Imagine what we could have done with $4.3m if we didn't have a debt to pay down.

is the debt going to end us? certainly not, but we've used the debt to cover our bad 10yr period, and build Moorabbin, its time for it to go, its time to get rid of the monkey, shut that innuendo down, and time to move forward, move our footy dept spend and the club's ability to invest more in itself.

surely that's the goal, it'd be a shame to see the last 5 odd years wasted and still be under the debt banner.

 

[StCicatriz]

If I remember rightly, 6 million is owed to the AFL so as far as I’m concerned that $6 million doesn’t count. They don’t deserve to be paid back.

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