Beyond the GF – Why the MCG Contract doesn’t pass the Stink Test

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Aug 14, 2011
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Fact of the matter is.
The AFL will not move the GF from a ground that holds 100k under normal circumstances.
If states want to join the GF party then build a stadium equal too the G at least.

& appoint the Melbourne Cricket Club to run the footy - without footy the MCC is a suburban cricket club.
 
Jun 30, 2009
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Australian football in general wasnt in a great place financially, years of amateur management at club and league levels was taking its toll on everyone.

this ignores the fact that the only reason the WA teams survived was through transfer fees to Victoria and once the VFL canned that, the WAFL clubs were rapidly going to hit the wall, with few exceptions. The WAFL had already requested WA Gov assistance.

It also ignores that the SANFL clubs werent in a much better position in the late 80s.

It also ignores the fact that EVERY proposed national competition revolved heavily around a large victorian contingent, and without the Victorians they were doomed to fail. That wasnt the case with SA and WA - SA held out for years afterward - and got exactly nothing it demanded (reduction in teams to 14 total including newcomers and no license fee) and WA ony joined out of sheer desperation and fear that the Vics would come and set up in WA anyway. Not to mention, that if the SANFL and WAFL hadnt come to the party - their teams would have.

The idea that Victorian football would have collapsed without the assistance of WA and SA is laughable - the league literally tried nothing except relocating the Swans in 81 - no mergers, no other relocations at the time. Club members and benefcators almost always rallied enough to keep them going.
Lol the regulator flat out said without the entrance fees he was shutting the comp down.



<<<
Of the 11 Victorian Club companies it appears that seven of them are technically insolvent. These clubs are Fitzroy, Geelong, Footscray, Collingwood, Melbourne, North Melbourne and Richmond," he wrote on August 8, 1986.

In the explosive letter, Mr Lewis said he had met with the league's finance director and "during the course of that discussion it was represented to me that Fitzroy, North Melbourne, St Kilda and Melbourne clubs would seek to merge with either one another or some other club companies".

"Please advise me within seven days what steps the Victorian Football League or its Club Company members propose to take to remedy the situation.

"Unless your response to me contains some viable proposals to remedy the present situation, it is my intention to carry out my statutory obligations," he wrote.

Collingwood's Tony Shaw makes a flying tackle on Footscray's Angelo Petraglia.
This week, Lewis, who went on to become a County Court judge, told Fairfax Media he is not sure why he didn't shut the competition down.

"Was it just lack of character? I didn't want to be the man remembered as stopping the [football] season one month before the grand final?"

Former VFL and AFL commissioner Graeme Samuel had the job of saving footy Wayne Taylor
Graeme Samuel, then a VFL commissioner, said it was dark days for footy.

"The total competition had net assets of about $4 million including Waverley Park – half of the clubs were bankrupt on any analysis," he said.

An omen? A black dog stops play between Hawthorn and Richmond during a match at Princes Park in 1986. John French
Ross Oakley was brought in as chief executive of the VFL to fix the mess.

Mr Oakley said the clubs "had some balance sheets that were really pretty disastrous ... it was very close to disappearing as a competition".

Peter Matera kicks the ball in the 1992 Grand Final, the first to be won by a non-Victorian team. Matera was awarded the Norm Smith Medal.
"I think there would have always been some form of Australian football but not in the form that was in and not a VFL the way it was," Mr Oakley said.

Victorian fans can thank Brisbane and West Coast - which joined the competition in 1987 - for effectively saving the league.

Asked why he did not close the league down, Judge Lewis said the league convinced him that the licence revenue from the new teams would prop up the competition.>>>
 
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they had the option of not signing up to it - the SANFL held out for another 3 years. Everyone knew the deal. These threads are always full of some magnificent rewriting of the history.
Im not rewriting history - im saying that many of the terms they signed up to were shiite and have since been changed.

So using the justification “thats what they signed up to” is at best primary school logic
 
Aug 14, 2011
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Im not rewriting history - im saying that many of the terms they signed up to were shiite and have since been changed.

So using the justification “thats what they signed up to” is at best primary school logic

The bombastic rhetoric of the day regarded the VFL as the only senior comp - the likes of Stephen Michael was AA captain & didnt play a senior game of footy.
The same genius thinking applied to Polly Farmer in the 60s as he rewrote ruckwork in the VFL.
The acceptance of the GF deal in a sleazy deal done behind closed doors with only the encumbents invited, suggests little has changed & that is on the AFL Commission who rubber stamped the behaviour.
 

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The bombastic rhetoric of the day regarded the VFL as the only senior comp - the likes of Stephen Michael was AA captain & didnt play a senior game of footy.
The same genius thinking applied to Polly Farmer in the 60s as he rewrote ruckwork in the VFL.
The acceptance of the GF deal in a sleazy deal done behind closed doors with only the encumbents invited, suggests little has changed & that is on the AFL Commission who rubber stamped the behaviour.
Tiny and gotcha…
 
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I reckon eventually the GF will be played at additional venues, but not while the next best stadium is 40k less capacity for a game that regularly draws 95k+ crowds.
The world cup is held in 65k stadiums - they could literally sell 5 million tickets overnight to the final if they had a 5 million seat stadium.

The whole mcg is the biggest is just pure gatekeeping - if another state built a 150k stadium the narrative would change so quick it would make your eyeballs click.
 
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I reckon eventually the GF will be played at additional venues, but not while the next best stadium is 40k less capacity for a game that regularly draws 95k+ crowds.
Logic would have it if both of the interstate sides from the same state make the Gf then it should be played in that home state.
But then I guess seat allocation would be the biggest hurdle
 
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The world cup is held in 65k stadiums - they could literally sell 5 million tickets overnight to the final if they had a 5 million seat stadium.

The whole mcg is the biggest is just pure gatekeeping - if another state built a 150k stadium the narrative would change so quick it would make your eyeballs click.

Yep. Early in the thread I posted stats for the last 30 odd years of Supernbowls. The majority were played in 70-75k stadiums. 3 or 4 were in the 60s.
 
Jan 31, 2009
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Can you seriously imagine a grand final at that hillbilly cow paddock the Adelaide Oval?
Maybe leave your mum's garage. The world outside isn't that scary.

The real issue is MCC and AFL members taking all the seats when they don't deserve it in a modern national sport.
 
Jul 2, 2010
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Lol the regulator flat out said without the entrance fees he was shutting the comp down.

My favorite part of this article was the "new documents which came to light" bit. That several clubs were warned against trading while insolvent was well and truly established. Its also noted in the Phoenix Rises.
  • 1984 – The McKinsey Report, commissioned by the VFL, revealed that the VFL’s operating expenses were exceeding operating revenues by nearly $2 million per annum and that six of the twelve clubs were technically bankrupt (Nadel, 1998, p.220).
  • 1985 – October 24. In what is seen as a stern government warning to club administrators about their legal responsibilities, the attorney general, Mr (Jim) Kennan, wrote to seven clubs on 24 October asking them to supply details by the end of November of their financial accounts, and declare that their directors had not breached the Companies Code. (The Phoenix Rises, pg. 33)
  • 1986 – August 8. the Victorian commissioner for corporate affairs, Gordon Lewis, reads the riot act: the 11 Victoria-based VFL clubs had the same responsibility as any other trading entity—they had to be solvent. (The Phoenix Rises pg 64)
The new fees diid not include SA at all until 1990 - noting that Port claimed to have negotiated a far smaller license fee - and by far the bigger impact on league revenue was the 1987 TV deal signed at the end of 1986 which went effectively doubled tv revenue from 3 to 6m a year, plus other rights paid by Sportsplay at 3.5m a year for sattelite broadcasting into pubs and clubs signed in 1986.

I remain amazed that people overlook the changes in the broadcasting revenues at the same time these deals were signed, especially when the league took on the travel costs from 1988, and the ongoing burden that the Bears (and Swans) was to the league for years afterward.

Then theres the impact of the newly formed independent commission which didnt really kick off until 1986, and then in earnest in 1993.

As for Victorian involvement in the national league, every proposal heavily involved the clubs, if not coutright joining the league. No proposal was ever put forward that excluded them. However the VFL was prepared to go without the WAFL and SANFL if it had to.


The real issue is MCC and AFL members taking all the seats when they don't deserve it in a modern national sport.

Both groups pay for entry to the Grand Final and are generally AFL supporters. - something like 90% of MCC members also follow an AFL club.
 
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My favorite part of this article was the "new documents which came to light" bit. That several clubs were warned against trading while insolvent was well and truly established. Its also noted in the Phoenix Rises.
  • 1984 – The McKinsey Report, commissioned by the VFL, revealed that the VFL’s operating expenses were exceeding operating revenues by nearly $2 million per annum and that six of the twelve clubs were technically bankrupt (Nadel, 1998, p.220).
  • 1985 – October 24. In what is seen as a stern government warning to club administrators about their legal responsibilities, the attorney general, Mr (Jim) Kennan, wrote to seven clubs on 24 October asking them to supply details by the end of November of their financial accounts, and declare that their directors had not breached the Companies Code. (The Phoenix Rises, pg. 33)
  • 1986 – August 8. the Victorian commissioner for corporate affairs, Gordon Lewis, reads the riot act: the 11 Victoria-based VFL clubs had the same responsibility as any other trading entity—they had to be solvent. (The Phoenix Rises pg 64)
The new fees diid not include SA at all until 1990 - noting that Port claimed to have negotiated a far smaller license fee - and by far the bigger impact on league revenue was the 1987 TV deal signed at the end of 1986 which went effectively doubled tv revenue from 3 to 6m a year, plus other rights paid by Sportsplay at 3.5m a year for sattelite broadcasting into pubs and clubs signed in 1986.

I remain amazed that people overlook the changes in the broadcasting revenues at the same time these deals were signed, especially when the league took on the travel costs from 1988, and the ongoing burden that the Bears (and Swans) was to the league for years afterward.

Then theres the impact of the newly formed independent commission which didnt really kick off until 1986, and then in earnest in 1993.

As for Victorian involvement in the national league, every proposal heavily involved the clubs, if not coutright joining the league. No proposal was ever put forward that excluded them. However the VFL was prepared to go without the WAFL and SANFL if it had to.




Both groups pay for entry to the Grand Final and are generally AFL supporters. - something like 90% of MCC members also follow an AFL club.
I'm aware they pay. But I'm sure you are aware of what I am talking about, and coincidentally missed the point.

Those groups are the reason it can't be moved until the AFL panders to the entire nation rather than a select few.
 
Jul 2, 2010
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I'm aware they pay. But I'm sure you are aware of what I am talking about, and coincidentally missed the point.

Those groups are the reason it can't be moved until the AFL panders to the entire nation rather than a select few.

I think a fair case can be made for tradtiion, but whatever.

The reason it cant be moved now at least, was at least partly due to Victorian Government intransigience in 1984. John Cain threatened to legislate the grand final having to be held at the MCG when the league wanted to move it to Waverly, and the MCC wouldnt allow the league to rent the stadium as a whole venue. The VFL had almost no choice at the time the contract was signed in 1988 to commence in 1992.

The extension on the other hand, blind freddy should have seen that coming with Docklands needing money for upgrades and the Southern Stand at the G nearing the end of its life. The AFL was always going to do a deal.

The "select few" still remain the majority of the leagues clubs, players, members and tv audiences.
 
Jun 30, 2009
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I think a fair case can be made for tradtiion, but whatever.

The reason it cant be moved now at least, was at least partly due to Victorian Government intransigience in 1984. John Cain threatened to legislate the grand final having to be held at the MCG when the league wanted to move it to Waverly, and the MCC wouldnt allow the league to rent the stadium as a whole venue. The VFL had almost no choice at the time the contract was signed in 1988 to commence in 1992.

The extension on the other hand, blind freddy should have seen that coming with Docklands needing money for upgrades and the Southern Stand at the G nearing the end of its life. The AFL was always going to do a deal.

The "select few" still remain the majority of the leagues clubs, players, members and tv audiences.
Afl : we need to expand out audience as much as possible… by treating anyone outside of the audience in one state as a second class citizen.
 
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Afl : we need to expand out audience as much as possible… by treating anyone outside of the audience in one state as a second class citizen.
It's a ridiculous argument isn't it. Being made by the very people who don't want to lose their privelage even if it's for the greater good of the game.
 
Jul 2, 2010
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Afl : we need to expand out audience as much as possible… by treating anyone outside of the audience in one state as a second class citizen.

People outside Victoria: apparently constantly astonished that decisions are made - by a commision which is chaired by a dude from WA and features several non victorians - and yet which favour the largest part of the leagues clubs, members, recruitsm ,audiences and grassroots.
 
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