Brisbane needs help

[Pack Specialist]

Seriously, Brisbane Bombers - think about it. The Lions need desperate help. Essendon fans are always telling us how there are too many teams in Melbourne. And the EFC itself is utterly stuffed, debt riddled, barely scraping a crowd tonight. At least this way they get to see a team with their nickname run around every week. Opens way for true Tassie team as well. Seamless.

I started a thread on this about a week ago.

Got locked, sensitive issue!

 

[carnthemlions]

ITT: Victorian supporters who've been really hard done by because *crickets*

Go and watch the VFL.

 

[Ron The Bear]

But are they worse than Fitzroy?

**** off. Sick of other clubs being propped up, getting extra picks, the AFL finding coaches for them etc. They'll finish where they deserve to finish and get a commensurate draft position. Rome wasn't re-built in a day.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

I saw Melbourne win a grand total of TWO games against non-expansion sides in two whole seasons (coming off the back of 5 miserable years). That apparently did not warrant a PP.

Brisbane were one win off the finals last year. And people are calling for a priority pick? Get stuffed.

AFL should help them out financially to get some competent administrators and coaches, and from then on, sort your own shit out.

I have always said the PP system should not be automatic. Over the years we have seen teams perform well for a number of years, bottom out for a season, then rise to the finals the next year. This should not be how the PP system is utilized. If a club is down the bottom and won no more than 10 games over 3 years, then and only then should they be offered PPs. I WAS going to say "Allow the AFL to determine who gets the PPs", but I wouldn't trust that mob of pirates to look after my dog for a weekend.

I certainly would be opposed to financial assistance from the AFL. Football clubs are like Governments in that they scream out they need money, and when they get it through extra taxes, etc, they just waste it and we are left with the same problem. We've already seen how one club in particular has abused this type of system. It does not create an even playing field.

Most of the stronger clubs are strong because of one reason. Administration. That is what separates the haves from the have-nots. For the AFL to assist clubs such as Brisbane, it should assist with finding the best possible people to administer their clubs. As I've posted before, the Hawthorn FC were on the bones of our arses until Ian Dicker decided the path to success was NOT by on field success, but by off field. He decreed that the Hawthorn FC would devote its energies into strengthening the financial position of the club first. Once they reached this level, then they looked building the player lists. Nobody could argue he got it right.

PPS, topping up average lists with average players, throwing big money after name players may be short term solutions but will never help the club when it comes to long term stability. Once the AFL ensures all clubs are adequately catered for in terms of administration, then ALL clubs must operate under the same conditions, salary caps, allowances, etc. Topping up some clubs with extra money may help that club compete with others, but at the same time it gives them too great an advantage over other struggling clubs.

For example, allowing Sydney more money each season has helped them compete with the Geelongs, Hawthorns and Collingwoods of the competition, but has widened the gap between them and the likes of Melbourne, St.Kilda and Western Bulldogs. It should NEVER be allowed to occur. Also, contracts should not be allowed to be front ended or back ended, each club should have to operate under a salary cap for each season. No exceptions. If a player is on a 5 year contact for $4 million, then $800,000 should be accountable for each season of that contract.

We have a draft system in place, but once again we see how the better administered clubs make it work, and others fail. Clubs should never be allowed to trade their draft picks, and all clubs should have control over drafted players for a period of 5 years. A Scully situation should never be allowed to occur, under any circumstances. As a Lakers fan in the NBA, I cannot believe how easily the club attained players such as Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant through trading for the number 1 pick. There's 10 championships, right there.

For example, the Lakers traded an average player Vlade Divac for draft pick 1 which they used to secure Kobe Bryant. Five championships later, there is no doubting who got the better of that deal. Shrewd administration is the key to success, not sitting back waiting for the AFL to pour a truck load of money into your back yard.

It would be nice if when the AFL talk about equalization, they actually looked at reasons why it is necessary, not just how to make more money out of it.

 

[hench]

Equality in any sporting league will always be 'artificial'.

Screw equality, let's just have a competition where Collingwood and West Coast finish top 4 every year. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Eddie will be happy with that. And he kick starts more than half of the debates on equality.

 

[Demonheart]

2. Of course they were born. The Lions were not gifted their premierships anymore than Collingwood got their only AFL premiership from dodgy, third party deals.

Get your hand off it.

Brisbane were 'gifted' Chris Johnson, Mal Michael, Tim Notting, Jon Brown, Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis, Marcus Ashcroft and who knows how many other players due to the extra salary cap they had. Take those players out and Brisbane would have been lucky to even make finals.

The AFL manufactured Brisbane's premierships.

 

[LeverPuller]

A better side onfield than Melbourne 2013. No on field help.

Off field sure. But the AFL set the mark by not helping Melbourne with picks last year.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

But are they worse than Fitzroy?

There are a number of current clubs who are in far worse financial positions than Fitzroy ever was. The AFL needed to make room for new clubs and strengthen footy in Brisbane so Fitzroy had to go. If the AFL really wanted to save Fitzroy, it could have. They elected not to, that's the difference.

 

[Demonheart]

The go home 5 left for various reasons. From the clubs POV they were mainly because the Lions couldn't offer the off-field support or the development that other clubs could. There is also a degree of softness when it comes to those players.

I've seen many Brisbane fans try this line, calling the players who left soft. I guess that also means that Moloney and Martin are also soft.

 

[Demonheart]

In hindsight it was the wrong move. We were in with a chance to get Roos until the AFL stepped in though.

Brisbane were never a chance to get Roos

 

[Vankri]

Or maybe the AFL should stop trying to introduce teams in areas where there is no prior support to it, giving them unfair advantages at the expense of foundation clubs? If a club needs constant handouts from the league to be successful off field, and constant concessions to be successful on field, then it is not meant to exist in the first place.

The obsession of the AFL with treating the game as a new type of flavoured yoghurt they need to market into new areas is ridiculous, and damaging in the long term.

I'm not against expansion. But if you want to establish a game in a new market, you start from the bottom, with the growth of the game at lower and local levels. You should create a professional club only once it has a true social 'reality' in the community. Otherwise you will be artificially buying success for them so as to create a bandwagon, which will not sustain in non-successful years.

 

[Yellow Feathers]

Brisbane had more success in 3 years than the Saints and Bulldogs have had in their combined history.

More trophies than Freo, Bulldogs and Saints combined.

Aish and Lewis were great picks. They need to draft a key forward this year. Rocky is a gun.

They'll be ok.

 

[snooplions]

I don't think the "go-home five" were soft, It's pretty easy to understand why they left. It's just a kick in the guts to brisbane fans to watch those promising young players develop and then leave. Whilst I wish our administration or the players being soft could be blamed, I feel that a lot of them were just after a fresh start to their football careers and saw the option of going back to their home state and families as the ideal option compared to wasting away in the Lions Reserves. I think voss should've played them much more than he did. Honestly can say that I'm happier with Leppitsch as our coach instead of Voss.

 

[LBJ6]

In hindsight it was the wrong move. We were in with a chance to get Roos until the AFL stepped in though.

Roos was already locked in to Melbourne before Neeld was sacked. This was long before Voss was sacked.

If it is true that the Lions sacked Voss to have a go at Roos, then it is possibly one of the biggest ****-ups in the history of the modern AFL.

 

[Ron The Bear]

There are a number of current clubs who are in far worse financial positions than Fitzroy ever was. The AFL needed to make room for new clubs and strengthen footy in Brisbane so Fitzroy had to go. If the AFL really wanted to save Fitzroy, it could have. They elected not to, that's the difference.

Was referring to the description of Richmond's team in 2010 as "worse than Fitzroy" in its dying days. We received picks #6 and #30 that year. Brisbane will be better off.

 

[Tedeski]

Make no mistake, they are the worst team in the competition at the moment.
They have issues off the field and on the field. Administration is a joke, their leader is out injured, probably never to return, support is down, crowds are down, profits are unheard of.

Brisbane is just as an important market as Sydney in the grand scheme of things and everyone loves the Fitzroy Lions - the competition is better off to have that link to them, it needs it I believe.

If Sydney deserves a "COLA" then Brisbane surely deserve some extra help as well. Yes a lot of their predicament is their own doing (see poor admin) but in the interests of a strong competition it isn't good for any team to be like Brisbane is right now

This is the problem faced by clubs in these pro NRL states. As a Swan supporter that remembers the bad times I agree with you that they need help. The problem is that when they get it as they did prior to their 3 p'ships, when they achieve success, the arrogant clubs run by outspoken presidents come out wanting the assistance scrapped.

It is much better they give assistance then try to fix things with lump payments every 5 years.
I say this with the comfort that we are now a well run club & I'm hoping that we can now get by without assistance of the CoLA in the coming years.
We just need to take the odd risk by thinking outside the square.
Brisbane needs assistance desperately.

 

[Heeney2Franklin]

This is the problem faced by clubs in these pro NRL states. As a Swan supporter that remembers the bad times I agree with you that they need help. The problem is that when they get it as they did prior to their 3 p'ships, when they achieve success, the arrogant clubs run by outspoken presidents come out wanting the assistance scrapped.

It is much better they give assistance then try to fix things with lump payments every 5 years.
I say this with the comfort that we are now a well run club & I'm hoping that we can now get by without assistance of the CoLA in the coming years.
We just need to take the odd risk by thinking outside the square.
Brisbane needs assistance desperately.

Eddie yesterday has his targets set on the academies of Sydney and Brisbane i truly believe he doesn't want a interstate competition to succeed at all.

 

[replicant]

Or maybe the AFL should stop trying to introduce teams in areas where there is no prior support to it, giving them unfair advantages at the expense of foundation clubs? If a club needs constant handouts from the league to be successful off field, and constant concessions to be successful on field, then it is not meant to exist in the first place.

The obsession of the AFL with treating the game as a new type of flavoured yoghurt they need to market into new areas is ridiculous, and damaging in the long term.

I'm not against expansion. But if you want to establish a game in a new market, you start from the bottom, with the growth of the game at lower and local levels. You should create a professional club only once it has a true social 'reality' in the community. Otherwise you will be artificially buying success for them so as to create a bandwagon, which will not sustain in non-successful years.

It won't work.

Do you think people are sitting around waiting for a sport to show up? They're already playing sport. Their kids play League, Soccer, Rugby, Basketball, Netball, whatever... Those sports are established, funded and get all the media attention. How do you propose to grow a grass roots level comp? How do you get a kid, who watches NRL, whose friends watch NRL and play NRL after school in the park, whose dad takes them to NRL games... How do you get that kid and his family to play AFL with no local team to support, no games to go to, and no coverage on TV? I grew up in Sydney. Until the Swans moved (and even then, not for a few years), i'd never seen a game of AFL. There were no goalposts at any oval i ever saw (they are all Rugby/League or soccer), there was no local team, it wasn't an option at school sport... there was nothing.

This is the problem the supporters from AFL states (Vic, SA, WA) just don't seem to get. You need to build the support for the game. There is nothing at ground level. The only way to build from the ground up is to have a local team to support in the AFL. If that means funding out of state teams with equalisation measures until they are strong off-field and the grass roots support starts to grow, then so be it.

 

[JeffDunne]

The problem the AFL have created with their competition rigging is many supporters have been conditioned to thinking success is distributed rather than being earned.

Equalisation is not about making everyone equal - it's about giving everyone equal opportunity to succeed.

Explain how Brisbane don't have an equal opportunity and you might have an argument for assistance.

 

[Roylion]

Get your hand off it.

Brisbane were 'gifted' Chris Johnson, Mal Michael, Tim Notting, Jon Brown, Michael Voss, Jason Akermanis, Marcus Ashcroft and who knows how many other players due to the extra salary cap they had. Take those players out and Brisbane would have been lucky to even make finals.

The AFL manufactured Brisbane's premierships.

At no point in Brisbane's history has the club had anymore than 21% of its list from Queensland. In 2014 10% of the Lions' list is from Queensland.

To combat the larger 'go-home' factor, the club had a player retention allowance. Did it work? Partly. Shane O'Bree, Jarrod Molloy, Des Headland, John Barker still all asked to be traded back to Melbourne. Others such as Tim Notting, Chris Johnson were persuaded to stay after they too expressed interest in returning to Victoria.

Jonathan Brown was drafted through the father-son rule and grew up a Fitzroy supporter so it was easier to retain him on that basis, but even so, the Lions had to work fairly hard to retain him when Collingwood threw a considerable amount of money and other inducements to recruit him. Foremost amongst Collingwood's arguments to Brown is that he would be able to return to his home state to be closer to friends and family.

We saw a prime example of the go-home factor when five of Brisbane's recruits all left last season. Clubs threw larger sums of money at the five and the lure of being able to return to their home state was significant.

Only Sydney, GWS and Gold Coast face the same problems as Brisbane in that regard. Sydney, GWS and Gold Coast all have salary cap bonuses and have had such for some years.

Brisbane is the only club in a developing market not to have any such bonus.

 

[Vankri]

It won't work.

Do you think people are sitting around waiting for a sport to show up? They're already playing sport. Their kids play League, Soccer, Rugby, Basketball, Netball, whatever... Those sports are established, funded and get all the media attention. How do you propose to grow a grass roots level comp? How do you get a kid, who watches NRL, whose friends watch NRL and play NRL after school in the park, whose dad takes them to NRL games... How do you get that kid and his family to play AFL with no local team to support, no games to go to, and no coverage on TV? I grew up in Sydney. Until the Swans moved (and even then, not for a few years), i'd never seen a game of AFL. There were no goalposts at any oval i ever saw (they are all Rugby/League or soccer), there was no local team, it wasn't an option at school sport... there was nothing.

This is the problem the supporters from AFL states (Vic, SA, WA) just don't seem to get. You need to build the support for the game. There is nothing at ground level. The only way to build from the ground up is to have a local team to support in the AFL. If that means funding out of state teams with equalisation measures until they are strong off-field and the grass roots support starts to grow, then so be it.

You just have a very short term view of the situation. In the long term, even the meager support new clubs get might disappear if they don't experience constant success, because the market simply doesn't love the game and only artificially follows the success they get sold. If building the game at grassroots level will take 50 years then so be it. If the game doesn't interest the market, then so be it.

The only reason this strategy currently works is that support for clubs in AFL states is traditional and very socially engrained. Old clubs are getting screwed over to enable success for new clubs and it only works because of the love from supporters to their clubs. Currently more and more people will tell you that they love their club, but they don't love the game anymore.

Hypothetically, if in the next 10 years, the majority of flags are won by Sydney, GC and GWS at the expense of traditional state clubs (like Brisbane did against Collingwood in 02 and 03), the league will actually start to lose supporters from their original markets. Not sure that's a great strategy in the long term.

 

[fabulousphil]

Or maybe the AFL should stop trying to introduce teams in areas where there is no prior support to it, giving them unfair advantages at the expense of foundation clubs? If a club needs constant handouts from the league to be successful off field, and constant concessions to be successful on field, then it is not meant to exist in the first place.

The obsession of the AFL with treating the game as a new type of flavoured yoghurt they need to market into new areas is ridiculous, and damaging in the long term.

I'm not against expansion. But if you want to establish a game in a new market, you start from the bottom, with the growth of the game at lower and local levels. You should create a professional club only once it has a true social 'reality' in the community. Otherwise you will be artificially buying success for them so as to create a bandwagon, which will not sustain in non-successful years.

In this regard grass roots level in SEQ is quite big, for ex across Brisbane and the GC there are 30+ under 18 teams, and that is top of the pryamid at junior football, the support is there, just needs the AFL team ( Lions) at the top of the pyramid to get its act together.

 

[Vankri]

At no point in Brisbane's history has the club had anymore than 21% of its list from Queensland. In 2014 10% of the Lions' list is from Queensland.

To combat the larger 'go-home' factor, the club had a player retention allowance. Did it work? Partly. Shane O'Bree, Jarrod Molloy, Des Headland, John Barker still all asked to be traded back to Melbourne. Others such as Tim Notting, Chris Johnson were persuaded to stay after they too expressed interest in returning to Victoria.

Jonathan Brown was drafted through the father-son rule and grew up a Fitzroy supporter so it was easier to retain him on that basis, but even so, the Lions had to work fairly hard to retain him when Collingwood threw a considerable amount of money and other inducements to recruit him. Foremost amongst Collingwood's arguments to Brown is that he would be able to return to his home state to be closer to friends and family.

We saw a prime example of the go-home factor when five of Brisbane's recruits all left last season. Clubs threw larger sums of money at the five and the lure of being able to return to their home state was significant.

Only Sydney, GWS and Gold Coast face the same problems as Brisbane in that regard. Sydney, GWS and Gold Coast all have salary cap bonuses and have had such for some years.

Brisbane is the only club in a developing market not to have any such bonus.

This just outlines the problem of this artificial situation created by the AFL's expansion strategy. It's just a matter of permanently catching up to try to balance a situation they rigged in the first place. What happens if after their 3 flags and 4 GF we hadn't stripped Brisbane of their concessions. What if they had won 7 flags in 10 years?

The only way to ensure a sustainable situation is to NOT artificially buy success for teams, regardless of how badly you want to expand the market. Expansion has to come from the grassroot levels, bottom-up rather than top-down.

 

[Demonheart]

At no point in Brisbane's history has the club had anymore than 21% of its list from Queensland. In 2014 10% of the Lions' list is from Queensland.

To combat the larger 'go-home' factor, the club had a player retention allowance. Did it work? Partly. Shane O'Bree, Jarrod Molloy, Des Headland, John Barker still all asked to be traded back to Melbourne. Others such as Tim Notting, Chris Johnson were persuaded to stay after they too expressed interest in returning to Victoria.

Jonathan Brown was drafted through the father-son rule and grew up a Fitzroy supporter so it was easier to retain him on that basis, but even so, the Lions had to work fairly hard to retain him when Collingwood threw a considerable amount of money and other inducements to recruit him. Foremost amongst Collingwood's arguments to Brown is that he would be able to return to his home state to be closer to friends and family.

We saw a prime example of the go-home factor when five of Brisbane's recruits all left last season. Clubs threw larger sums of money at the five and the lure of being able to return to their home state was significant.

Only Sydney, GWS and Gold Coast face the same problems as Brisbane in that regard. Sydney, GWS and Gold Coast all have salary cap bonuses and have had such for some years.

Brisbane is the only club in a developing market not to have any such bonus.

So?

 

[replicant]

You just have a very short term view of the situation. In the long term, even the meager support new clubs get might disappear if they don't experience constant success, because the market simply doesn't love the game and only artificially follows the success they get sold. If building the game at grassroots level will take 50 years then so be it. If the game doesn't interest the market, then so be it.

The only reason this strategy currently works is that support for clubs in AFL states is traditional and very socially engrained. Old clubs are getting screwed over to enable success for new clubs and it only works because of the love from supporters to their clubs. Currently more and more people will tell you that they love their club, but they don't love the game anymore.

Hypothetically, if in the next 10 years, the majority of flags are won by Sydney, GC and GWS at the expense of traditional state clubs (like Brisbane did against Collingwood in 02 and 03), the league will actually start to lose supporters from their original markets. Not sure that's a great strategy in the long term.

I'd argue you have the short term view.

If the AFL isn't national, revenues will decrease. The other codes won't stand still, their revenues will grow. Player salaries in the AFL will decrease, while salaries in other codes will increase. The other codes will poach players from the AFL, and will establish grass roots support in AFL states. Over time, the AFL will be a local, parochial comp.

If you're not growing, you're going backwards.

50 years to build support? Until the Swans went to Sydney, you'd had 100 years, and as i said, there was zero grass roots support. You want the AFL to spend millions and millions trying to build a school age comp in the northern states over 50 years? It'll simply never work.