Certified Legendary Thread China History in the Making

[Hellgood]

The onus is on the opposing clubs playing in China to take whatever commercial and cultural advantage they can in the lead up to the match and whilst the weekend is up and running. To pull it off each Club has to have capable executive teams at both ends of the pipeline with requisite market knowledge and relevant contacts.

PAFC have for some time had a China squad in place setting up contacts, travelling in and out and learning learning learning ... and consequently on stage during the gala dinner on the eve of the Shanghai match a third seven-digit major sponsorship deal (MJK) was officially signed with a Chinese entity. Other lower tier partnerships had been concluded: Cathay Pacific, Greaton, Haneco with others in the pipeline.

The Gold Coast Suns Football Club before the 14 May match were unable to fill critical vacancies in a number of their executive offices including COO, commercial director or manager, and went to Shanghai armed with nobody who had any China experience except their president who actually has considerably more hands on China nous than our own president.
During the game on 14 May the Suns were wearing HUAWEI on the backs of their guernseys. A success, I decided. An obvious perhaps minimal success, but a success nevertheless. Good luck to them, I thought. Now let's see what you can do next, Tony.

As we speak, on Traeger Park, the Suns are running around with HUAWEI missing from the back of their guernseys, replaced by zero evidence that they flew to China and played a match there at all.

The last bit of the article makes its clear we have to find a bigger and better opponent.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...l/news-story/acabe75dc5abe0ce0f2a83c3df2d4af7
It’s a little-known fact that Koch has more emotional skin in this game than just his desire for his football club to become a sports business heavyweight. Koch’s father was an entrepreneur who traded in China in the 1970s, and was a pioneer in opening doors between the countries through his involvement in the coal industry.
..........
Both personally and as Port Adelaide chairman, Koch can’t let this China move fail. As important as this year’s event was, it was essentially only a pilot game, and the Suns a crash test dummy. Next season’s event is the one that needs to succeed.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...l/news-story/acabe75dc5abe0ce0f2a83c3df2d4af7

It really is a surprise at how negative the Suns attitude to the venture was given on face value they seem natural partners to push football growth with over there. The region already has reasonable connection to China through tourism, yet did not appear to embrace this side of things at all taking a very narrow minded view over there that was all just for a football game.

Geelong are a high class off-field outfit with some very savvy operators so I don't think they'll be so complacent. I agree that ultimately growth does depend upon the backing of two clubs - whilst I think we can and will continue to make the venture successful for ourselves, for sustainability purposes on a more holistic longer term view, a second club embracing the concept will be of great benefit.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

It really is a surprise at how negative the Suns attitude to the venture was given on face value they seem natural partners to push football growth with over there. The region already has reasonable connection to China through tourism, yet did not appear to embrace this side of things at all taking a very narrow minded view over there that was all just for a football game.

Geelong are a high class off-field outfit with some very savvy operators so I don't think they'll be so complacent. I agree that ultimately growth does depend upon the backing of two clubs - whilst I think we can and will continue to make the venture successful for ourselves, for sustainability purposes on a more holistic longer term view, a second club embracing the concept will be of great benefit.

Part of it was because they didn't have the resources. Caro wrote an article about it and they had about 6 or 7 key positions in corporate areas that were vacant. I'm on the GC and this morning I went for a long walk with a mate who spent a couple of hours talking to the Mayor yesterday at a function. He said Tom Tate was pretty positive about the Shanghai experience and the business opportunities for the Gold Coast as a city. But that's because the GCCC had staff to work on the opportunity unike the Suns.

 

[Hellgood]

Part of it was because they didn't have the resources. Caro wrote an article about it and they had about 6 or 7 key positions in corporate areas that were vacant. I'm on the GC and this morning I went for a long walk with a mate who spent a couple of hours talking to the Mayor yesterday at a function. He said Tom Tate was pretty positive about the Shanghai experience and the business opportunities for the Gold Coast as a city. But that's because the GCCC had staff to work on the opportunity unike the Suns.

Out of interest why are they short staffed? The region is hardly a dead zone for business/enterprise minded people and Shepherd & Auld are no dummys when it comes to operations. Could hardly imagine the AFL would not be willing to assist in setting them up for off-field success either.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Out of interest why are they short staffed? The region is hardly a dead zone for business/enterprise minded people and Shepherd & Auld are no dummys when it comes to operations. Could hardly imagine the AFL would not be willing to assist in setting them up for off-field success either.

Go to the Age and search Caro's article and she might reveal why. I'm on my phone for most of the day so can't link it but look for Caro's article post game day on 14th May.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Out of interest why are they short staffed? The region is hardly a dead zone for business/enterprise minded people and Shepherd & Auld are no dummys when it comes to operations. Could hardly imagine the AFL would not be willing to assist in setting them up for off-field success either.

Shepherd is Chairman of GWS and Auld left GC to go work at the AFL at end of 2015 footy season.

 

[ROBBBO]

Im guessing if there are 5 or more teams interested in china next season then maybe a bidding war might start lowering our costs ??

Any word of the TV ratings in China yet ? I cant find anything

 

[Hellgood]

Shepherd is Chairman of GWS and Auld left GC to go work at the AFL at end of 2015 footy season.

Ugh, I manged the double fail of mixing Shepherd with Cochrane and Auld with Evans...

 

[chiwigi]

Part of it was because they didn't have the resources. Caro wrote an article about it and they had about 6 or 7 key positions in corporate areas that were vacant. I'm on the GC and this morning I went for a long walk with a mate who spent a couple of hours talking to the Mayor yesterday at a function. He said Tom Tate was pretty positive about the Shanghai experience and the business opportunities for the Gold Coast as a city. But that's because the GCCC had staff to work on the opportunity unike the Suns.

They were given $500,000. I'm sure they could have invested some of that into their venture.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

They were given $500,000. I'm sure they could have invested some of that into their venture.

I'm sure they could have but was the $500k used to plug gaps in the footy department hole? When they had a CEO that the Chair was trying to kick out for several months and then a new CEO sent from the AFL in to fix the footy department mess first, the China game didn't take a high priority.

We have restructured our set up so Ken reports directly to Chris Davies not to KT who has to spend more time on China and other business stuff. Evans was sent in by the AFL to fix up the footy department first.

I'm not excusing the Suns, they did a piss poor job and missed an opportunity. But there weren't a hell of a lot of clubs interested in playing the game as the guinea pig club and an AFL owned club ie either Suns or Giants were always going to be preferred/pushed/allocated - whatever you want to call it - first cab off the rank.

Just look at the staff levels at both clubs and you can see that they weren't going to give this red hot go. Then you have the volunteer pool to call on and corporate and other connections as well.

http://www.portadelaidefc.com.au/club/administration/staff
http://www.goldcoastfc.com.au/club/our-people

Now that all clubs have seen the possibilities and opportunities and that Port want and need a bigger club, the price to sell a home game has probably doubled, you will see a different approach by the club that gets to sell their home game to Port for Shanghai 2.0.

 

[El Zorro]

I'm sure they could have but was the $500k used to plug gaps in the footy department hole? When they had a CEO that the Chair was trying to kick out for several months and then a new CEO sent from the AFL in to fix the footy department mess first, the China game didn't take a high priority.

We have restructured our set up so Ken reports directly to Chris Davies not to KT who has to spend more time on China and other business stuff. Evans was sent in by the AFL to fix up the footy department first.

I'm not excusing the Suns, they did a piss poor job and missed an opportunity. But there weren't a hell of a lot of clubs interested in playing the game as the guinea pig club and an AFL owned club ie either Suns or Giants were always going to be preferred/pushed/allocated - whatever you want to call it - first cab off the rank.

Just look at the staff levels at both clubs and you can see that they weren't going to give this red hot go. Then you have the volunteer pool to call on and corporate and other connections as well.

http://www.portadelaidefc.com.au/club/administration/staff
http://www.goldcoastfc.com.au/club/our-people

Now that all clubs have seen the possibilities and opportunities and that Port want and need a bigger club, the price to sell a home game has probably doubled, you will see a different approach by the club that gets to sell their home game to Port for Shanghai 2.0.

The ever expanding Football operations staff roster has been worrying me for a while. I am not sure we are spending our money wisely there. But that's a discussion for another thread I suppose.

The main difference is that we have a group of 6 people fully dedicated to the China initiative that other clubs naturally don't have. However GC has enough BD, Ops and marketing people to allow them to do a better job that what they did. I think the main problem was at the top (ie. distracted leadership) rather than actual resources.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

The ever expanding Football operations staff roster has been worrying me for a while. I am not sure we are spending our money wisely there. But that's a discussion for another thread I suppose.

The main difference is that we have a group of 6 people fully dedicated to the China initiative that other clubs naturally don't have. However GC has enough BD, Ops and marketing people to allow them to do a better job that what they did. I think the main problem was at the top (ie. distracted leadership) rather than actual resources.

I don't really care how big or small the football department is and the expenditure involved, provided we are getting the right people in there and are AFL best practice, or very close to it if we cant get the best. Example is Hawthorn's skills acquisition and kicking coach David Rath. I would rather have him than 3 development coaches as he is the best in the business. I would rather have 3 David Raths, blowing out the footy ops expenditure, than our current kicking coaching.

There is a cap on footy department spending before a 75% tax is applied to expenditure over the cap. I don't think Port will be spending over the cap for a few years yet. See

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-04-02/making-the-new-cap-fit

 

[El Zorro]

... provided we are getting the right people in there and are AFL best practice... ...I would rather have him [David Rath] than 3 development coaches ...

That's exactly my point. I feel we've gone for quantity over quality over the past few years.

 

[Tibbs]

That's exactly my point. I feel we've gone for quantity over quality over the past few years.

Really? How do you know this? So who exactly have we employed that fits into the "quantity not quality" bracket?

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Sav Rocca appears to have made a half decent kick out of Levi Casboult.

I would be all for spending some money on specialist coaches to improve specific skills.

I know RussellEbertHandball would agree with a full time strength/grappling/wrestling coach.

 

[Coobk001]

Not the right thread but I'd love someone to work with Westhoff on that note. The guy has got an action that is technically fine, if we could remove the mental demons through developing a routine that is all about the process maybe we could fix it.

 

[manureid]

Not the right thread but I'd love someone to work with Westhoff on that note. The guy has got an action that is technically fine, if we could remove the mental demons through developing a routine that is all about the process maybe we could fix it.

Lol.. Yeh, Westhoff is a lost cause. Ain't no Psych fixing that up.

 

[chiwigi]

Not the right thread but I'd love someone to work with Westhoff on that note. The guy has got an action that is technically fine, if we could remove the mental demons through developing a routine that is all about the process maybe we could fix it.

Footy is not a priority in his mind, it is a means to a fast approaching end.
Time for new blood (and I have been one of his biggest defenders).

 

[afl2004]

Pernix on our sponsor board during eberts press conference. So another company signed on if im not behind on club sponsors

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Pernix on our sponsor board during eberts press conference. So another company signed on if im not behind on club sponsors

They were mentioned on page 242 and 243 of this thread on 16th and 17th May. They came on board officially for the West Coast game and were there the next week in Shanghai. They are a big data services and infrastructure group.

They have a s**t load of data centres around the globe. A cut and paste from their site. See

http://pernix.com.au/
We are seasoned data experts and business builders. Pernix provides end-to-end data solutions aimed at driving better commercial outcomes for your business.

We are industry leaders in data sourcing, capture, harvest, transformation, analysis, interpretation and application of business context. Our focus is on the right solutions and outcomes for your business.
....
SPORTS
Powering on and off-field performance for better talent acquisition, game day outcomes and enhanced spectator experience.
http://pernix.com.au/

From the boss - Jarrad Taylor's blog in March this year
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pernix-road-usa-jarrad-taylor?trk=mp-reader-card

Well it’s been a busy couple of weeks! Myself and two other Pernix executives have just spent the last 13 days traveling around the US including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Antonio and San Francisco meeting with NFL/NHL/NBA organisations.

We were lucky enough to spend time with the strength & conditioning, medical, strategy & analytics and management teams of some of the highest performing clubs and have gained some invaluable insight and direction for our high performance sport platform and a greater understanding for club engagement models.

We also had the opportunity to attend the MIT Sports Analytics conference <http://www.sloansportsconference.com/current/>, for a sports mad analytical geek like myself, this was like being a kid in a candy shop. We took in as much as we could and made some truly amazing connections.

We finished the trip with a visit to our Partner Informatica’s Executive Briefing Centre to talk through some of the emerging technology in the data integration & MDM, big data & IoT and data security space which we will be taking to market. Finally we had a great meeting with a future partner (details of which will be disclosed in the coming months.)

 

[Steve Dore]

Pernix on our sponsor board during eberts press conference. So another company signed on if im not behind on club sponsors

Two weeks

 

[OneGreatClub]

They were mentioned on page 242 and 243 of this thread on 16th and 17th May. They came on board officially for the West Coast game and were there the next week in Shanghai. They are a big data services and infrastructure group.

They have a s**t load of data centres around the globe. A cut and paste from their site. See

http://pernix.com.au/
We are seasoned data experts and business builders. Pernix provides end-to-end data solutions aimed at driving better commercial outcomes for your business.

We are industry leaders in data sourcing, capture, harvest, transformation, analysis, interpretation and application of business context. Our focus is on the right solutions and outcomes for your business.
....
SPORTS
Powering on and off-field performance for better talent acquisition, game day outcomes and enhanced spectator experience.
http://pernix.com.au/

From the boss - Jarrad Taylor's blog in March this year
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pernix-road-usa-jarrad-taylor?trk=mp-reader-card

Well it’s been a busy couple of weeks! Myself and two other Pernix executives have just spent the last 13 days traveling around the US including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, San Antonio and San Francisco meeting with NFL/NHL/NBA organisations.

We were lucky enough to spend time with the strength & conditioning, medical, strategy & analytics and management teams of some of the highest performing clubs and have gained some invaluable insight and direction for our high performance sport platform and a greater understanding for club engagement models.

We also had the opportunity to attend the MIT Sports Analytics conference <http://www.sloansportsconference.com/current/>, for a sports mad analytical geek like myself, this was like being a kid in a candy shop. We took in as much as we could and made some truly amazing connections.

We finished the trip with a visit to our Partner Informatica’s Executive Briefing Centre to talk through some of the emerging technology in the data integration & MDM, big data & IoT and data security space which we will be taking to market. Finally we had a great meeting with a future partner (details of which will be disclosed in the coming months.)

exciting

 

[Grave Danger]

Pernix on our sponsor board during eberts press conference. So another company signed on if im not behind on club sponsors

Clearly a CIA/NSA front - keeping a watchful eye on our involvement with Chinese companies/government

 

[jac147]

For season 2018 Port would have most things set in place for the game in Shanghai. If the opposition team wants to get the most out of their game in China I would think that they would need to start their planning now.
This means that an announcement for who that other team will be, should be made pretty soon.
Would that be a fair assumption?

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

For season 2018 Port would have most things set in place for the game in Shanghai. If the opposition team wants to get the most out of their game in China I would think that they would need to start their planning now.
This means that an announcement for who that other team will be, should be made pretty soon.
Would that be a fair assumption?

Yes and no.

Port have to develop the game in China - Shanghai in particular and now Xian thru the MJK sponsorship, so those resources have to be allocated and planned out. The other team don't have to do that. Basically they have to get hotel, travel, food, type logistics right and also they have to work out a corporate strategy. Unlike Port they don't have to deal with stadium owners, caterers, police, security, the mayors office, grass growers, stadium redevelopment companies, marketing companies, organise gala functions for sponsors etc etc to get the game on and functioning.

So the other club don't really need to know before end of August, if they are going as they would devote little time to it before then. The big thing is the date the game is played and that only is revealed in late October.

A round 8 game means that the other team would have minimal pre game time in China/Shanghai. But if you put the game on say the Sunday before the Thursday night Carlton v Richmond season opener as I have suggested, and the 2 teams get the bye whilst the other 16 finish Rd 1 over the next weekend, then both teams could be in China for 10-14 days doing Auskick type stuff, promo work and importantly work their corporate partners harder.

Say Geelong come on board for 2018 and they have a couple of sponsors or potential sponsors in Tianjin population 15 million up north, close to Beijing about 120km away and one of the tier 1 cities and one of the 5 national central cities - a port town just like Geelong. They could spend say 8-9 days in Tianjin promiting the game and working the corporates and then 4 days in Shanghai before game day. That would require a lot more work and resources and Geelong people going to Tianjin several times before that 8 or 9 days.

 

[jac147]

Thank you for all of the above. It certainly was an eye opener. I know next years fixture has a lot to do with the announcement.
I only want the opposition team to get the most they can get from this China experience so that those media w***ers, etc can stop their complete negativity to this exciting opportunity, not like the way the Suns approached it.


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