Five years on ...

[Kaiser Powser]

Just because North are keeping afloat doen't make the club viable. The costs for being competitive are going up, better equipment, more coaches and support staff, end of season trips for altitude training, it all costs $$$. North might be able to stay alive and pay their bills just barely with AFL assistance, but they're not going to achieve anything of note but maybe a first week of finals bombout. If you're fine with keeping them in that zombie like state where they'll be in hte league but not achieving anything of note, fine, but I think it'll be fairly clear in a few years that the best option was to move.

Money doesn't guarantee success. Just like a lack of it doesn't mean you cannot succeed. If North draft and recruit well, there is no reason they can't succeed.

 

[MaddAdam]

Just because North are keeping afloat doen't make the club viable. The costs for being competitive are going up, better equipment, more coaches and support staff, end of season trips for altitude training, it all costs $$$. North might be able to stay alive and pay their bills just barely with AFL assistance, but they're not going to achieve anything of note but maybe a first week of finals bombout. If you're fine with keeping them in that zombie like state where they'll be in hte league but not achieving anything of note, fine, but I think it'll be fairly clear in a few years that the best option was to move.

I know. In fact, given Collingwood are now copying us and going to Utah, we should be alright.

On your final point ... how many years? Or will you keep saying this indefinetely?

 

[Doss]

Again though, Zahki, that assumes that moving to Gold Coast would have been a panacea. I think there is a decent case to be made that it would not have been so, and would have drained a massive amount of money from the AFL in the long-term.

I just find it very hard to imagine the Gold Coast Roos gaining any sort of traction in that market- they would have been unfashionable imports, in a less favourable position, arguably, than South Melbourne ever found themselves in once they moved to Sydney. At least the Suns can claim some sort of authenticity as a home-grown enterprise.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

Did anyone actually believe North would have folded by now? A club hasn't folded in almost 100 years. That was just bigfooty bullshit, like Heppell being called soft.

Alan Jones would be proud of that.

 

[boncer34]

LOL. You are obviously simple and unable to comprehend fairly basic concepts.

I bid you good day.

Bid me good day as you can't provide any of the proof to back up your claims?

Thats ok with me.

 

[MaddAdam]

What has changed is the AFL and the Victorian media have simply gone down the VicCentricity model. The AFL have given up on the fleeting idea of having a more equitable and fairer national competition and basically gone back to a VFL with add ons model. The add ons are there to feather the nest of the Victorian footy industry. The Victorian media finally came to the realisation that buggering off Melbourne clubs was actually detrimental to themselves therefore stopped advocating it and no doubt the Victorian government have a direct line to AFL House whereby the "AFL footy industry" is big business as well as being a major tourist spinner.

There's actual a great deal of sense in this post, especially the last bits.

 

[THRILLHO]

Be serious... North offered Buckley their senior coaching gig on the back of a year doing TV special comments.

Which forced Maguire to set up his ill-fated succession plan, forced Malthouse out of coaching after taking the side to a premiership and a grand final, where he bitterly stewed in the media for a year, and then took up the Carlton job out of spite setting up one of the most interesting storylines for 2013, while the new boy in charge could only manage to get the side to a preliminary final.

You're welcome AFL.

 

[Zahki]

Money doesn't guarantee success. Just like a lack of it doesn't mean you cannot succeed. If North draft and recruit well, there is no reason they can't succeed.

I didn't say it guaranteed success. The gap between the haves and have nots will be obvious though, in fact I'd say it already is. The only 'poor' club out of North, Bulldogs, Port and Melbourne that made finals was North and they got flogged. The top 7 were all wealthy well resourced clubs, I expect this trend to continue.

 

[THRILLHO]

Also, it's kinda stupid to start a thread about North's finances on the main board, during school holidays no less.

Something about (stupid) bees and a honeypot.

 

[lethal03]

The AFL knows the market there is rusted on footy and will watch games anyway. If anything, the AFL now uses Tassie as a means to provide financial support to Melbourne clubs on the sly - Hawthorn and North (to a greater extent).

Hawthorn negotiated the original and current deal with the Tas Govt, the AFL has nothing to do with it. In fact they recently offered the HFC the farm to relinquish said contract! North are reliant on revenue supplied by the AFL.

 

[MaddAdam]

I didn't say it guaranteed success. The gap between the haves and have nots will be obvious though, in fact I'd say it already is. The only 'poor' club out of North, Bulldogs, Port and Melbourne that made finals was North and they got flogged. The top 7 were all wealthy well resourced clubs, I expect this trend to continue.

In the era of drafting and the salary cap, North and Collingwood have both won two flags.

Us getting flogged had nothing to do with money, it was to do with the fact that a bunch of kids who had run out of petrol tickets two weeks before came up against a very good side at their interstate fortress.

 

[MaddAdam]

Bid me good day as you can't provide any of the proof to back up your claims?

Thats ok with me.

You got an proof the AFL "props" up North?

No.

 

[MaddAdam]

Also, it's kinda stupid to start a thread about North's finances on the main board, during school holidays no less.

Something about (stupid) bees and a honeypot.

Its not about North's finances. It is about what we've learned about how footy works in the five years since the GC stuff.

 

[Zahki]

In the era of drafting and the salary cap, North and Collingwood have both won two flags.

The AFL in 2012 is incomparable in professionalism to the AFL of the 1990s. Hell even earlier this decade things still weren't anywhere close to the standard they are now in terms of Australian Rules being a truely professional sport. he early drafts were little more than clubs taking turns in a lucky dip, thats how unsophisticated they were compared to now where clubs have entire departments dedicated to watching junior football all year round.

Us getting flogged had nothing to do with money, it was to do with the fact that a bunch of kids who had run out of petrol tickets two weeks before came up against a very good side at their interstate fortress.

And Port, Melbourne and Bulldogs missing finals isn't entirely to do with their lack of funds either. But it's going to make the climb to get competitive with the best clubs that much harder, and in a competition this even you can't afford to be coming from behind. Especially with Free Agency, Essendon just snapped up a huge name in Brendan Goddard, you think North will be doing the same any time soon? You think North Melbourne will EVER be as desirable a destination for players as Essendon with all their corporate sponsors and coterie groups?

It's possible that North can win a flag, possible, but far less likely than a club with money to burn. And it will get harder every year the gap grows wider. Eventually North sitting in limbo is going to lead to a drop in membership and then the problem grows even bigger.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

You think North Melbourne will EVER be as desirable a destination for players as Essendon with all their corporate sponsors and coterie groups?

Do you honestly believe that players go to clubs because of their sponsors and coterie members?

Are you referring to salary cap rorting amongst the larger clubs?

 

[Black Diamond]

Can you post quotes?

Go back to about page 1000 on the main board. I checked them out a few weeks ago and it is truly appalling stuff.

 

[MaddAdam]

Especially with Free Agency, Essendon just snapped up a huge name in Brendan Goddard, you think North will be doing the same any time soon? You think North Melbourne will EVER be as desirable a destination for players as Essendon with all their corporate sponsors and coterie groups?

Then why did none of the players targeted by the expansion clubs leave North? Why did Carey never leave despite Collingwood routinely offering him the world? Why did Boomer Harvey never take up any of the many offers given to him.

The biggest name player to leave North is living memory is Josh Gibson and while Josh has done well at Hawthorn, he wasn't Brendon Goddard when he left North.

The money thing is so overblown, especially when, as the point of the thread is, we've learned over the last five years the AFL will take drastic steps to ensure the evenness of the competition.

It isn't North falling behinds forever that will happen, it will be Collingwood being limited in what it can spend.

 

[Zahki]

Do you honestly believe that players go to clubs because of their sponsors and coterie members?

Of course not. Who really believes someone like Judd would go to Carlton because one of their sponsors would give him a lucrative job for doing nothing? Or that Goddard would go to Essendon because an influential supporter offered him a job after he retires, such things are nonsense. Clubs having their sponsors and wealthy supporters assist in getting big name players, pfft, nonsense!

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

Of course not. Who really believes someone like Judd would go to Carlton because one of their sponsors would give him a lucrative job for doing nothing? Or that Goddard would go to Essendon because an influential supporter offered him a job after he retires, such things are nonsense. Clubs having their sponsors and wealthy supporters assist in getting big name players, pfft, nonsense!

If that's going on across the board in the AFL then it is only a matter of time before it is uncovered and the clubs in question will be penalised severely.

 

[Bardo State]

I don't think people quite understand the financial impact of a club merging or folding. You can't just look at the yearly bottom line and say 'we will save $x every year.' Ultimately, the AFL loses a game every week, people become disinterested in the sport having lost their club and are not giving their money to the AFL every year and it ultimately costs the AFL a lot of money.

Even with relocation, you would have much more success with a new team with its own identity than something that was just dumped there as a last resort and you will still have a large portion of fans from the original club will no longer be putting their money into the AFL.

Are 9 teams in Melbourne ideal? No, certainly not but under the current system you can't just get rid of or merge two or three of them without massive loss of revenue.

 

[MaddAdam]

Of course not. Who really believes someone like Judd would go to Carlton because one of their sponsors would give him a lucrative job for doing nothing? Or that Goddard would go to Essendon because an influential supporter offered him a job after he retires, such things are nonsense. Clubs having their sponsors and wealthy supporters assist in getting big name players, pfft, nonsense!

I think you're missing the point. ALL clubs have very wealthy supporters and so on. The reason North is a small club isn't a lack of wealthy supporters, it is a series of historical confluences that meant our catchment area was small.

The first is the fact that colonial planners decided to allow teeming slums to grow up around the Yarra tanneries and factories at Collingwood.

If the geography (physical, social and economic) had been different and those slums had been by the tanneries and factories around where the Moonee Ponds Creek meets the Saltwater River, I'd be sitting here in patronising gold Homer mode talking about North's mighty cotorie groups and you'd be talking up the fact that boys from the small but vibrant suburb of Collingwood, best known for its lovely convent, had still managed to win two flags in the current era.

 

[Silvagnis]

I feel for the South Melbourne fans after they moved to Sydney and won two flags.

Ditto Fitzroy after they were merged with the Bears.

Also, it's kinda stupid to start a thread about North's finances on the main board, during school holidays no less.

Something about (stupid) bees and a honeypot.

Did you expect a DOS thread to go another way?

North supporters on BF are like the Black Knight.

 

[Zahki]

If that's going on across the board in the AFL then it is only a matter of time before it is uncovered and the clubs in question will be penalised severely.

Hahaha, yeah. Alright, we'll keep waiting for AFL to uncover that bombshell. Heath Shaw posted a pic of his new Lexus on twitter a couple of years ago, I don't think the players are worried about the AFL investigating any time soon.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

Hahaha, yeah. Alright, we'll keep waiting for AFL to uncover that bombshell. Heath Shaw posted a pic of his new Lexus on twitter a couple of years ago, I don't think the players are worried about the AFL investigating any time soon.

Sooner or later someone will crack the shits and come forward or be overheard and recorded.

It can't go on forever.

 

[Jcpdragonx]

OP is actually saying "North's decision to not move was a fantastic one u mad Port another other poor clubs".

Don't speak too soon.