Paying back the 500 million dollars

[Kwality]

a speculative western Sydney team because of future growth projections

Correction, currently 2.5 million people live west of Parramatta & it continues to grow.

 

[The 747]

Do Inner suburban based teams really represent growing outer suburbs ?

Not really, the bigger clubs have supporters everywhere but there is rough set of areas - St Kilda south east, Hawthorn outer east, Bulldogs west, Geelong regional west.

St Kilda should be able to do better with where they are positioned but St Kilda gonna St Kilda.

North for whatever reason - and a North poster would know more about this than me - did not manage to convert sustained on field success in the 90s (and they drew big crowds too) into larger support 20-30 years later. North Melbourne is not in an optimal area geographically, somewhat like Port Melbourne and why they never made it up to the VFL.

 

[Kwality]

Not really, the bigger clubs have supporters everywhere but there is rough set of areas - St Kilda south east, Hawthorn outer east, Bulldogs west, Geelong regional west.

St Kilda should be able to do better with where they are positioned but St Kilda gonna St Kilda.

North for whatever reason - and a North poster would know more about this than me - did not manage to convert sustained on field success in the 90s (and they drew big crowds too) into larger support 20-30 years later. North Melbourne is not in an optimal area geographically, somewhat like Port Melbourne and why they never made it up to the VFL.

Geelong yep but Footiscray changed their name to the Western bulldogs for a reason & based on what I've seen it made zip difference (correct me if I'm wrong) so they're our to Ballarat noe.
The Saints went down the Peninsula to Seaford & screwed the locals because the coffee was OKM but the latte set didnt move down too, so they went back to Moorabin.
Melbourne are out at Casey Fields, where is that again ....

The State league clubs across the country have similarly placed, bunched up in the inner city.

 

[The 747]

Geelong yep but Footiscray changed their name to the Western bulldogs for a reason & based on what I've seen it made zip difference (correct me if I'm wrong) so they're our to Ballarat noe.
The Saints went down the Peninsula to Seaford & screwed the locals because the coffee was OKM but the latte set didnt move down too, so they went back to Moorabin.
Melbourne are out at Casey Fields, where is that again ....

The State league clubs across the country have similarly placed, bunched up in the inner city.

Pretty much, not sure why they didn't just stay Footscray, it is the major urban area in the west - it is actually massive size wise have a look on the map. Collingwood as a suburb is a tiny little pocket of land in the inner city and they didn't need to change their name.

Saints are just rubbish administratively, Moorabbin is not exactly latte set. It's pretty shitty but there are lots of v nice subrbs in the south by the beach with lots of $$$$.

Melbourne as you have pointed out have the MCC so it doesn't really matter.

 

[Linda Lovelace]

Correction, currently 2.5 million people live west of Parramatta & it continues to grow.

If you are going to be a pedant and correct someone, it helps to make sure your own reading comprehension isn't the problem. No sh*t that more people live in western Sydney than western Melbourne - if you live 8kms east of Sydney's CBD then your neigbours are dolphins.

But I said 'fastest growing' i.e rate of growth. There is not an existing construct of 'west' Sydney that is growing at a faster rate than the constructs representing west Melbourne, namely the ABS SA4 regions of Melbourne - West and Melbourne - North West. Bigger population = yes. Growing at a faster rate = no.

The Dogs changed their name to 'Western' so they could market themselves towards a particular region, just like GWS.

The difference with the Dogs is that they do have a decent regional identity foothold and there is a good reason to believe they will grow as the population grows rapidly. People in Western Sydney will never give a sh*t about the Giants no matter how many more people we fill it up with. So based on the AFL's own 'growth model', they would be incredibly dumb let the Dogs die (and they aren't that dumb).

 

[The_Wookie]

Are you assuming the AFL are making money out of Docklands or can you direct us to the Annual Report that supports that proposition?

2019 - AFL made an operating profit of 3.2m, but lost 3.6m after interest.
2018 - AFL made an operating profit of 1.4m, but lost 6.0m after interest.

The AFL may not be able to make money on Docklands yes. They borrowed $180 mil when they got the stadium for $1 or so we are told.

They bought the stadium 9 years early, it cost them more than 200m, and they borrowed 280m as they also had to pay for the assets of Stadium Operations Limited.

The AFL are rolling in money or so we are told.

They generally are, particularly when compared to their competitors.

The AFL ran at a loss a few years back because they spent more money than they earned, thats a fact.

 

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

Step 1 in Operation Repay already taken effect

Shorten the game to increase ad revenue. The end result is we get less football and less entertainment and they get more money.....

 

[The_Wookie]

Step 1 in Operation Repay already taken effect

Shorten the game to increase ad revenue. The end result is we get less football and less entertainment and they get more money.....

Seven have also said they intend to show less ads though. The compression of the game time leads to increased ratings...higher ad rates. Im not saying its a good thing, im saying it makes commercial sense.

 

[Our Game]

Seven have also said they intend to show less ads though. The compression of the game time leads to increased ratings...higher ad rates. Im not saying its a good thing, im saying it makes commercial sense.

I reckon the shorter game is here to stay!

 

[Kwality]

Step 1 in Operation Repay already taken effect

Shorten the game to increase ad revenue. The end result is we get less football and less entertainment and they get more money.....

How is the advertising market looking?

 

[Kwality]

They bought the stadium 9 years early, it cost them more than 200m, and they borrowed 280m as they also had to pay for the assets of Stadium Operations Limited.

What is the time frame on the borrowings of $280 mil - I was referring to borrowings at the time the AFL took over the facility.

 

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

Seven have also said they intend to show less ads though. The compression of the game time leads to increased ratings...higher ad rates. Im not saying its a good thing, im saying it makes commercial sense.

This is tooth fairy type stuff. If you look closely they are trying to sneak in a 10 minute betting preview from Pointsbet into each game. Trialled it on 2 games this weekend. Gold Coast and Eagles for example had a 10 min betting preview as a program in the TV guide. Its clear as day they are trying to sneak advertisements in that are classified as programs so they can sell us more crap.

 

[Kwality]

AFL cashing in some real estate at Docklands:

NoCookies | The Australian

www.theaustralian.com.au

'Footy fans could find themselves living on the doorstep of Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium after development company Grocon swooped on a site next to the venue in a deal with the AFL.

The planned $67m tower was to have been developed by the AFL itself but it abandoned its plans, partly due to the financial hit suffered from the coronavirus crisis.

...

The developer and the AFL declined to comment on Tuesday night but a Grollo-linked entity had put a caveat on the property.
The effective on-sale of the Dockland’s site after the AFL had earlier agreed terms with a Chinese developer strengthens the league’s position as it emerges from the coronavirus lockdown.'

 

[big_e]

Not really, the bigger clubs have supporters everywhere but there is rough set of areas - St Kilda south east, Hawthorn outer east, Bulldogs west, Geelong regional west.

St Kilda should be able to do better with where they are positioned but St Kilda gonna St Kilda.

North for whatever reason - and a North poster would know more about this than me - did not manage to convert sustained on field success in the 90s (and they drew big crowds too) into larger support 20-30 years later. North Melbourne is not in an optimal area geographically, somewhat like Port Melbourne and why they never made it up to the VFL.

Few things re North.

Club was floated in the mid 1980s, and once you have shareholders there is a need for a profit. Which pushes you to do things like develop new supporter bases. In our case, interstate. But a few poorly attended years in Sydney, then Canberra then Gold Coast gave the impression that we were mercenaries and homeless. Being known simply as The Kangaroos helped to remove our identity and damaged the brand.

It's also worth noting that the massive growth in memberships across the league began after our 90s premierships. So the ability to deepen the relationship with supporters and convert them from attendees to members - with the attendant growth in recurring revenue, etc - wasn't really available to us.

Administration in the early part of this century wasn't much chop, either. Constant speculation about the future of the club, including relocation talk, doesn't help, but most of the damage was self-inflicted.

Basically the club gave supporters lots of excuses to sit on their hands, and they did.

 

[Kwality]

Western Melbourne is the fastest growing place in the country,

But I said 'fastest growing' i.e rate of growth.

 

[Freomaniac]

Step 1 in Operation Repay already taken effect

Shorten the game to increase ad revenue. The end result is we get less football and less entertainment and they get more money.....

sounds about right

 

[Our Game]

Geelong yep but Footiscray changed their name to the Western bulldogs for a reason & based on what I've seen it made zip difference (correct me if I'm wrong) so they're our to Ballarat noe.
The Saints went down the Peninsula to Seaford & screwed the locals because the coffee was OKM but the latte set didnt move down too, so they went back to Moorabin.
Melbourne are out at Casey Fields, where is that again ....

The State league clubs across the country have similarly placed, bunched up in the inner city.

A friend of mine worked at Western Bulldogs and told me about 60% of the members live in the east!They used to hold two family days one in Footscray and one in the eastern suburbs.

Essendon and Geelong have good support in the west.