Tim Lane - Time for a Tasmanian Team

Tas

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There can be only one...
You are kidding arent you?

West Coast have operating revenues over 50% higher than Norf. We made a profit of $5m in 2006. We won a flag. We averaged more fans in Melbourne than a Melbourne based side (Norf) who argue that they need more home games to maximise revenue and yet you cant outdraw an interstate side?

North are so far off the mark it isnt funny. Your claims to massive crowds, bandwagon etc are laughable. It didnt happen in the 90's when you had your greatest side and player.

The WAFC rent arrangment with West Coast is complex but has been published and discussed on this board. The 30k breakeven at $5.5million is just a couple of numbers pulled out of your arse.

North are a rabble.

West Coast are the definitive anti-Norf. We are everything a modern club should be, Norf hark back to a pre-war era of chook raffles and friends and relations. Ahhh, the good old days.
You are typical of the average Western Australian poster, have your head shoved so far up your arse you are posting ****.

If you do not believe what I have posted about break even marks for melbourne stadiums then research it, you will find plenty of media reports in the Melbourne papers, most will be from the Geelong CEO who has researched the cost to his club of being forced to play more and more games at TD/MCG for home games rather than at Skilled.

We did benefit from the 90s era, in 1990 we averaged 22k for games in Melbourne, by 96 we had around 12k members. Despite having a lean rebuilding period since 2000 we have more than doubled our membership and the average attendance to our games in Melbourne have close to doubling.

The off-field issues have been a significant obstacle reducing the extent of that growth. We still have one of the largest group of junior supporters, there is the potential to significantly increase our supporter/membership base.
 

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santa claws

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I attended many a GF at that hole of a place ..and let me tell you there were never 22,000 there...10,000 would fill the place to bursting point ...oh and did i mention it was a hole.

who cares if Hobart is the largest city ..the only thing that matters is the population distribution of the state ...after all we are discussing a Tasmanian side not a Hobart side
talk about having to deal with people who sprout of at the mouth who know nothing of the subject they are talking about.
theres an old saying mate. some times it better to remain quiet and be thought a fool. than to speak and remove all doubt.
 

deck

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I'd be quite happy for the AFL to fund a team from Tasmania. That fact that they are one of the four traditional states, it is a disgrace that they don't have a team in the AFL.
 

santa claws

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Of course the North on the whole is more popultated than the south because down south there is Hobart and its outer suburbs, then wilderness and thats it.

To the North of the state, you have Launceston, Burnie and Devonport which are highly populated, but are a few hours apart from each other.

Hobart has the more condensed population, and is by far larger than Launcestion, Burnie and Devonport by themselves.

As for the weather its not too bad. Not much colder than Melbourne in the winter, and in the summer it gets pretty warm, but not the stinker you get in other parts of Australia.

Plus being so close to the hole in the ozone layer, you can really feel the heat too. Doesnt take much for you to get burnt.
yep spot on 203k people concentrated in hobart. 100k in launceston with the bulk of the rest around burnie and devonport. theres no way people from the northwest will drive to launceston for a game of footy. just like people from the south wont drive to launceston. this being the case logic says put the team where the biggest concentration of people are hobart.

stadiums can be built and supporter bases to. corporate dollars would come once nation wide exposure was achieved by playing in the afl. but the travel issue is a killer.

one thing for sure bellerive oval is big enough for afl footy it would be good for hobart to get games as well as york park. build a 30000 seat stadium or refurbish tca bellerive in hobart and you will fill it.
 

Eagle87

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You are typical of the average Western Australian poster, have your head shoved so far up your arse you are posting ****.

If you do not believe what I have posted about break even marks for melbourne stadiums then research it, you will find plenty of media reports in the Melbourne papers, most will be from the Geelong CEO who has researched the cost to his club of being forced to play more and more games at TD/MCG for home games rather than at Skilled.

We did benefit from the 90s era, in 1990 we averaged 22k for games in Melbourne, by 96 we had around 12k members. Despite having a lean rebuilding period since 2000 we have more than doubled our membership and the average attendance to our games in Melbourne have close to doubling.

The off-field issues have been a significant obstacle reducing the extent of that growth. We still have one of the largest group of junior supporters, there is the potential to significantly increase our supporter/membership base.
Well, I may be typical of Western Australian posters but as someone who lives O/S and has spent much of the last 2 years in Melbourne, I bring something most Victorians struggle with and that is perspective.

I have seen the 30k breakeven mark discussed, I have also seen various other numbers thrown about and seen discussions of different venues costs and so on. The reality is, if you had 40,000+ season ticket holders who were also members ala West Coast no problem would exist with your ground arrangements.

You have to hope that you get the odd Collingwood game on a nice day and all the Pies fans show up (non season ticket holders) to give your revenues a boost. This is the same strategy employed by most Melbourne based teams. It is an average one.

Your revenue from corporates is miniscule relatively speaking and your brand is avergae at best (despite claims to the second best team of the 90's :) ).

What contribution do Norf HAVE to make each year to the VFL? West Coast contribute a percentage of its revenues to the WAFC EVERY year. The amount contributed has been greater than the highest profit made by any Vic club (except Collingwood) every year for the last 4 years. This is a cost we have to bear. We do not own our ground, we rent it - at substantial cost. Freo could not break even, with reduced costs (a WAFC deal), until recently when memberships and attendance started to regularly exceed 30,000. So perhaps break even for our ground is also 30,000 or so. Of course we have to get that sort of crowd with generally zero visiting supporters.

You have an unsustainable business. It exists in a finite and highly competive market, with no real brand strength and without any obvious way to grow the additional $10m of revenues you need to survive and prosper going forward. Your continued existence in the league is due to the largesse of clubs such as West Coast/Adelaide and others who allow the ludicrous propping up and fixture gymnastics necessary to keep you afloat.

This is not news to anyone with half a brain.

All the best with 2007, enjoy the last few years in Melbourne.
 

Eagle87

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Do west coast have club rooms where members can go back to after a game & have beers?
West Coast would like to build a purpose built members facility that is open all week but at present plans are delayed waiting the outcome of the new stadium debate in WA.

At present there are facilities at Subiaco Oval which the club utilises for post-match members functions.

There are a variety of pre-game lunches/functions etc for members also.

Thanks for asking.

If you'd like to attend, you can join the waiting list with the other 8,000 punters. :)
 

Rob

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Break-even mark for Victorian stadiums is around 30k, that would put the overhead for 11 games at about $5.5 million dollars. You want to add $2.5 million onto the bottom line of any of the smaller Victorian clubs and realise what that would do for their profitability?
You've just completely made that up. The dollar figure anyway. The actual number of spectators varies with the type of spectators through the gates. If you're sourcing your 30k figure from the same place i've seen it, it doesn't count any revenue from members or corporates, just single match tickets. So if you get 40k, and they're entirely members, then the club will 'claim' to have made a huge loss, when that's clearly untrue, West Coast and Fremantle would make monster losses every match on those maths.


What the hell are you talking about, the AFL forced the clubs to abandon their suburban stadiums.
No they didn't, they just improved their standards. Clubs made the choice to move based on the costs of bringing their venues up to scratch.
From memory, the catalyst for your clubs move was one of the stands was condemned, I'd imagine the cost of staying at Arden st would have been far greater than to move, because it would have involved spending millions on replacing that stand. As well as the huge cost of maintenance on the ground.

Unless you are going to pull a crowd of 70k+ then playing at the MCG is just a waste fo time, all you are doing is generating revenue for the MCC. TD you need to get close to 50k to make what you would squeezing 10k at a suburban stadium. The overheads on these stadiums charged by third party organisations are horrendous.
Yet the $50 million or so needed to bring a surburban ground up to scratch is not a horrendous overhead?
In a national league with the status of the AFL, minimum standards need to be set. If your club can't keep up with them, then that says more about your clubs suitability to compete in the national league than the AFL itself.

It is why Collo pulled off the cosmic joke of all time ditching OO and taking the blues to TD to play teams like Freo where they draw 16k to the game and they have nothing other than an expensive bill to show for it. 16k they would have made money at OO.
On that one game, possibly. On the 350 other days OO remains vacant and is incurring huge maintenance costs, where's the revenue coming from to cover them? It's not as simple as you are making it out to be.

We don't need to build a new stadium, we have plenty of stadiums in Melbourne that are not utilised, the old Optus Oval is just one of them. OO failed because Carlton were morons and tried to rip off clubs to play there.

If the AFL is going to acquire OO from Carlton then it could be used as a low cost alternative for crowds they do not anticipate to go above 35k. As long as it is the AFL running the show and not Carlton, they couldn't run a chook raffle and not come out making a million dollar loss.
So now the AFL should buy a venue and spend probably over $100 million in bringing it up to AFL standard because a few clubs in Melbourne can't compete in a national league. Sorry, but it's up to your club to do that. You whinge about interstate clubs having these monster advantages, but how much has the AFL put into Subi or AAMI? Jack s**t. It's been paid for by local football authorities which have negotiated with state governments to assist with funding. If your club wants to play out of another venue, get them to do the same and stop trying to bludge off the other clubs.

And i'm not sure if you remember how popular OO was, but most matches Victorian clubs played there against interstate opposition drew less than 15,000, in many cases less than 10,000. It was as popular as the plague with supporters and clubs hated playing there. Funny what happens when you play in 3rd rate stadiums, the people won't show. Once again, it's not as easy as you think.

It was an example, it was more economic for the club to not play at the MCG or TD and choose to fly to Canberra and play in front of next to nobody there.

TD suits us for games against other Melbourne clubs, we would average 40k to those in Melbourne, outside of years we are playing poorly. But against interstate teams they are not profitable. It is not just us, most clubs here would struggle to make any money out of hosting any interstate club that didn't originate here (ie Swans and Lions).

2 Stadiums for 9 clubs is not sufficient. We need a third and we need to have more power in terms of who we wish to play where.
So build it yourself. Stop holding your hand out like a street beggar.
 

Hawkk

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9 clubs in 1 city is too much. York Park is a perfectly good AFL standard stadium though.
Its not 9 clubs in 1 city though, its 10 clubs in one state - having said that I agree with you in regards to the Victorian market being over saturated.

With that being said, a Tasmanian clubs market would be the equivalent of a 12 club share in Victoria. Hence the AFL's reluctance...
 

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catman2006

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Actually, the population in the North is more than south and also it is growing faster than the south. Hobart is too cold. No one wants to live in a city that can hardly make it pass 20 degrees in summer.
At least hobartians breathe clean air, better then smog/fog.
 

Tas43

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Quote:
Originally Posted by stickman11

Actually, the population in the North is more than south and also it is growing faster than the south. Hobart is too cold. No one wants to live in a city that can hardly make it pass 20 degrees in summer.


What? surely u have no idea what you are on about??
have u ever ventured down to hobart?
or just a typical northern ****er who thinks the world evolves around your little country town??
 
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Launceston is a bit of a hole. Real pictureque too. When winter comes about, all the smoke from woodheaters can't escape. Gets trapped in the hole. Gets pretty cold there in the winter to.

Mean Daily Max Temp (deg C) Hobart:16.9 Launceston:18.4
Mean no. Days, Max >= 30.0 deg C Hobart:6.0 Launceston:4.1
Highest Max Temp (deg C) Hobart: 40.6 Launceston:35.4
Mean Daily Min Temp (deg C) Hobart:8.3 Launceston:7.2
Mean no. Days, Min =< 0.0 deg C Hobart:1.7 Launceston:27.1
Lowest Min Temp (deg C) Hobart:-2.8 Launceston:-5.2
Mean Rainfall (mm) Hobart: 619.5 Launceston:683.3

Hmm, thought all you budding meteorologists would at least base your assumptions on facts.
 

Howard Littlejohn

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Quote:
Originally Posted by stickman11

Actually, the population in the North is more than south and also it is growing faster than the south. Hobart is too cold. No one wants to live in a city that can hardly make it pass 20 degrees in summer.


What? surely u have no idea what you are on about??
have u ever ventured down to hobart?
or just a typical northern ****er who thinks the world evolves around your little country town??
Population growth is higher in the north, and the north (generally) has higher maximums than Hobart. Launceston is far colder of a night over winter though - but doesn't get that Antarctic wind that rips up the Derwent so often.
Overall population is higher in the north of the state, but of course more widespread than the south - where little exists outside Hobart.
As for Launceston being a country town. Yes, it is. And so is Hobart.
 

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Im pretty sure there was a post after Howard Littlejohn's, where has it gone? Why does everything to do with tassie have to develop into a "mine's better than yours contest", what has temperature got to do with tassie being able to financially field an AFL side?
 

Blues_Man

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Im pretty sure there was a post after Howard Littlejohn's, where has it gone? Why does everything to do with tassie have to develop into a "mine's better than yours contest", what has temperature got to do with tassie being able to financially field an AFL side?
It's BF...just the nature of the beast
 

Howard Littlejohn

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Just commenting on the weather stuff from above. Its not really relevant.

Finances are. And financially, even if the north-south divide didn't exist (and its not as much a true hatred as it once was), Tassie would not come close. The lack of corporates is the real killer, and the fact that most people would continue to support their current club and not swtich over. Especially with a relocated club, where people already have a traditional animosity.
 

catman2006

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Quite sure old chaps that Tasmania would rather wait then have a relocated side, maybe the AFL realise this and decided that the Gold Coast at the moment is a better option for a relocated side.
 

RememberMe

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Population growth is higher in the north, and the north (generally) has higher maximums than Hobart. Launceston is far colder of a night over winter though - but doesn't get that Antarctic wind that rips up the Derwent so often.
Overall population is higher in the north of the state, but of course more widespread than the south - where little exists outside Hobart.
As for Launceston being a country town. Yes, it is. And so is Hobart.
Actually, Kingston in the south is the fastest growing population area in Tasmania.
 

Ted Ed Fred

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The AFL games should be held in the south. The North is a disgrace and the fact that the games are held there has more to do with pork barrelling than anything.

The thing that gets me is that people claim the north get AFL games while the south gets the cricket, yet cricket matches are sometimes held in Launceston while the south never sees any AFL
 

fishmonger

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Thread starter #274
Its not 9 clubs in 1 city though, its 10 clubs in one state - having said that I agree with you in regards to the Victorian market being over saturated.

With that being said, a Tasmanian clubs market would be the equivalent of a 12 club share in Victoria. Hence the AFL's reluctance...
Current Victorian and interstate AFL clubs are marketing interstate and overseas, who says that a Tasmanian club couldn't think outside the square and do the same ?
Fremantle realise that being stuck in the south western suburbs of Perth market is completely unnecessary in this age of globalised sport and are trailblazing with support for footy in South Africa, having claimed the booming North West Province for themselves, sponsoring the Balmain Footy Club in the growing Sydney AFL market (who officially became the "Balmain Dockers" this year) and even clubs in the USA, such as the Cincinatti Dockers and the 951 Purple Raiders. Who do these people new to the game end up supporting ? Freo.

For one, the Tasmania team could be a pioneering AFL club and take and interest in New Zealand, as Hawthorn seems to have shafted this market ...

http://www.theage.com.au/realfooty/...over-hawks-snub/2005/12/06/1133829596976.html NZ fans cry foul over Hawks snub

AFL spokesman Patrick Keane said yesterday that Hawthorn had asked for "a five-figure sum" to run the clinics in Christchurch, "but we didn't think it was worth that".

McWhinnie said the Hawks and the AFL did not seem interested in expanding the game abroad

"They missed a great opportunity to turn the whole of Canterbury into Hawthorn supporters. And if they were so concerned about the costs, we would have organised a barbie, so they wouldn't have to pay for the meal."

Keane said all 16 AFL clubs were obliged to organise community coaching clinics in Australia before the season in February, "but the development of the game overseas is not really a priority at this stage".
Typical of the AFL and the Hawk's whoring attitudes and unwillingness to innovate.

Maybe by identifying with NZ and the South Pacific, Tassie could have access to an extra 4 million on a similarly small and also ignored island near Australia.

They could call themselves the Tassie "Islanders".
 

Blues_Man

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The AFL games should be held in the south. The North is a disgrace and the fact that the games are held there has more to do with pork barrelling than anything.

The thing that gets me is that people claim the north get AFL games while the south gets the cricket, yet cricket matches are sometimes held in Launceston while the south never sees any AFL
So exactly how many Internation cricket matches are held in the north ???

now you see why we call you lot whinging Slowbartions
 
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