To attempt to get this back to a nice and interesting conversation.

Gyfox (or anyone else) do the Swans get a an extra $0.8M from the AFL to cover the cost of living allowance on the salary cap? I think its much the same.

One point overlooked is it costs less to run a A-League club (sub $10m) than a AFL club (at least $30m). Though the AFL can continue to fund the club for a while yet with the TV rights and has a strategy to do this, but they did not make a loss for the first time in a while a year ago for nothing, GCS and GWS would have been the biggest contribution to this.

Interesting to read in sponsorship that Skoda (one of GWS major sponsors) were one of the worst performing car manufacturers in Australia in 2012, increasing sales by 1 car despite the new car market increasing 10% overall (as per SMH). I assume GWS sponsorship was a key plank in increasing their market share. Will be interesting to see if they can maintain the sponsorship level (think it is 3 year deal) if results do not improve.

I have also wondered the same thing about Westpac sponsorship of Heart once the 3 year deal is up this year, now the new kid on the block is no longer so new. Depends what the expectations were at the beginning of the sponsorship, I guess.

I still think that GWS are pushing shit uphill in western Sydney, no matter what the AFL's bank balance is.
However, I really don't think that affects WSW either way. The A-league is in summer, in an area that loves their football.
It's quite remarkable how WSW was setup in 4 months, and how their going now. All the right people were appointed to the right positions, and they are flying. The FFA must be wrapped. People can compare average attendances between the 2 clubs, but I don't think you can. When you consider the AFL's national yearly marketing budget compared to the A-league, plus how much cash they're dumping into GWS, there is no comparison.
The atmosphere at WSW games are as good as MV home games if not better already. That is what brings people to the games. There isnt anything else like it around in any sport, not even most other clubs in the A-league. Regardless of where they finish up this season, I think we're seeing the start of a supersclub, another MV. It's actually a pity that Parramatta Stadium only has a capacity of 20k. I can see this club selling out plenty of games next season. Good luck to them, they've made all the right decisions and setup the club the right way. The league needs another big club, not another struggler like GC and NQF.

Great comeback.

True GWS membership is almost impossible to know. As is regularly stated in AFL membership dick measuring contests, the only way you can really clarify it is through looking at the actual revenue derived from membership, which provides a somewhat reliable sense check as to how “genuine” a quoted membership figure is. AFL clubs publish this info but I’ve never seen it for GWS, I don’t even know if they produced an annual report for 2012.

Crowds aren’t a bad measure as at least they can’t be overstated too wildly, they’re in full view after all. Whether the tickets are free or not, probably not really relevant for either club at this stage, they’re both first year start-ups so regardless of ticket revenue the aim would be to get as many people to a game as possible to show them the product. It’s a long term game.

That's quite a litany of injustices.

Read back over your post, you said membership buddy.

Anyway go back to your world of the most manipulated and contrived game in existence, and a governing body seen as the emperors of spin. A truly great spectacle of big burly men who play for five minutes and are taken off to have a rest. A game that equates fairness by tanking games to lose.

No wonder you see nothing wrong with it. You and AFL belong together.

Presumably it was a soccer fan who started the thread, and anyway, the discussion so far has been quite civil - what's your problem?

I'm sure he couldn't leave as all the AFL spin he believes must be used in any thread where there's a comparison between codes in this country.

Mack - the honest truth is, I would miss you too much.

Using registrations in Auskick to bolster playing numbers?

Shocking!!

How can they live with themselves?!

You play tattslotto don't you, because you're told you got to be in it to win it, right?

Perhaps this can be some light reading for you.

:roll:

I thought you were leaving and never coming back? ;)

That sounds like a really believable story.

GWS count people who get free tickets as 'members' if they get an email and name. Had a friend at uni who got signed up to a 'membership' after getting some free tickets (thousands being given out) at Uni. Didn't go to the game, but kept getting membership emails.

I think what all the figures show is that no one can rest on their laurels or distribute largess and the business side of whatever football team in whatever code needs to be run carefully and well.

I agree it's an extremely low number, but yes, I believe it. They have to start somewhere.

In strict accounting terms, it remains a profit of $0.2m because the Swans are quite entitled to categorise the additional dividend from the AFL as revenue.

Of course he does. Its another part of AFL spin :lol:

A more realistic picture is season ticket memberships.

You actually believe that??

I would expect the WSW to be making decent money so far from home matches, given 3 crowds over 10K (19K, 16K, 13K) and most other crowds in the 8-10K range.

There were reports a while back that suggested the club negotiated a very good deal on stadium costs.

i am not going to comment on GWS but i think the wanderers have done an amazing job so far hard to tell what it will be like if we were losing every match but so far we are going well

So they made a loss of $0.6m.

Healthy.

Yes, exactly this.

There is no code war. The moniker " WAR " is glibly used by the media mostly incorrectly ( e.g. graffiti war )
I'm sure the administrators of RU, NRL, AFL and cricket are concerned enough. They keep on producing spin ( usually how international the code is ) to lure their most valuable asset ( TV viewers and to a lesser extent bums on seats )to side with them.
World football administrators are probably busy trying to capture a larger slice of the viewing cake in Australia, because they know globally none of the parochial sports can compete.

We, on these forums happily stab away on keyboards to make us get some of that fame that Andy Warhol talked of in 70's New York and to satisfy our own ego's, which is why these internet forums are so very important.

Sydney got an additional payment of $0.8m in 2011 which is about half what some of the Melbourne clubs got but twice what Richmond got.

Sydney made a modest profit of $207,000 last year. Now on one hand, you expect the premier to do well financially, although on the flip side, the Swans were hampered by the major renovation to the SCG which saw one third of the ground closed for the whole of the footy season. Thousands of members chose not to renew rather than receive re-allocated seating. I'm not sure when the renovation will be completed.

As for handouts, I'm not sure how correct that is.

All clubs receive annual dividends from the AFL, their share of the consoldiated revenue, earned form TV rights and league-wide sponsorship. All the football leagues in Australia do something similar.

Do the Swans receive higher than average dividends from the AFL? I'm not sure about that. I know the smaller Melbourne clubs do.

AFL clubs now need to earn $30+ million per annum just to stay afloat, the bigger clubs are earning much, much more - it's definitely an issue that will not go away in a hurry.

It’s not massive amounts of money (relatively), but it probably will be forever – as far as can be seen anyway. But there’s also the indirect benefits through sponsorships and TV rights that having a presence in an area as populous as western Sydney provides.

A lot of the marketing has been aimed at 8 to 12 year olds – by any measure it’s a 20 year project minimum before they might see any real benefits. The club GWS is actually only a part of it.

Very different project to WSW who already have an established adult base with a passion for the game.

Whatever happens, “they’ll end up pulling the plug in 5 to 10 years” is a ridiculous statement without basis. They’ve never done this with expansion clubs and they won’t start now just because one is making a loss. A third of the AFL clubs already lose money anyway once you take out the equalisation funds.


Edited by orexxis: 9/1/2013 03:13:43 PM

Neither did GCS in their first season in which they received special assistance from the AFL of $18.6m.

The AFL did not expand in NSW and Qld to increase attendances but to get double the number of games played in those two markets which between them account for 53% of the advertising spend in Australia.

Edited by gyfox: 9/1/2013 03:12:33 PM

Yeah fair points.

It is interesting to note that the Swans still don’t make money when you strip out AFL handouts, after 30 years.