Agree but these same mechanisms are available to us right? So are our numbers inflated and the situation is worse?
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All of my nieces and nephews love the Bulldogs. However their dad is bombers, so so are they. They enjoy telling me how many flags they’ve won compared to the dogs despite the fact none of them have ever seen a finals win (parents brainwashing !).
It’s like a virus !
I seriously don’t want anything I’m surprised by myself that I posted that tbh. I do it because I like the player sponsors package and I’m lucky enough to be able to finance it (just). But the last two years have pretty much been a donation and apart from now being besties with Dale Morris (dm me for his number ...! I joke I joke ) it’s been pretty lax....so I figured even a framed certificate saying you stuck with us or a limited edition shirt or something I don’t know anything... would have been nice.
It used to be that memberships that involved a minimum spend of $50 were only counted by the AFL in its audit; however now there is no minimum spend as reported by the Advertiser:
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport...6db3447610f34e
Given Covid and their on-field performances, other clubs (e.g. North, GWS, GC, Carlton, Essendon etc) are obviously giving away heaps of free memberships to bolster their totals.Quote:
AFL audited member criteria
* Member can be either non-game access or game access
* Must be fulfilled with a membership pack and member benefits
* The member must provide contact data
* No minimum spend
It's frustrating because this makes them more relatively attractive to sponsors than us but in doing so they are incurring increased costs related to membership packs.
It's a dilemma for the club but I reckon net revenue from memberships and overall profitability are the most important things for the club to focus on.
So we simply say we have 107k members and send out 60,000 empty envelopes like Richmond do probably.
This is pretty much what I suspect is going on. It builds the hype train too. People see the big figure and want to jump on board. This is the side of things we might be missing out on by doing the sensible thing and focusing on actual cash flow. The saints for example are not doing very well in this department which you’d find strange given their bumper membership numbers.
Looking at the West Australian memberships ... Fremantle Dockers have 50,342 members and West Coast Eagles have 106,422. Breaking this down, Perth stadium has a capacity of 60,150 for an AFL match and 4,500 of these are corporate/sponsor memberships. There are also stadium members and Bankwest members (much more expensive experience), plus there has to be certain allocation for away members and general public seating. This means that the average Joe member is capped at 49,000. (ish)
Some of the dockers 50k members hold Bankwest membership ... big bucks for the West Australian Football Commission (who own both the Eagles' and the Dockers' licenses). This also means that the Dockers are not at stadium capacity for 'Joe' seats. My wife and my daughter (13yo) are both Docker members. This memberships costs us $790 for both for 11 home games seats. This is the lowest membership for seated members. They can go up above $900 each for an adult ... depends where you want to sit.
The Eagles on the other hand have 106K members. Considering the conditions are the same, only 49k of these can have seated membership (excluding the Bankwest Members) this means roughly 50k Eagles members are not full (seated) members. The Eagles have a member classification called "In The Wings" member. Memberships are $55 per person (plus $5 for any additional member) or $70 for households ... whereas an Eagles 11 reserve seat starts at $410 and goes to $850. Every "In The Wings" member receives a membership pack ... stickers/lanyards etc and is entitled to priority placement for two games a year (seats that are sold back to the Eagles for the round by seated members). Lets say the membership pack costs the Eagles $7 to purchase and distribute; this means for the $5 membership the club makes $2.
The WAFC is definitely sitting on a cash-cow right now ... no wonder Demetriou want to buy the licenses from WAFC !!
Anyone else get a text today about a live pre-game YouTube Q&A with Chris Grant for +10 year members on Sunday?
I had a phone call from Hayden Crozier yesterday thanking me for being a member