2009 Financial Report

[LostDoggy]

Did everyone else receive the 2009 Financial Report in the mail today? I did. I though I'd make a thread about it for any discussions.

Our profit for the year was $3,215,172 compared to last years $3,186,530. Our expenditure has increased from 2008. All in all it seems like all the suits at the Whitten Oval are making good strides in making our club more profitable each year.

[soupman]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

Is that Profit or revenue? Because there is a massive difference between the two.

[LostDoggy]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

Profit. Total revenue from in 2009 is $31,869,042 compared to $31,485,643 in 2008.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

I read an article earlier this week online ( either Herald sun or The Age) that said any profit was only on paper, and that minus assistance from the AFL we'd be in some financial trouble. I'm no accountant and have trouble interpreting these sort of financial statements. Anyone who is qualified to give an interpretation of them here?

[hujsh]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

I read an article earlier this week online ( either Herald sun or The Age) that said any profit was only on paper, and that minus assistance from the AFL we'd be in some financial trouble. I'm no accountant and have trouble interpreting these sort of financial statements. Anyone who is qualified to give an interpretation of them here?

That's only to compensate for our disadvantages such as the shit ES deal

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

That's only to compensate for our disadvantages such as the shit ES deal

That may well be, but it still highlights that unless this is rectified permanently then our finances and our viability remain tied to the whim and largess of the AFL.
I guess that is why it is seen as vital by Rose and Smorgon that we develop long term alternative streams of revenue, such as the Edgewater development and the Public Housing development project.

[Remi Moses]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

I read an article earlier this week online ( either Herald sun or The Age) that said any profit was only on paper, and that minus assistance from the AFL we'd be in some financial trouble. I'm no accountant and have trouble interpreting these sort of financial statements. Anyone who is qualified to give an interpretation of them here?

That would be an article from the national broadsheet ''The Australian'' . Which when reading articles relating to our club appears to have some childish vendetta. Messers Smith,reilly,and the king arseclown Denham

[ledge]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

The money the AFL give us is compensation, as the deal improves with the stadium this will probably lower but it will probably not be any different either way, one compensates for the other, so as much as the press want to call it money to keep us afloat its not really true its to make up for what we should be getting anyway.

The question is, are we asset rich but cash poor?

I tend to believe we are doing ok in both asset and cash, but you still have to forward think as in any successful company to survive and this is what i believe we have been doing since Rose arrived.

[GVGjr]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

The money the AFL give us is compensation, as the deal improves with the stadium this will probably lower but it will probably not be any different either way, one compensates for the other, so as much as the press want to call it money to keep us afloat its not really true its to make up for what we should be getting anyway.

The question is, are we asset rich but cash poor?

I tend to believe we are doing ok in both asset and cash, but you still have to forward think as in any successful company to survive and this is what i believe we have been doing since Rose arrived.

It means that despite a number of positive outcomes for the club (sponsorship levels and improved stadium deals etc) we are still a long, long way to becoming a self sufficient club. I can't in the short term see us not needing the AFL competitive balance funds assistance. (I agree that we go a long way to earning it by taking the worst end of the draw etc)

Whilst we are recording 'paper' profits they are not at the level required to remove debt (or doubt) or to build some significant savings.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

As long as the AFL has a schedule rather than a draw and as long as we help subsidise the wealthier clubs by allowing them to play more FTA games and taking that annoying Mother's Day game off their hands, we deserve all the compensation we get.

[alwaysadog]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

It means that despite a number of positive outcomes for the club (sponsorship levels and improved stadium deals etc) we are still a long, long way to becoming a self sufficient club. I can't in the short term see us not needing the AFL competitive balance funds assistance. (I agree that we go a long way to earning it by taking the worst end of the draw etc)

Whilst we are recording 'paper' profits they are not at the level required to remove debt (or doubt) or to build some significant savings.

I was going to do a three year comparison of the figures to see if any trends are apparent but having opted not to receive a paper copy and to use the online version but I can't do it -the 2009 figures are not up yet on the club's website.

I think GVG you are pointing to the need for an analysis of the nature of our liabilities and the current and projected revenue sources. Has someone with a copy the chance to do some work on the figures and to put this up.

In spite of that some general comments can be made about the bottom line. 2009 was going to be an interesting year financially as we have yet to receive major income from the WO redevelopment and nothing from the improved stadium deal.

Given these considerations our position looks more half full than half empty, especially when you consider we have spent more on the football dept.. It would be good to reduce our liabilities but to do this at the expense of undermining progress in the football area would be self defeating, apart from disappointing everyone who posts on this board.

I think we are balancing the two conflicting demands nicely. Revenue is growing, we are trading in the black, the football dept is no longer the poor man of the AFL and we have legitimate expectations of a fairly steep growth in revenue, even better if the boys do the right thing next September.

Managing debt should become less of a problem in the short to near term future.

[Rocco Jones]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

As long as the AFL has a schedule rather than a draw and as long as we help subsidise the wealthier clubs by allowing them to play more FTA games and taking that annoying Mother's Day game off their hands, we deserve all the compensation we get.

Pretty much exactly how I would put it.

[alwaysadog]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

When I grew up there was no such thing as the draw as such, there was a rotation, one knew from season to season who you would be playing each round of the next season, where and when. All games were on Saturday afternoon and the then 12 Victorian clubs played 18 rounds in order: the six you didn’t play twice in the current season were the first six you played next season and in order. Over 2 seasons everyone played everyone 3 times and there was no sense of injustice or inequality.

Besides football wasn’t such a money centered business; there was a cap on how much a player got paid, in fact they all got the same match payment. Yes the world was different then, pubs were shut on Sundays so were cinemas, in some years the trains didn’t run either and bread wasn’t baked. Yes, it was a quaint and strange existence, but within living memory.

Even before the national competition VFL Park, Waverley came along and while it didn’t affect the draw as such, the “hot game” of each round would be scheduled for Waverley. Then there was the match of the round and the shifting of big games to the MCG. But by the end of the 80s football was stagnating, the shift of the Swans to Sydney hadn’t worked and they were leaking money big time and the VFL wasn’t flush with cash. A lot of the initiatives that are part of the game came out of that crisis or rather the realization that they just couldn’t go on the way they were.

Then slowly the national competition grew and media interest increased and money began to flow. But there was a price to pay. The game had to be modified to suit the medium and slowly this began and is happening still. Next bums on seats became an imperative. It indicates how valuable a sport is to sponsors and this drives the visual media. Equally they didn’t want a roster of games that no one would watch, they demand and got a draw which allows them to exploit the most marketable aspects of the competition. It’s sold to us as crowd drawing blockbusters but one only has to think briefly to realize that it serves another purpose as well.

This has produced a very lopsided product and required some justice for clubs that lost opportunities to make money and promote themselves: some acknowledgement that the money made by the rich clubs was only possible if there was a competition to which the others contribute and which most importantly wouldn’t be possible without them. A point nearly all the critics overlook.

So the AFL has struck a deal with the clubs to organize the draw to maximise revenues which largely means satisfying the visual media by playing the most popular teams at key times. It is also recognized that this gives them an immediate advantage revenue wise, and in the shorter and medium term an advantage in terms of membership and sponsorship.

So the AFL has an equalization component, not a handout, to redress the inequalities that permit the code to prosper. While I can accept that lunatic supporters from some of the big clubs can’t grasp the concepts involved I am less than impressed when significant journalists don’t.

While they are at liberty to point out the degree to which some clubs depend on this money, to present it as handouts is a gross oversimplification, especially when they make no attempt to assess how much of the better off clubs revenue is produced from advantages produced by an unequal draw and preferential access to the televising of games.

[ledge]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

I think Carlton is now receiving funds and they are a so called big club why arent they mentioned as much as we are.
Does anyone know who all the clubs are that receive this and is it the same amount for all?
Must be figures somewhere on this.

[Prince Imperial]

Re: 2009 Financial Report

I too elected not to receive a hardcopy of the report (to save the club the printing costs!). For those who have, can you please tell us what the operating profit (not including Whitten Oval funding) was? The $3.2m figure cited above would have included that. That NZ article last week suggested it was just under 800k.