Quiet on the equalisation debate?

[Mofra]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

Guido, you're clarly passionate about the club and you seem adamant that our management have got a lot wrong over the last few years.

I'm not sure we have got that much wrong over the past few years (you don't make 3 prelims in a row unless you're getting a few things right), but Guido hits the nail on the head with actually wanting the club to take responsibility for what it can change as opposed to adopting a defeatist attitude and hoping the generosity of 3rd parties will help us.

[westdog54]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

I'm not sure we have got that much wrong over the past few years (you don't make 3 prelims in a row unless you're getting a few things right), but Guido hits the nail on the head with actually wanting the club to take responsibility for what it can change as opposed to adopting a defeatist attitude and hoping the generosity of 3rd parties will help us.

With all due respect its a bit contradictory to say we haven't got much wrong and then say the club needs to take more responsibility.

Let's face it. We have no control over when, where or who we play and those decisions are directly impacting our bottom line.

[Mofra]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

With all due respect its a bit contradictory to say we haven't got much wrong and then say the club needs to take more responsibility.

It would be if that was what I said, which I didn't.

I said we need to take responsibility for what we can change. Complaining about what we cannot change gets us nowhere. We'd be far better off looking at alternate revenue streams (ie getting Bulldog Hilton right, attracting more people to the WO as a precinct) than hoping the AFL will complete a 180 degree turn on fairness with fixturing and networks (who are not charities) start showing more Bulldog games whilst we are in a redevelopment phase.

[Maddog37]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

In your own sarcastic way, you're making the exact point I'm trying to get across.

Bulldogs management can't control what Foxtel, Channel 7, the AFL or Collingwood do. Expecting these third parties to somehow have our back and do what's best for us instead of themselves is rank stupidity. We do know for a fact that businesses will all act in their own self interest, do you expect them to change that philosophy? To go against human nature, for the sake of the poor clubs? Good luck with that.

I've only been critical of decisions directly under the club's control which IMO could/should have made major contributions to it's underlying viability. I think management have made poor choices, and I also think that no-one within the club ever accepts responsibility for these screw ups - like on these forums, it always seems to be someone else's fault. If you disagree, well fine, but I'm only going on the evidence in front of me.

"Good old days" syndrome.

Not old enough to have lived through it, but history tells me that the dogs had next to no chance being a thriving club in last 20 years of the pre-salary cap era. Since it and draft equalisation came into the mix, despite financial limitations, we've made the finals more than the average team has, which is exactly as it should be. We've had chances for premierships which IMO were sabotaged by our own hand (short sighted list management decisions), not anyone else's balance sheet or money in invested in their footy departments (except maybe for Collingwood in 2010, but fact is that they had also managed their list better than we had).

And the fact is that with one or two majorly ballsy, forward thinking decisions (maybe appointing Brian Cook, maybe jumping on Tasmania rather than foray's into Sydney/Darwin, a debt demolition campaign in 1998 rather than 2008, which would have saved the club over $5mill in interest payments, a good footy manager who wasn't dimwitted) it's all "with hindsight" type stuff, but we most definitely had the means to be debt free and ultra successful with a premiership or two and demanding the premier slots for exposure.

The boat has sailed, but there is no reason, not the AFL, not the fixture, not Collingwood and Essendon hogging the spotlight, that dictates that we cannot reach that point in 10/20/30 years. There's weaknesses and shortcomings, but only way to beat these limitations is to outsmart richer clubs on every level, not through whinging and moaning about their existing strengths. And in the long term, IMO it's pivotal to be less/non reliant on discretionary AFL funding, not more as some people are suggesting.

Can I put in </defeatist bullshit> tags to end that little puppy?

My eyes are wide open. We mixed with all of the big boys at the top of our cycle. West Coast has tens on millions to spend, they've finished bottom 4 a number of times in the last decade.

Ten years ago the "interstate clubs were going to take over and it was the end for Victorian clubs." Enter Hawthorn, Geelong, Collingwood.

It is cyclical, it just happens that a few of the clubs at the bottom of the cycle at the moment are the poorer clubs. The draft will do it's job, as it has in countless upon countless of examples.

This club has had the tools available to it to gets itself out of debt, to mix it on the field, to make itself a powerhouse. A catchment with 500,000 people and growing, an insanely loyal supporter base, a lot of good people fighting for the cause, but it has to look in the mirror and acknowledge past (and guard against future) dumb off field decisions - both at board and footy department level.

It's going to contribute infinitely more to the club surviving in the long term than a micro-shift (which is the best we can realistically hope for) in equalisation policies.

Nice measured reply. Happy to concede all of the points raised even if some are hindsight based as you acknowledge. My only really passion and major sticking point is the draw. It s simply unfair to not only us but all clubs at some stage. People will come to the games regardless and a neutral draw will throw up blockbusters of its own accord. The AFLs insistence on a fixture is putting the cart before the horse.

[Hotdog60]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

The Club has lodged it's equalisation report and I found it a interesting read on how we have been bent over and given a good you know what.

Here a link REPORT

.

[Remi Moses]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

Nice to get my question answered.

[Murphy'sLore]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

Very interesting reading and some proposals worth thinking about. Apparently Gideon Haigh helped write the submission, it's certainly more clearly expressed than most stuff I've seen come out of the club.

[Eastdog]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

First things first, there is nothing to suggest that we've 'handled our finances poorly'.

Secondly we are trying to eliminate our debt but when your income from gate receipts is so limited its challenging.

Thirdly, its not in Etihad's interest to 'do a deal' with us as it won't make them any money.

In the environment that the AFL has created, to say that clubs should be able to stand on their own two feet is simplistic in the extreme.

What would explain our debt in the first place? What did we do to get it? If Etihad aren't interested in doing a deal like ive said before why couldn't we play some home games at the MCG which has served clubs well who play home games there.

[Bulldog Joe]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

The Club has lodged it's equalisation report and I found it a interesting read on how we have been bent over and given a good you know what.

Here a link REPORT

.

That is an excellent submission and highlights a lot of points about the inequality of stadium deals.

It is incredible that 8500 reserved seats at Etihad cost the Bulldogs $700K but Collingwood/Hawthorn/Richmond can get the first 18,000 seats at the MCG for NOTHING.

Puts us a loooong way behind before we even start.

[Remi Moses]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

The whole " Woe is me" doesn't wash with me on this issue.
The whole situation just stinks to high heaven and the sooner some justice and fairness is done the better. This has to have a decent fair ending for the poorer clubs .

[Remi Moses]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

That is an excellent submission and highlights a lot of points about the inequality of stadium deals.

It is incredible that 8500 reserved seats at Etihad cost the Bulldogs $700K but Collingwood/Hawthorn/Richmond can get the first 18,000 seats at the MCG for NOTHING.

Puts us a loooong way behind before we even start.

Dead right BJ . The dogs in all fairness should have made a killing in the 08 - 10 period, instead we're living on fumes.

[Topdog]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

That is an excellent submission and highlights a lot of points about the inequality of stadium deals.

It is incredible that 8500 reserved seats at Etihad cost the Bulldogs $700K but Collingwood/Hawthorn/Richmond can get the first 18,000 seats at the MCG for NOTHING.

Puts us a loooong way behind before we even start.

That is such a massive difference. Costing us millions per game surely?

[WBFC4FFC]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

That is such a massive difference. Costing us millions per game surely?

And Eddie Everywhere states that his club has acquiesced enough!!!!

The AFL have done nothing for too long and appear to (belatedly) realise they are damaging the competition's long-term viability by having a few clubs having to deal with the onerous Dockland Stadium arrangements on behalf of the entire comp.

Let's see the AFL put some of these perceived bigger clubs in their place, reminding them that if it wasn't for the favourable draw the AFL provides them, they would not be as profitable.

[Bornadog]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

Bid for level playing field

The AFL has strategically hand-picked six club chiefs to join bosses Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan on a July mission to New York to investigate American football's sophisticated equalisation formula. The aim is to close the growing divide between rich and poor clubs.

Eddie McGuire and Andrew Newbold, the presidents of powerful Collingwood and Hawthorn who have both strongly resisted calls for a tax on the wealthier clubs, will join a 10-man deputation searching for methods to equalise the competition, which after seven rounds this season sees close to one-third of clubs already out of finals contention.
It now seems beyond doubt that the AFL is seriously investigating a new and more significant tax on the wealthier clubs as part of a reformed and more complex equalisation structure, with the growing divide described by outgoing Sydney chairman Richard Colless in a paper to the AFL late last year as ''a ticking time bomb''.

The AFL travelling party will also include Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon and will meet NFL chiefs - whose clubs contribute one-third of their gate takings into a central equalisation pool - at that sport's New York head office. Meetings have also been scheduled with Major League Baseball, which recently introduced a new luxury tax, and American basketball bosses.

The AFL's deputy chief McLachlan agreed that McGuire and Newbold, along with West Coast chief Trevor Nisbett, were crucial members of the group ''because they will be faced with more of a philosophical challenge than the others''.
''This [equalisation] is a huge strategic and philosophical plank of where we've been and where we'll go in the future and the point about these big American sports is that all have strengthened their equalisation in recent years and all are more equal than we are,'' McLachlan said.

Club chief executives Brendon Gale (Richmond) and Keith Thomas (Port Adelaide) will make up the club representatives with AFL Commissioner Paul Bassett and AFL Players Association boss Matt Finnis also on board.

McLachlan described the NFL competition - in which a significantly larger proportion of its revenue is placed in the equalisation pool - as the most similar in structure to the AFL compared with the NBA and American baseball. He said that while a fixed equalisation formula had been guaranteed until the end of 2014, a radical review of that formula was crucial. ''Equalisation is central to our competition,'' he said.

Significantly the AFL party will also travel to Boston to meet US business magnate Robert Kraft, the owner of the powerhouse New England Patriots - one of the wealthier NFL clubs to have strongly supported sacrificing profits for the sake of equalisation.
Nisbett, whose Eagles remain one of the AFL's wealthiest and most powerful clubs, said he considered himself fortunate to be taking part in the one-week trip, but added: ''I'm hoping it's not just a fact-finding mission about taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
''I'm open and interested to see what some of the owners of these clubs say. I think it's a genuine attempt to make sure everyone understands why the NFL is the best competition in the world. We need to know what are the many number of things that make an even competition, including exploring new ways of earning extra revenues. What the AFL wants to do is to create an equal competition but we don't want a competition where instead of six clubs losing money every year we see 11 or 12 clubs losing money. We want to equalise up - we don't want to equalise down.''

McGuire and Newbold were part of the so-called ''bloc'' of wealthier Victorian clubs which met in February to voice misgivings about a potential luxury tax to aid clubs that had been poorly administered or suffered from disadvantages which could be remedied by the AFL, such as buying Etihad Stadium.
McGuire said at the time: ''So far, the best ideas I have heard have been to reach into the pockets of clubs who have acted in a responsible manner and if that is the best some clubs can come up with, then no wonder we are in this situation. We have acquiesced and acquiesced, but enough is enough.''

Said Newbold: ''Why are Hawthorn - who are innovative and have worked bloody hard to get ourselves to where we are now - being penalised because the Bulldogs have to write out cheques each year to play games at Etihad Stadium?''

[SonofScray]

Re: Quiet on the equalisation debate?

Bid for level playing field



Said Newbold: ''Why are Hawthorn - who are innovative and have worked bloody hard to get ourselves to where we are now - being penalised because the Bulldogs have to write out cheques each year to play games at Etihad Stadium?''

So our position is directly and exclusively the result of not working "bloody hard" or being "innovative." Thats some Herald Sun, 3AW logic right there. Can't believe the stuff that comes out of these guys mouths, they honestly believe their own bullshit.