3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

[Twodogs]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

I agree it's possible DD. I've been riding this hobby horse for a long time now. Now that the AFL have dipped their toe in the water with a NAB cup game I'm pretty confident we will start playing some games back at the footy ground.

[hujsh]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

Is there not an issue with the facilities? They were taking too much space or something.

[Bornadog]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

Sorry for being on the negative with this but I can't see it happening for at least the next 10 years or even more.

The AFL has too much invested in Eithad as it is. Forgetting the stadium deals and timeslots for games, Eithad is a great stadium with the roof and comfort for the patrons. The AFL has to come up with a better model for us to make money from playing there.

[Twodogs]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

Sorry for being on the negative with this but I can't see it happening for at least the next 10 years or even more.

The AFL has too much invested in Eithad as it is. Forgetting the stadium deals and timeslots for games, Eithad is a great stadium with the roof and comfort for the patrons. The AFL has to come up with a better model for us to make money from playing there.

It wasn't that long ago they were saying that it couldn't stage a NAB cup game. I'm only talking one, maybe two, games. Make them events. The big return to footy's roots. And it's not just the playing clubs' supporters who will want to come. We can turn this into an experience that lots of people will want to do at least once

And the AFL and Etihad management have us right where they want us. They aren't going to come up with better financial deal for us unless we have some control over where we play our home games. Even if we can get a toe in at VUWO, make it work well enough so we can go to Etihad and say "tell us again why we are writing you cheques to play home games here when we can make X amount profit for a similar crowd at Whitten Oval?"

Then they might decide to have another look at our deal with them.

[Dancin' Douggy]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

Surely even when the AFL own and run Etihad, theyr'e still not gonna make anything out of Dogs V Suns, or North v GWS, or Demons v Freo. A 3rd stadium for these types of games makes sense from every perspective.

[1eyedog]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

The simple fact that we were able to attract 8000 patrons to an under-resourced, under-equipped suburban footy ground for a VFL Preliminary Final must have raised some eyebrows at both VFL and AFL headquarters.

Times have changed since the late 80s early 90s - we have more members now and would fill a 20-22,000 capacity Whitten Oval on match day.

[GVGjr]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

Surely even when the AFL own and run Etihad, theyr'e still not gonna make anything out of Dogs V Suns, or North v GWS, or Demons v Freo. A 3rd stadium for these types of games makes sense from every perspective.

Why is everyone accepting that we will never be able to draw a crowd against some of the other teams in the competition so therefore we need another venue to accommodate us?

Port had to use bay advertising for a while and yet now fill out their ground.

The onus has to be on the club to get our members to attend and for the AFL to come up with a vastly better deal for us.

[GVGjr]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

Why is everyone accepting that we will never be able to draw a crowd against some of the other teams in the competition so therefore we need another venue to accommodate us?

Port had to use bay advertising for a while and yet now fill out their ground.

The onus has to be on the club to get our members to attend and for the AFL to come up with a vastly better deal for us.

It's nothing to so with the size of the crowd, it is everything to do with building a sense of self, setting ourselves apart for the homogenous docklands group of clubs, re establishing our own identity we can relate too and ensure long term profitability we will never be able to do at docklands.

the AFL landscape is changing with the AFL realising the focus on theatre goers and tv watchers has come at the expense of true heart and soul footy fans.

we lacked vision when we were given $30million for a redevelopment and did not think in the next 10 years we may want to look at playing games at home again. Now we have 5 teams sharing the one ground with the only differentiation being the colours of teams playing. This is the only professional sport in the world that has this ridiculous set up. All other codes particularly European football play at home grounds, all unique.

we can again if we have enough people who really want to and people running the club with vision not reactionary and just trying to keep our head above water.

there are many ways to fund the build, I could think of a few that would raise a minimum of $50million ourselves, but we need those people with vision to bring the stakeholders along selling that vision.

[Dancin' Douggy]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

Why is everyone accepting that we will never be able to draw a crowd against some of the other teams in the competition so therefore we need another venue to accommodate us?

Port had to use bay advertising for a while and yet now fill out their ground.

The onus has to be on the club to get our members to attend and for the AFL to come up with a vastly better deal for us.

This is not simply about US drawing a crowd. It's about GWS drawing a crowd in Melbourne. Gold Coast drawing a crowd in Melbourne, Freo or Port drawing a crowd in Melbourne.
I don't envisage we'd play every home game at Whitten oval, and Geelong certainly don't play Collingwood or Essendon at Kardinia park. But we could,and should, play and host those smaller fixtures at Whitten Oval.

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

It's nothing to so with the size of the crowd, it is everything to do with building a sense of self, setting ourselves apart for the homogenous docklands group of clubs, re establishing our own identity we can relate too and ensure long term profitability we will never be able to do at docklands.

the AFL landscape is changing with the AFL realising the focus on theatre goers and tv watchers has come at the expense of true heart and soul footy fans.

we lacked vision when we were given $30million for a redevelopment and did not think in the next 10 years we may want to look at playing games at home again. Now we have 5 teams sharing the one ground with the only differentiation being the colours of teams playing. This is the only professional sport in the world that has this ridiculous set up. All other codes particularly European football play at home grounds, all unique.

we can again if we have enough people who really want to and people running the club with vision not reactionary and just trying to keep our head above water.

there are many ways to fund the build, I could think of a few that would raise a minimum of $50million ourselves, but we need those people with vision to bring the stakeholders along selling that vision.

Inspite of playing in 7 prelim finals in the past 24 years there has been little change in our ability to grow the Club, highlighted by a poor membership base which simply hasn't grown in he past quarter of a century. Hawthorn and Geelong have led the charge among Victorian based clubs through fine leadership both on and off the field. Hawthorn's move to play 4 games in Tasmania has been brilliant with 10,000 extra members and a $3 million per annum windfall from the Tasmanian Government. Our $30 million redevelopment has still created a $10 million dollar debt. Geelong now makes more from one home game than we do for a whole season at Etihad. The Western Bulldogs, St Kilda, Melbourne and North Melbourne are in danger of being on a long term drip feed from the AFL unless some radical change is implemented. The $200 million reported investment by the AFL to recreate a team like GWS in Western Sydney may have enabled it to establish a $1 billion plus media deal for an 18 team National competition but has done little for the 4 struggling clubs in its major heartland. The strong clubs simply grow bigger with a minor miracle required to lift the Western Bulldogs into a truly professional unit. This is nothing short of an ongoing disaster which has now gone on for 60 years since our one and only flag. Unless the AFL Commission is willing to change the status quo to provide an equal playing field then we can expect much of the same in the future.

[GVGjr]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

It's nothing to so with the size of the crowd, it is everything to do with building a sense of self, setting ourselves apart for the homogenous docklands group of clubs, re establishing our own identity we can relate too and ensure long term profitability we will never be able to do at docklands.

Did you go to or see the VFL Grand Final? If we can get the crowd going to AFL games as passionate we will not only set ourselves apart from the other clubs we will own the thing.

we lacked vision when we were given $30million for a redevelopment and did not think in the next 10 years we may want to look at playing games at home again. Now we have 5 teams sharing the one ground with the only differentiation being the colours of teams playing. This is the only professional sport in the world that has this ridiculous set up. All other codes particularly European football play at home grounds, all unique.

While I agree that many clubs sharing a facility isn't the norm nor is it ideal for a lot of the reason you raise, I don't think we would have got 30M for anything other than a redevelopment in the way that we did it.

Do you really think a genuine 3rd stadium in Melbourne will give us more of a home ground theme and thus assist with getting our supporters to the games more than Docklands?

I just get the impression so many people want a 3rd stadium in Melbourne but only if it's to be at Footscray.

[GVGjr]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

This is not simply about US drawing a crowd. It's about GWS drawing a crowd in Melbourne. Gold Coast drawing a crowd in Melbourne, Freo or Port drawing a crowd in Melbourne.
I don't envisage we'd play every home game at Whitten oval, and Geelong certainly don't play Collingwood or Essendon at Kardinia park. But we could,and should, play and host those smaller fixtures at Whitten Oval.

Can't agree, the ground is now a training and administrative facility. I can't see anyone spending the type of money needed to build another Kardinia Park.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

We can't attract sponsors. We can't retain members. We can't get even get a Friday night game. The logic that says building a stadium impacts any of this is a kin to David Brent hiring staff when told to make redundancies. I'd love to know the business plan that would be sold to investors... "Give us $50,000,000 and history says you won't ever, ever, ever get that money back based on our commercial history". If I didn't bleed for this club I wouldn't put money into it if it was a generic stock on the stock exchange. There is less than no chance of it happening and it has nothing to do with positive or negative thinking. It being a pleasant thought doesn't mean it's remotely viable or at al realistic. Snagging a preseason game is much different to a redevelopment where other Vic teams would willingly play at. If their members won't go, the AFL president's won't agree and it's over before the business plan begins.

[GVGjr]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

We can't attract sponsors. We can't retain members. We can't get even get a Friday night game. The logic that says building a stadium impacts any of this is a kin to David Brent hiring staff when told to make redundancies. I'd love to know the business plan that would be sold to investors... "Give us $50,000,000 and history says you won't ever, ever, ever get that money back based on our commercial history". If I didn't bleed for this club I wouldn't put money into it if it was a generic stock on the stock exchange. There is less than no chance of it happening and it has nothing to do with positive or negative thinking. It being a pleasant thought doesn't mean it's remotely viable or at al realistic. Snagging a preseason game is much different to a redevelopment where other Vic teams would willingly play at. If their members won't go, the AFL president's won't agree and it's over before the business plan begins.

There are many ways to raise the capital. If you pre sell 5000 seats of the 22,000 to 25,000 for 25 years up front for $10,000 or $200 per year you immediately raise $50,000,000. These can be passed on through generations or used as corporate seats till they expire.
You don't need to get your money back, the value is in the core business of the club football matches and live attendance.

These same seats still require yearly memberships to be acquired helping cash flow. 5,000 general admission seats and 5,000 standing room still allows for 12,000 to 15,000 annual or game day seats to be sold.

plus corporate sponsorship, plus catering, plus a clean ground for advertising.

if you keep focussing on the problem using the same paradigm or processes currently used you will never succeed.

think outside the square, have people with vision who lead to this vision and anything is possible.

we are still to busy looking at failed 80's and 90's business models.

run through the possibilities of suggested above for 8 home games per annum and you will find we easily match Geelongs $500,000 profit per match. Now consider the loss we currently make on home games and then tell me there is no business plan that makes it viable. We would also be able to get a level of local, state and federal government support if properly presented and the AFL needs to show its support for the average fans in Melbourne or its next tv rights deal.

i am not saying its easy, but its utter nonsense to keep putting up stale old arguments why things can't be done as they are based on a paradigm that no longer exists.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: 3rd Stadium in the city along with Etihad and the MCG

If we can raise $50,000,000 that simply then by all means. The $200 a year option won't work because the commitment can be ended at any time. So all that's left is to find 5,000 members to add on $10,000 to their renewal.

Then lobby the AFL, AFL Presidents, Foxtel & ch 7, all levels of government and find sponsors who won't give us anything at the moment. Then there's up keep, maintenance, staffing, repairs, costs, running costs, etc. So find another $250,000 per year. So the plan is short about $7,000,000 . So make it about 6,000 x $10,000 packages. The council would probably demand a multi storey carpark with costs, so make it about 6,500 x $10,000 packages. Also then guarantee all other income and protect against cost creepings, and also protect against any breaching of contracts if the contract to 25 years is maintained.

Happy for the world to prove me wrong, but Im not sure we have 6,500 members who can tick that box to add $10,000 to their renewal. The problem ain't the paradigm, the problem is no one in their right mind would fund it. Not enough sponsors, members, attendees or any Friday night games is a fact, not a paradigm. We are boarder.line the poorest and smallest Victorian club and a few grand stands doesn't address any critical issue.