Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

[Guido]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

OMG, Guido you're a genius, let's just become a gun football team to solve of our issues!

Can you try add something to the conversation? What's your view? Complaining and blaming everyone else about the disadvantages we face is the way forward?

When one was facing a merger in 1996 and the other was $10mil in debt in 1999, I really question how much time, resources and effort Geelong's and Hawthorn's presidents, CEOs and footy departments put into whinging about stuff they had no control over, and how much they put into turning their respective clubs around.

[Guido]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

In the past 2 years alone (since the new TV rights deal came in);

Carlton has played 11, despite a finishing 8th and 9th (8th on default).

Essendon has played 14, despite a finishing 8th (9th), and 9th

Collingwood has played 14, on the back of 4th and 6th

There's nothing really new here, and it's been this way since about 2000. Now, the question is, what has 15 years of clubs like ours, Melbourne and North complaining to the AFL about big 4 clubs getting priority for Friday night fixtures achieved until this point?

And with the TV networks clearly being the biggest contributor to the AFLs finances and their business models being based on ratings (priority given to great teams or very well supported teams), what can realistically change going forward?

[Bornadog]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

Can you try add something to the conversation? What's your view? Complaining and blaming everyone else about the disadvantages we face is the way forward?

When one was facing a merger in 1996 and the other was $10mil in debt in 1999, I really question how much time, resources and effort Geelong's and Hawthorn's presidents, CEOs and footy departments put into whinging about stuff they had no control over, and how much they put into turning their respective clubs around.

I don't think our club is constantly whinging about our lot, but I do believe we should not just lie back and take it up the proverbial.

The club is doing everything possible to try and lift the on field performance and is doing a bloody good job off field as well.

Whilst I understand what you are saying about Friday night footy, I just don't believe the current regime of the AFL are going to ever come out with a fair draw where all teams are given a chance to promote themselves. All the current policy does is give those teams with more exposure, more blockbusters and better draws, the chance to be bigger and more powerful. Have a look at ANZAC day and the membership figures for Collingwood and Essendon, added with Friday nights. It has spiralled to huge numbers. Lets see Collingwood play 4.40 on Sunday (per recently when the lowest attendance of a match with Carlton for 40 plus years happened), every week, or play Cairns, Canberra, Launceston, Geelong and see what happens to their financial fortunes.

If the AFL doesn't listen then the Presidents of WB, North, Saints, Melbourne, GWS, GC, get together and put forward a motion of no confidence in the entire AFl Commissioners until they listen.

[Maddog37]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

You need cash to put a good team on the park. No cash due to poor fixture and low exposure means you can't improve coaching, recruiting etc which in turn leads to no improved on field performance.

Around in circles we go.......

[Bornadog]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

You need cash to put a good team on the park. No cash due to poor fixture and low exposure means you can't improve coaching, recruiting etc which in turn leads to no improved on field performance.

Around in circles we go.......

The AFL's solution is tax the richer clubs and the money goes to poorer clubs football department.

I know our club was one of the instigators of this but I don't agree. In the end the way we will grow our revenue is better exposure on TV, better stadium deals, better draw and of course on field performance. Otherwise per my post above, the rich get richer and they give us handouts.

[Guido]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

I don't think our club is constantly whinging about our lot, but I do believe we should not just lie back and take it up the proverbial.

The club is doing everything possible to try and lift the on field performance and is doing a bloody good job off field as well.

Whilst I understand what you are saying about Friday night footy, I just don't believe the current regime of the AFL are going to ever come out with a fair draw where all teams are given a chance to promote themselves. All the current policy does is give those teams with more exposure, more blockbusters and better draws, the chance to be bigger and more powerful. Have a look at ANZAC day and the membership figures for Collingwood and Essendon, added with Friday nights. It has spiralled to huge numbers. Lets see Collingwood play 4.40 on Sunday (per recently when the lowest attendance of a match with Carlton for 40 plus years happened), every week, or play Cairns, Canberra, Launceston, Geelong and see what happens to their financial fortunes.

If the AFL doesn't listen then the Presidents of WB, North, Saints, Melbourne, GWS, GC, get together and put forward a motion of no confidence in the entire AFl Commissioners until they listen.

Really good post.

I just don't like time being wasted on things we can't control.

We do get a few million a year as discretionary assistance from the AFL (which you would assumed is largely funded by TV money), which I don't think 2 additional Friday night matches/other preferred time slots and the associated additional gate receipts, members, sponsorships would make up.

Just focus on recruitment, development, list management, getting the right people in the right positions, and IMO these issues will work themselves out without any divine intervention - the networks will be begging we play Friday nights rather than the other way around.

Geelong, had they made the mistakes that we made with appointments, recruiting and list management that we did, and ended up being near the bottom 4 for a few years, would not be getting many, if any, Friday night games. St Kilda is the same. Hawthorn when they were a bottom 4 team and with their boring colours and style, how many networks preferred them to Collingwood and Essendon? Now, they are #1 on the wish lists.

Just get good, leave the non-stop whinging to North.

[Guido]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

You need cash to put a good team on the park. No cash due to poor fixture and low exposure means you can't improve coaching, recruiting etc which in turn leads to no improved on field performance.

Around in circles we go.......

We had the resources to be top 4 for a few years, no reason we can't do it again.

Ports spends way less than Collingwood on their footy operations, look at their respective results.

Get the footy department (particularly recruitment and list management right), and you're more than half way there. Everyone's salary cap (other than Sydney) is the same, so it largely comes down to decision making - you don't need to spend millions to get good decisions makers in the right roles.

[Maddog37]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

So we need to outperform the big clubs when they spend 4-5 million a year on footy departments just by being hard workers? Sounds good after 5 years when they have plowed 20million extra into recruiting etc all the hard work in the world won't make up for that advantage.

I say tax the the crap out of them. Better still, share all gate receipts and membership income. Alternatively construct a fair and equal draw that puts all clubs on level footing.

[Guido]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

So we need to outperform the big clubs when they spend 4-5 million a year on footy departments just by being hard workers? Sounds good after 5 years when they have plowed 20million extra into recruiting etc all the hard work in the world won't make up for that advantage.

I didn't say work harder, everyone works hard. I'm saying spending isn't a guarantee of success. West Coast spends as much as anyone, made the finals 2 times since 2008, including bottom 4 finishes and a wooden spoon.

Port is more efficient with their resources. Fremantle, I haven't seen their numbers, but I very much doubt they are in the top 4 spenders footy department wise. At a guess, Adelaide would be though - how many Grand Finals for them since 2000?

St Kilda on the other hand was a kick away from the flag two years in a row with one of the lowest spending footy departments in the comp.

And the downfall of clubs, be they poor or rich? IMO it doesn't come down to spend, it comes down to decision making. Carlton in the late 90s was as rich as clubs come, by the early 2000s they were a mess due to earlier choices. Even ourselves, over the last 10 years we've blown millions and millions and quality draft picks on recruits who contributed nothing at the pointy end of the finals - the AFL, TV networks, fixturing or stadium deals did not force us into those deals. Lack of money in the footy department had nothing to do with any of them - it was decision making - and the right decisions in those situations many contributors on here could have offered/made for free.

[Maddog37]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/the-spending-gap-between-the-afls-rich-and-poor-has-ballooned-to-56-million/story-fni5ezdm-1226811508363

For info.

I thoroughly agree regarding some decision making but some players perhaps could have developed better with more resources which need to be funded. Chicken and egg.

[Guido]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/af...-1226811508363

For info.

I thoroughly agree regarding some decision making but some players perhaps could have developed better with more resources which need to be funded. Chicken and egg.

Assuming the same disjointed list, how much difference do you think an extra $4-5mil per year invested in our footy department in 2012, 2013 and 2014 would have made to our performances in those years?

With things like player development, I reckon our young player development would rank close to the top 4 in the comp already, so I don't know how much that kind of money would improve it.

[Maddog37]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

Injury management would also be impacted wouldn't it?

[Greystache]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

There's nothing really new here, and it's been this way since about 2000. Now, the question is, what has 15 years of clubs like ours, Melbourne and North complaining to the AFL about big 4 clubs getting priority for Friday night fixtures achieved until this point?

And with the TV networks clearly being the biggest contributor to the AFLs finances and their business models being based on ratings (priority given to great teams or very well supported teams), what can realistically change going forward?

If you can't see a paradigm shift since the new TV rights deal came in then I'm going to struggle to get my point across, but I'll give it one last try.

The AFL has shortsightedly painted itself into a corner, and in doing so has sold a large number of teams down the river. The AFL is creating an environment where only a handful of teams will have any possibility of drawing high ratings or big crowds, because they'll have been the only teams new supporters would have ever seen. If the current approach continues the AFL will be dependent on it's 6 or so chosen children to keep the league's value high, not the other way around. The league will be beholden to their clubland masters And with so few teams with rating or crowd pulling abilities the value of their beloved TV rights will actually decline.

The TV networks will look at the league and say "we're only interested in games between these 8 clubs and this is what we'll pay, you can throw in the rest of the garbage but we're not paying top dollar for it".

Bringing attention to this crazy approach is our commercial responsibility as a business, and as a business team, it is in fact a major component of their jobs. The footy department can take care of themselves, they should in no way be affected by the business side of the operation. If our sole business strategy is to be the best footy team, we're going out of business, because I'll give you a quick head's up, there's 17 other teams trying to do the same thing.

You can talk about AFL funded compensation as an equalisation tool but that's just boganomics. The league is bleeding the club to within an inch or it's life and then giving us a few drips of saline to keep us out of a coma. Then to make matters worse, they take that blood and inject it into our opponents to increase their white blood cell count.

[Guido]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

Injury management would also be impacted wouldn't it?

Collingwood's the highest spending club in the league, according to that article, right? Yet have a look at their current crisis with soft tissue injuries. It's cost them a finals spot. Essendon similar story across the last couple of years, Carlton have their question marks with training load/injury management as well. 3 of the top footy department spends in the league right there. Where's Port? Spending $4mil less, yet would tear all three of them apart come first week of finals.

Recruitment - with our supposedly tiny budget, Stringer, Hrovat, Macrae and Bonts in the last couple of seasons. I'm just making a massive assumption here, but I reckon someone like Clayton might have been on double, and I don't think there's a chance in hell he would have delivered the same results.

#RightPeopleRightPositions

[Maddog37]

Re: Friday Night Footy - where do we rank?

If you can't see a paradigm shift since the new TV rights deal came in then I'm going to struggle to get my point across, but I'll give it one last try.

The AFL has shortsightedly painted itself into a corner, and in doing so has sold a large number of teams down the river. The AFL is creating an environment where only a handful of teams will have any possibility of drawing high ratings or big crowds, because they'll have been the only teams new supporters would have ever seen. If the current approach continues the AFL will be dependent on it's 6 or so chosen children to keep the league's value high, not the other way around. The league will be beholden to their clubland masters And with so few teams with rating or crowd pulling abilities the value of their beloved TV rights will actually decline.

The TV networks will look at the league and say "we're only interested in games between these 8 clubs and this is what we'll pay, you can throw in the rest of the garbage but we're not paying top dollar for it".

Bringing attention to this crazy approach is our commercial responsibility as a business, and as a business team, it is in fact a major component of their jobs. The footy department can take care of themselves, they should in no way be affected by the business side of the operation. If our sole business strategy is to be the best footy team, we're going out of business, because I'll give you a quick head's up, there's 17 other teams trying to do the same thing.

You can talk about AFL funded compensation as an equalisation tool but that's just boganomics. The league is bleeding the club to within an inch or it's life and then giving us a few drips of saline to keep us out of a coma. Then to make matters worse, they take that blood and inject it into our opponents to increase their white blood cell count.

Beautifully put.