Stadium Deals in 2008

[Wedgie]

I've been thinking about all the hullabaloo in regard to stadium deals with Rucci detailing how Port received the 2nd smallest amount in the league in 2008 from their deal but I was thinking, well surely they shouldn't be complaining as they clearly had the smallest crowds in the league, surely they should have the worst deal?
After all Melbourne attracted almost 7,000 more to each home game it had yet it received less money from its deal than the Power, hardly seems fair?

I then thought I'd work out how much each club receives in relation to how many people they get at home games, a fair comparison I thought to work out exactly how badly Port were off?
Interesting results, these are the amouonts per average home crowd member each club received for stadium deals:

West Coast - $451.50
Freo - $381.86
Geelong - $342.67
Sydney - $335.02
Brisbane - $330.63
Port - $251.66
Hawthorn - $245.15
Collingwood - $241.50
Bulldogs - $227.91
Nth Melb - $227.71
Adelaide - $213.87
Essendon - $194.10
Melbourne - $191.70
Carlton - $168.76
St Kilda - $167.41
Richmond - $142.40

I'll leave it up to you to make any conclusions.

[wycbloods]

Freo and WCE are doing pretty well for themselves by the looks of that.

Richmond get less than a third of what the eagles get that is a fair difference as i would think there isn't a huge difference in their home game attendances. Maybe the crows should be asking for more instead of the power .

[Hondo]

All the Melbourne clubs have a bad stadium deal by comparison to the interstate clubs except for Geelong with their unique home ground situation. In fact, the AFL are (or have been) in legal disputes with both the MCG Trust and the mob that own Ethiad Stadium to work better stadium deals for the clubs.

The compensating factor is that those same Melbourne based clubs get very large payments from the AFL each year to compensate them for inequitable stadium deals ($1m+ each year in some cases). These non-recourse payments are not made to the non-Melbourne teams so you need to look at all the revenue streams to compare clubs.

I keep posting this link whenever stadium deals come up because this guy has seemingly spent hours researching the stadium deals and come up with an excellent (but long!) summary of where it's all at:

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=554729&highlight=Stadium+deal

[Wedgie]

Exactly how much did Hawthorn, Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood get last year Hondo?

[JK]

In fact, the AFL are (or have been) in legal disputes with both the MCG Trust

Unless Im missing something (which is most likely lol), I don't understand the AFL stance on this:

They locked into a contract with the MCC, with guaranteed minimum crowd figures provided ... The draw the AFL continue to pen provides crowds hugely in excess of that figure, so they want a bigger share of the revenue, than the contract permits.

MCC, naturally I would have thought), won't budge.

SO ... Isn't the simple solution for the AFL to stop providing so many blockbuster games there, thus lessening the numbers of patrons walking through the MCG turnstyles? (Note that I'm not saying wipe them out completely, but Im sure the Cats fans would love to see Collingwood come for a regular visit for example?)

[Barto]

If that's genuinely the case, why are Port complaining so loudly?

[Hondo]

Exactly how much did Hawthorn, Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood get last year Hondo?

They don't need it because they get the large crowds. That's the 4 largest crowd pulling teams in the comp, arguably. Lower return per person at the ground x much higher number of people. It's hard to pick half of the "total revenue" equation out and rank it without considering the other half.

Even using the most extreme case of Carlton ($169 per head), they only need to average 40,000 per game to get the same total revenue as Port (assuming Port average 27,000). If Carlton average 60,000 crowd they get $3.3m more than Port over the season, despite the lower revenue per head. That's 3X the grant Port are asking for at the moment.

The equalisation fund is for the likes of NM, Melbourne & WB who unfortunately don't get the crowds that Carlton, Essendon, Hawthorn and Collingwood get.

[Wedgie]

Crikey, that's a bit rough, they attract more people, get less money per person and watch while clubs that get more money per person whinge about wanting more?
I'd be sticking up a real stink if I was them and if I was Port I'd be staying pretty quiet about their relatively sweet deal.

Geelong are an interesting one, they actually make a hell of a lot more when the move games to the Telstra Dome so they must have a much sweeter deal than the Melbourne clubs but I suppose they have more bargaining power having Kardinia Park.
Its a pity all clubs can't have a Brian Cook and Frank Costa in charge as we'd see a lot different figures then!

[Pidge]

Freo and WCE are doing pretty well for themselves by the looks of that.

Richmond get less than a third of what the eagles get that is a fair difference as i would think there isn't a huge difference in their home game attendances. Maybe the crows should be asking for more instead of the power .

They should be asking for more. Port are a rabble

[mighty_tiger_79]

Crikey, that's a bit rough, they attract more people, get less money per person and watch while clubs that get more money per person whinge about wanting more?
I'd be sticking up a real stink if I was them and if I was Port I'd be staying pretty quiet about their relatively sweet deal.

Geelong are an interesting one, they actually make a hell of a lot more when the move games to the Telstra Dome so they must have a much sweeter deal than the Melbourne clubs but I suppose they have more bargaining power having Kardinia Park.
Its a pity all clubs can't have a Brian Cook and Frank Costa in charge as we'd see a lot different figures then!

it was interesting in the early days of telstra dome, they played a few 'home games' to appease melbourne based members, but luckily werent locked into any long term arrangement..........thank god for that

[Hondo]

Wedgie does make a fair point in that I am sure the clubs who play home games at the G and Docklands are just as dirty on their stadium deals, if not more so, than Port.

I don't think that makes Port's deal good by comparison, maybe the best description is "less bad".

I think NM's CEO has come out and said they should close the stadium to the public and play the game in front of nobody (at Docklands), because they'd be better off financially

My limited understanding of the various stadium deals is that Brisbane and the Perth teams do so well because they stadiums are mostly government owned so they have what I think is called a "clean" deal. That is, they pay some fixed "rental" for use of the stadium and then get to keep whatever profits they can make from game day. Whereas, in all other stadiums, including AAMI, the Stadium owner takes a cut of a game day revenue as well.

[Brad]

Reading that post from Bigfooty you can see why the the Victorian Clubs get awfully screwed with stadium deals, maybe by the time the AFL owns Docklands then clubs will get a fair deal if they aren't already broke.

[heater31]

Reading that post from Bigfooty you can see why the the Victorian Clubs get awfully screwed with stadium deals, maybe by the time the AFL owns Docklands then clubs will get a fair deal if they aren't already broke.

problem is though that Docklands is bound contractually not be owned by AFL for anther 15 years or so. I don't think some clubs can hang on for that long

[Dutchy]

Seems crazy that the club putting on the show can lose money from ANY game at a stadium no matter what the crowd.

During the NAB cup I notice that they dont open the top tier at the Dome for small crowds, surely this saves costs of staff, catering & cleaning? Why dont they do that when playing an interstate team?

Port should do the same with the Northern stand, close it off and save costs, they can fit in their crowds without it

[Sojourner]

During the NAB cup I notice that they dont open the top tier at the Dome for small crowds, surely this saves costs of staff, catering & cleaning? Why dont they do that when playing an interstate team?

I was at the Docklands for last nights North Melbourne vs Port Adelaide match, the group I was with got tickets for the third tier and were told that half of it would be closed which it was.

The crowd turned out to be approximately 14 500 people. What I found interesting was that you could sit on the bottom tier and those tickets were $30 and the upper tier tickets were $19. Of the crowd the larger portion chose to sit on the third tier at $19. Hence if they did decide to close the third tier altogether, they would have to come up with an appropriate ticket price as clearly the $19 tickets are pretty popular.

[RustyCage]

I dont understand your list Wedgie. Port have to pay over $500000 to play a day game at AAMI, and over $600000 to play a night game there. We need 27000 to break even.

AAMI staduim would go under if it wasnt for the AFL clubs who play there, so they should stop raping them.