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Roos Unlikely to make money from home games

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 2:18 pm
by Sojourner
I was at the match on Saturday night and the Docklands did look very empty with the low figure, there would have been at least 1500 Port supporters at the game, so the real number of North Melbourne supporters there is anyones guess - A pity because despite the poor standard of the game in the first half it really became a great game to watch in the second, especially as Port supporters had begun leaving the ground assuming a loss was on the way and then Port began to make a dramatic comeback!

They state in the article the coin they were recieving from the Gold Coast matches - 1.2mil interstate in total, it seems like a struggle to replace it, yet James Brayshaw seems pretty confident that they can not only maintain their revenue but increase it accordingly to be able to stay in Melbourne instead of having made the move to the Coast.

Irrespective of whether its an Interstate Side or not, a host club should be able to get a gate of over the 20 000 mark, the tickets were only $19, so what more can they do?

From the AFL News site,

Roos unlikely to make money from home games

11:15 AM Mon 11 May, 2009
NORTH Melbourne is unlikely to make a cent from its home matches this season, something chief executive Eugene Arocca believes will be an AFL first.

Saturday night’s North Melbourne-Port Adelaide match at Docklands drew a crowd of just 14,342.

The poor turn-up means the Kangaroos are likely to lose about $130,000, wiping out the gains they had made from earlier gate returns this season – especially their home game against Collingwood in round six.

Arocca said his club was yet to do the sums but Saturday night’s crowd was especially disappointing.

“We’d be astounded if it didn’t cost us $100,000, based on the budgeting and the figures that we’ve worked on,” he told SEN on Monday morning.

“It’s probably going to get closer to $130,000; it’s going to be a big hit.

“It’ll probably take us back to a zero revenue, net, from the five home games we’ve had.

“We estimate we’d racked up about $130,000 to $150,000 by the end of the Collingwood game and we think that’ll all evaporate by the time we get the figures for this Port Adelaide game,” he said.

“So we’re probably going to get to the end of the season with either very close to a zero net revenue for stadium deals … which is probably the first time in AFL history that a club’s made no money from match returns.”

Arocca said North Melbourne would have to find alternate methods of revenue to simply balance its books in 2009.

“Last year we made $1.8 [million] but $1.2 million was interstate of course (with matches being played on the Gold Coast),” he said.

“After the deal fell over we then revised that down by about 600k. The team hasn’t been performing as well on the field and figures generally seem to be down about 15 per cent in some matches.

“We’re going to have to be pretty creative in finding other revenue streams in the next three to six months to just break even.”

Arocca said Saturday night’s crowd was “unacceptable” for a club with nearly 30,000 members but the Kangaroos were working tirelessly to attract their fans back to games.

“The number of North Melbourne people I bump into who claim to be great supporters who are either not members or don’t come to games, is a real concern,” he said.

“It’s going to be a painful journey over the next three to five years but we’d love to think that in three years when we play Port Adelaide, we’d have over 24,000 … it’s a genuine challenge.”

Re: Roos Unlikely to make money from home games

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 2:31 pm
by Dirko
Getting only 14 k they deserve to lose money. For a home game it's a deplorable crowd.

What happened to the "membership" drive and support the Roos campaign ?

Re: Roos Unlikely to make money from home games

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 2:36 pm
by JK
The so-called experts in Melbourne have applauded Brayshaw and NM's stance on remaining in Melbourne, yet most of them (Wilson, Connelly and co.) now think they will be in perilous strife as a result.

Im not close enough to the club to know how true that might hold, but it would a concerning time for them for sure you would think.

Re: Roos Unlikely to make money from home games

PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 11:19 pm
by Sojourner
Perhaps another thing to consider is that the current issues seem to be when North Melbourne are required to host Port Adelaide or Fremantle. What happens when West Sydney and the Gold Coast are added to that list?

Re: Roos Unlikely to make money from home games

PostPosted: Tue May 12, 2009 1:10 am
by jackpot jim
Was also at the game Sat night and Port played rubbish footy in the 1st 1/2. Skill level and decision making was deplorabe. At a guess i would've thought the crowd was about 15% Power supporters which makes about 11 - 12 K Nth Melb supporters which is a DISGRACE.