Kangaroos say no to Gold Coast

[Broady]

As Jeff Kennett said on TV last night, " I thought the AFL were trying to reduce the amount of Clubs, not create more Clubs"

[Psyber]

As Jeff Kennett said on TV last night, " I thought the AFL were trying to reduce the amount of Clubs, not create more Clubs"

They are, those that don't take the relocation path when it is offered will be left to slug it out with the others in Melbourne until some of them wither and die, because the AFL will withdraw the subsidies to support the new clubs. Jeff's just worried Hawthorn may yet be one of them.

[carey18]

Easy to talk about mergers and relocation when you are talking about other clubs apart from your own. Y should North Melbourne go?. North melbourne created the market of friday night football and now are getting screwed buy the same people they helped market from it today. North Melbourne is North Melbourne. Not friggen Gold Coast Roos or anything else. Remeber the fight has just begun. Load of crap that they AFL would do this to them. I live in SA and have been a member of the kangaroos since i was 12. Get behind clubs not try make them fold. Sick of this shit

[Psyber]

Why should ANYONE go? Because somebody has to!

All those teams in Melbourne are just not viable and the national game needs teams elsewhere TO BE A NATIONAL GAME. So, the AFL is not going to prop up teams, who are not where they need them to be, forever.

Since several teams are struggling financially in a competitive market, it may come to a choice between relocating, merging, or folding up and disappearing totally. The last few to make a sound financial decision will disappear. Do you want to be one of them??

[Dutchy]

Easy to talk about mergers and relocation when you are talking about other clubs apart from your own. Y should North Melbourne go?. North melbourne created the market of friday night football and now are getting screwed buy the same people they helped market from it today. North Melbourne is North Melbourne. Not friggen Gold Coast Roos or anything else. Remeber the fight has just begun. Load of crap that they AFL would do this to them. I live in SA and have been a member of the kangaroos since i was 12. Get behind clubs not try make them fold. Sick of this s***t

[brent]

the life-support is about to be switched off and unplugged.... the rest is just a matter of time.

no amount of rallies or marches will help unless somebody can come up with the cold hard cash to pay the bills

[carey18]

the life-support is about to be switched off and unplugged.... the rest is just a matter of time.

no amount of rallies or marches will help unless somebody can come up with the cold hard cash to pay the bills

And thank you Albert einstein for your throughly thought out thoughts

[Hondo]

Carey18 you can't say the 'AFL screwed us' when your club is receiving large AFL support payments. I'd like to be screwed that way

Do you think a couple more Friday night games and/or 1 more game against Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood per season will make up the $2m-$5m per year your club needs? Would exclusive Fri night football fix everything seeming as you think its removal has put the club where it is

This causes of this problem go far beyond those things, at least Brayshaw presented the dire situation for what it is.

No-one wants the club to fold that's just OTT, emotional talk. Relocating is not folding. All we want is the club to stand on its own 2 feet without the hand-outs, if that can happen in Melbourne then great. Its not wanting to see you fold that's driving the comments, I worry the Roos will do just that by staying in Melbourne. With all the new sporting codes taking up people's time where are all the new members going to come from in Melbourne?

TBH, as I have said before, I think all that has happened is that the Roos have won the 12 month repreive they wanted and I think its a better than 50/50 chance the club will eventually move. They are still playing the 3 games up there next season as far as I am aware. Nothing has changed for the 2008 and 2009 seasons from what was set 4 weeks ago.

[stan]

Easy to talk about mergers and relocation when you are talking about other clubs apart from your own. Y should North Melbourne go?. North melbourne created the market of friday night football and now are getting screwed buy the same people they helped market from it today. North Melbourne is North Melbourne. Not friggen Gold Coast Roos or anything else. Remeber the fight has just begun. Load of crap that they AFL would do this to them. I live in SA and have been a member of the kangaroos since i was 12. Get behind clubs not try make them fold. Sick of this s***t

Well then buy your membership, get you mates (that are roo supporters) to buy there memberships. Like Brayshaw said, membership is low and attendence last year was low.

[carey18]

Easy to talk about mergers and relocation when you are talking about other clubs apart from your own. Y should North Melbourne go?. North melbourne created the market of friday night football and now are getting screwed buy the same people they helped market from it today. North Melbourne is North Melbourne. Not friggen Gold Coast Roos or anything else. Remeber the fight has just begun. Load of crap that they AFL would do this to them. I live in SA and have been a member of the kangaroos since i was 12. Get behind clubs not try make them fold. Sick of this s***t

Well then buy your membership, get you mates (that are roo supporters) to buy there memberships. Like Brayshaw said, membership is low and attendence last year was low.

I do buy my membership and getting anyone i can to buy one aswell.
Ill think you will find the AFL has canned any game the roos were going to play in queensland after next season. Wont can next seasons games due to packages and stuff already brought.

[carey18]

Carey18 you can't say the 'AFL screwed us' when your club is receiving large AFL support payments. I'd like to be screwed that way

Do you think a couple more Friday night games and/or 1 more game against Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood per season will make up the $2m-$5m per year your club needs? Would exclusive Fri night football fix everything seeming as you think its removal has put the club where it is

This causes of this problem go far beyond those things, at least Brayshaw presented the dire situation for what it is.

No-one wants the club to fold that's just OTT, emotional talk. Relocating is not folding. All we want is the club to stand on its own 2 feet without the hand-outs, if that can happen in Melbourne then great. Its not wanting to see you fold that's driving the comments, I worry the Roos will do just that by staying in Melbourne. With all the new sporting codes taking up people's time where are all the new members going to come from in Melbourne?

TBH, as I have said before, I think all that has happened is that the Roos have won the 12 month repreive they wanted and I think its a better than 50/50 chance the club will eventually move. They are still playing the 3 games up there next season as far as I am aware. Nothing has changed for the 2008 and 2009 seasons from what was set 4 weeks ago.

Some few good points but try pointing this out to Fitzroy or South Melbourne supporters.
I come from melbourne and was used to going to two games every saturday. Watrching the reserves and then seniors.
\Lets just hope Brayshaw isnt the next Leon Weigard

[stan]

Easy to talk about mergers and relocation when you are talking about other clubs apart from your own. Y should North Melbourne go?. North melbourne created the market of friday night football and now are getting screwed buy the same people they helped market from it today. North Melbourne is North Melbourne. Not friggen Gold Coast Roos or anything else. Remeber the fight has just begun. Load of crap that they AFL would do this to them. I live in SA and have been a member of the kangaroos since i was 12. Get behind clubs not try make them fold. Sick of this s***t

Well then buy your membership, get you mates (that are roo supporters) to buy there memberships. Like Brayshaw said, membership is low and attendence last year was low.

I do buy my membership and getting anyone i can to buy one aswell.
Ill think you will find the AFL has canned any game the roos were going to play in queensland after next season. Wont can next seasons games due to packages and stuff already brought.

Thanks for that, although i never said anything about qld games, so im not sure what question or statement you were replying to but, heck nice to know.

[Sojourner]

They are still playing the 3 games up there next season as far as I am aware. Nothing has changed for the 2008 and 2009 seasons from what was set 4 weeks ago.

From watching the Mayor of the Gold Coast on TV Friday night he seemed to make it pretty clear that the club is not welcome there for those games in 2008.....

Still it depends what contracts have been signed I suppose! I am not sure what funds the Gold Coast Council put into the games, yet if they feel that the goalposts have moved, maybe they will withdraw their funding, which leaves North Melbourne to find venues for three other games - If Qld dont want them, I am sure that the Tasmanian Government will be open for negotiation!

[carey18]

I think you will find the roos are playing there next season then after that the AFL have to pay out the kangas on breaking there contract. i may be wrong

[TroyGFC]

A historic day when the Kangaroos reject the prospect of becoming the Gold Coast Kangaroos in favour of their likely future as the North Melbourne Major Mitchell Hopping Mice in the VFL competition.

[Somebody has to go - Melbourne can't sustain so many teams.]

Courageous but correct decision by the board. By moving to the Gold Coast they would have remained the same coporate entity but ceased to be the real Kangaroos. Abandoning Arden street would have been abandoning everything that Nth Melb ever stood for to become a marketing tool of the AFL. At least now their club has a chance to survive.

I believe the board has erred big time on this, quite possibly negligent in their duties as directors. I wonder if Brayshaw etc voted with their brains or their hearts.

Much more to running a footy club then just footy.

Sorry Dutchy, but I fear the Roos have probably missed a decades worth of free kicks right in front of goals.


No one else they can blame when the club has folded in 5 years time.

Did you want Footscray to merge? your club was in a worst spot than us yet there is no mention of them folding these days?

I thought Rushby Hinds would have been happy if Western Bulldogs were based in Adelaide Oval that was once floated around a few years ago... then at least he could watch them every few weeks!!!

[Dutchy]

Easy to talk about mergers and relocation when you are talking about other clubs apart from your own. Y should North Melbourne go?. North melbourne created the market of friday night football and now are getting screwed buy the same people they helped market from it today. North Melbourne is North Melbourne. Not friggen Gold Coast Roos or anything else. Remeber the fight has just begun. Load of crap that they AFL would do this to them. I live in SA and have been a member of the kangaroos since i was 12. Get behind clubs not try make them fold. Sick of this s***t

Well then buy your membership, get you mates (that are roo supporters) to buy there memberships. Like Brayshaw said, membership is low and attendence last year was low.

Attendence low there were 4 other Melbourne teams, with worse average attendences last season, including the Melbourne/Bullies game drawing 17k in Melb under the DOOM roof, same weekend Roos played WCE and got 26k...facts right please

there will be 3 more memberships coming from under my roof for 2008 and we may just suprise a few people, lets not forget unlike many other clubs we have fans who have seen success in their life time....

[am Bays]

I'm still dubious about the long term viability of the NMFC remaining in Melb

An increase of 8 000 members to over 30 000 will give them an extra $1.4 Mill (Dennis Pagan in todays Age - ATM they have 7500 members for next year)
They are about to sign a new major sponsor (Vodafone which will give them an extra $250 K per year compared to what Primus backed them for - yesterdays Age. This was all hush hush as Vodafone didn't want to sign if they went to the GC as they already sponsor Bris)
The $10 Million investment fund (5 backers putting in $2 Mill each) will return between $500 K (at worst 5%) and $2 Mill (at best 20%) so we'll say $1.25 M.

All up a $3 Mill increase in income.

So by my reckoning the NMFC will have an icome stream in 2008 equivalent to what the big clubs (Adelaide, Collingwood, WC and Hawthorn) had in 2006 (~$28 Mill). In otherwords despite the rallying call I can't see the NMFC operating at a level in 2008 that guarantees survival.

I'd love a NMFC member to tell me what they turned-over this year to see if my $25 Mill guess is wrong.

I know they made a six figure profit this year ($115 000) but they don't say what the Income/expenditure result was.

The crunch year will be in 2009 and 2010 when they are $1.6 and $2.8 Mill down respecitvely on 2007 income from the start when the AFL special assistance funding runs out and there is no guaranteed income from teh Gold Coast games.

IMHO I think Hondo is OTM. The sticking point of NM going to the gold coast is the stadium deal, they didn't want to go until the stadium deal was in place. The AFL wanted NMFC to go to ensure the QLD govt came to the party to help fund the stadium.

I expect secret negotiations to go behind close doors over the year to get this deal done and the Kangeroos to move as I for one can't see surviving longterm in Melbourne especially when in 2009 and 2010 their income streams have already been hit.

[Dutchy]

We have a contract to play on the Gold Coast in 2009, if the AFL dont play us up there then we still get the cash $420k per game....

Ive never seen the financials in the clubs annual report, probably something to do with private ownership

Hey I dont know how they are going to do it, BUT its like not knowing how a youngster is going to play in his forst game, you are dubios but you support them fully and thats what I will be doing...Brayshaw was very impressive on AA the other night, this might just be awakening the sleeping half back flanker!

[mighty_tiger_79]

We have a contract to play on the Gold Coast in 2009, if the AFL dont play us up there then we still get the cash $420k per game....

expect to get the cash because as has been previously mentioned i heard/read somewhere that the AFL werent going to play the Roos up at the Gold Coast after next season and open it up to all other clubs....

I think Collingwood probably want to play up there for exposure - its not as if they dont enough already!!!!!!!!

[Psyber]

I'm still dubious about the long term viability of the NMFC remaining in Melb

An increase of 8 000 members to over 30 000 will give them an extra $1.4 Mill (Dennis Pagan in todays Age - ATM they have 7500 members for next year)
They are about to sign a new major sponsor (Vodafone which will give them an extra $250 K per year compared to what Primus backed them for - yesterdays Age. This was all hush hush as Vodafone didn't want to sign if they went to the GC as they already sponsor Bris)
The $10 Million investment fund (5 backers putting in $2 Mill each) will return between $500 K (at worst 5%) and $2 Mill (at best 20%) so we'll say $1.25 M.

A bit optomistic 12.5% - I can't see them getting more than $800K in income out of $10M invested in the next few years, indeed I would expect less, unless we do get the same sort of inflationary spiral as occurred in the mid-1980s.