We need life support!

[Spirit of the Demon 249]

Cellar-dwelling Demons seeking $1m life support

[titan_uranus 24,857]

Cellar-dwelling Demons seeking $1m life support

Quite an unenviable situation we're in here. We need the money, however if we continue to live off 'life support' we may never establish our own means of creating funds.

[Demons 32 235]

I stopped reading once I read their membership facts. We have 27,000 members this year (they said 26,400) and we had 28,000 last year (they said 27,000.)

If you can't get this very basic part of the article right then high chance the rest is wrong/fabricated.

No doubt we are going to request more money, we need it, we are in trouble.

But this article is so badly done right from the first paragraph that I would hope the journo who has their named attached stole their 14 year old sons English homework.

Although honestly, my 8 year old niece would understand the basis of a basic point of view essay (or is it analytical?) you can't tell because thats how poor it is.

Your facts have no merit if they are wrong.

[Real Demon 232]

We do need to work to becoming self sustainable though..............the longer we rely on AFL handouts, we continue to be at their mercy.

No real news in this article though.........we have already heard of our financial plight more than once this year!

This is the time when CEO's earn their money........thinking outside the sqaure, and coming up with strategies not previously considered that can make a true difference to the club.

Living and dying by what happens on the field year after years is nuts.

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,474]

I know I'm clutching at straws here but McNamee's already got the runs on the board in terms of our 2 home attendances since he's been in charge:

Round 5- Melbourne V Carlton - 46,792 (2007 - 26,156) (2004 - 38,000 when we were flying)

Round 7 - Melbourne V Fremantle - 19,423 (2007 - 16,654)

This is partly a result of key marketing intiatives that McNamee was behind.

This week we play Hawthorn and a combination of Neita's farwell and Hawthorn's hot form should see 45,000 - 50,000.

Next home against Collingwood should at least attract 60,000.

So things are looking solid regarding gate receipts. Now he just has to fix the other problems.

[Surfa 0]

with the whole push for china as a marketing ploy shouldnt we maybe try and tap into the chinese culture in austrtalia first?? put up melb flags in chinatown lol recuit a chinese player get some of their soccer players and adapt them like the irish experiment.. if they really are going to try to do it ofver there surely they should trial it here.. How many chinese families are there in australia??

i have to admit i never see many at the games...

isnt the mayor of melb a melb supporter??? get him in on the act.. something anything. to get more money

[Surfa 0]

P.S well done sofar mcnamee.. Loved what you did for the hopman cup..

[rpfc 28,070]

IMO the key point of the article is the changed view of the AFL after we got rid of Harris. With turnover at around 90% the AFL were rightly coming to the board and saying, "we are paying for your pay outs and recruitment expenses, and its not even related to the football dept."

Renegotiate, get some more sponsors on board and let's get moving.

By the way, pretty disappointing about the gaffes in the article but it happens, I don't think malice was intended.

[Pates 9,625]

What the hell did Harris do at our club? 90% turnover? That's a joke, and it's no wonder we're in financial disarray. I can't believe that he actually BUDGETED for a 30,000 membership figure, given the history of our clubs supporters after bad year and the fact that we couldn't sustain many losses it would've been infinitely smarter to budget for 26,000-27,000. Aim for 30,000 but don't rely on it.

P-Mac seems to be heading in the right direction, especially in terms of our gate numbers so far. It's early days, but i've liked his style in the past so hopefully he can perform a miracle. I hate to say it though, but i think we're gonna have to look at selling more games, try to go for a neutral ground.