Regarding a boutique stadium in Casey or another developing region of outer suburban Melbourne I'd support that so long as:

1. We still get half a dozen home games at the MCG agains the likes of Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, St Kilda, Richmond, Hawthorn etc.

2. Home games a the boutique stadium are limited to non Victorian teams and 1 of Western Bulldogs, Geelong or St Kilda each year

3. We get at least half a dozen away games at the MCG against the teams in point 1

Getting to Casey would be tricky for anyone not on that side of town so at least if the above is met there remains ample opportunities for those supporters to see their team live on the G.

The only way out of this situation is infield improvement. While memberships are down and attendences are really poor these will both improve when we improve. Memberships have been sold based on hope for the past 4-5 years and we need to accept that a sustainable membership base needs to be built based on reality.

While a larger salary cap may help us land one or two A grade midfielders (by paying overs) we will both have problems funding the additional cap and retaining players when we improve and the cap is restored to 100%.

A priority pick will help us trade for an A grade mid fielder but the downside is that priority picks contributed to the mess we are in.

Equalisation is the best way to ensure strugglig clubs are not at the mercy of memberships and attendences during lean years. We also should look at having some Casey home games against interstate sides as this will help financially as well as building our young supporter base.

The reality is our memberships and attendances will be poor until we are competitive and there is no easy way out. Equalisation will enable us to pay the salary cap to attract one or two A grade mids and continue to invest in our FD.

  On 05/06/2013 at 01:03, Dee*ceiving said:

Regarding a boutique stadium in Casey or another developing region of outer suburban Melbourne I'd support that so long as:

1. We still get half a dozen home games at the MCG agains the likes of Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, St Kilda, Richmond, Hawthorn etc.

2. Home games a the boutique stadium are limited to non Victorian teams and 1 of Western Bulldogs, Geelong or St Kilda each year

3. We get at least half a dozen away games at the MCG against the teams in point 1

Getting to Casey would be tricky for anyone not on that side of town so at least if the above is met there remains ample opportunities for those supporters to see their team live on the G.

Id support this

I am a little confused as to why people are unable to see the connection between the increased salary cap proposal, AND the equalisation money. We get X amount from the AFL now, but it can't be used to pay players.... I think that Eddie and Newbold are suggesting that perhaps some of that equalisation should be available to use within the cap itself.

I don't for a moment doubt they have self interest... as this 'solution' doesn't compromise the draft (after several years where it has been) and it deflects any attention away from their current business models and footy dept spending.

Casey is not the answer. It would be akin to Fitzroy playing its games at the Western Oval. Our home is the MCG and it is highly accessible to greater Melbourne. Building something that is remotely close to AFL standard would cost millions and would diminish our crowds. Moreover, locality has become much less important to which clubs people support in the TV age and winning has become more important.

  On 04/06/2013 at 15:28, Choko said:

I have seen floated lately This idea by Eddie and supported by Hawthorn that we should get an additional salary cap allowance because we are so bad.

I say tell em to get stuffed. I don't want it. If we start doing well, we would be doing so not on the basis of equalisation, but on the basis of inequality. If it was Collingwood struggling, I would want them to rot.

The other thing is, where does it all end? When we win 6 games? 8? Finals? When we pinch one of their players?

Stadium deals, fixturing and the draft is where equalisation forces should come in to play, not the salary cap.

I dont understand this. An extended salary cap is best for clubs who cant afford to pay their premium list. This would force us to over pay players who dont deserve it. It also assumes out of contracts or free agents will leave purely for money to struggling clubs. If anything give us the priority pick which will then with a low draft position gives us bargaining power at the trade table or at worst the ability to pick a premium youngster (assuming we dont bugger it up).

Having read all the posts thus far, most of the posters have made some good points. I;ll back it up with....

First of all Eddie can stick his extended salary cap idea, we dont need him helping dig our hole deeper than it is.

All this money has to made / paid from somewhere, we can't manage it as it is.

We need to get our house in order, and not be spending thrifts, thats the whole probelm. Money Management from within. Hopefully PJ gets us back on track.

Next .. I'm still dark on getting the fine on the tanking outcome, the AFL didnt help us. they must have known it would cripple us.

yet they say they are willing to do whatever they can to help us out. humbug

If they want to help, then our HOME games need to be played against the foundation clubs, where we can expect to draw 30-50,000 to our home games.

That WOULD help. but will they? I doubt it, They are all talk. I can see us getting booted off the 'G' not because we are playing crap footy atm.Because we get home games against the Gold Coast. Port , GWS etc. Non crowd drawing games.Once we lose our ground, thats it, its gone.

If we cant manage our income, we will be selling home games to the NT or any other place on planet earth. Bandage fixes for poor investments, shocking use of our funds. I've had enough handouts, either from the supporters or AFL, or anyone else for that matter,

Its time we got our house in order, and prove we can exist, that will be only achieved by good business management.

The last decade and a bit has proven 2 things, we are great at blowing money, and not making the most of our top draft picks.

If we get a priority pick, the best our bet would be to throw it at another club and hope to land a margue player (A grade Mid)

All the above is compounded by our woeful performances, non competitive, uninspiring games.

Homes game at Casey, has some merit against likes of St.Kilda (close to local for most of their supporters) GWS, Gold Coast etc.give the Casey region a 1/2 decent game to attend. But then does this leave the door open further, for an opening to lose the 'G' ?

Remembering the 'G' is the best crowd pulling ground in the national. We can make bucket loads if we have home games against decent Vic Teams.

When the tide turns, we begin our climb, we can pack it as good as anyone. But if we give it up, we'll be packing out Eithad and complaining we couldnt get in to see the game.

We are at the crossroads. I hope the reality bus takes the correct road.

I agree to an extent Deevoted. But I am afraid a purely good business based strategy on it's own will take years to dig us out of this hole, that's presuming we actually make the right decisions and we score a couple of lucky breaks.

I am afraid we don't have the luxury of time. If we haven't made some improvement by the time the next TV rights agreement negotiations start we'll be in real trouble. Don't think for a minute that just because there is 9 games a week now that the product needs to have 9 games a week in 5 years time to be worth more or even the same as it is now.

if we are a poor team, with little support, low ratings and non-existent attendance it may just turn out that it costs TV operators more to cover our games than it returns in terms of revenue. When and if this happens the AFL product may actually be worth more in a commercial sense with us gone. It will be curtains for the Demons.

I don't agree with a proposed salary cap expansion.

The view is along the lines of 'if you give Melbourne extra money, they'll go out and buy good players, and that's what will make them better'. Eddie's even said 'give them $2m extra, they'll go out and buy 4 players for $500,000 each'. The idea is that a priority pick is useless for a club who has had access to high draft picks and gone nowhere with them.

The first problem is that it assumes we can use the extra money to find new players. That's no certainty at all. Moreover, it assumes that if we do entice players, they'll be worth large sums of money. Again, not necessarily true.

Also, how does it work? For how long do we get this assistance? If we begin to play well as of 2014, at what point do we get $2m taken off the salary cap?

Providing handouts in the form of a bigger salary cap is no answer to inequality.

The only answer is for the MFC to do this by themselves.

So according to Caroline the AFL is considering/investigating the option of providing us with an increased salary cap funded by the AFL.

There is of course a lot of water to go under the bridge but I find it rather surprising so many people on here are completely closed to the idea.

I’m quite interested to see how this one plays out.

Interesting idea. Let's here the whole scenario.

The MFC must be open to all right now.

I believe we are now sitting at "Rock Bottom" this is it kids.

But with a good CEO and a board that listens we can rise

  On 05/06/2013 at 01:21, Fat Tony said:

Casey is not the answer. It would be akin to Fitzroy playing its games at the Western Oval. Our home is the MCG and it is highly accessible to greater Melbourne. Building something that is remotely close to AFL standard would cost millions and would diminish our crowds. Moreover, locality has become much less important to which clubs people support in the TV age and winning has become more important.

I think what Fans are saying Tony is play games in Casey against GWS, Suns, Port, Freo & Meth Coast where we don't actually draw big crowds. I think we need to think alternatively to survive, entrench ourselves in a growing area with a guarantee from the AFL of our 11 home games a year 6 or 7 are at the G against clubs who draw a big crowd 2 to 3 at Casey and 1 in Darwin. Any games to be played at Etihad are where we are the away team.

I know it is not ideal but we need to think of progressing the club and selling Casey 3 game memberships, to me it is better than seeing teh club forced to play 4 games a season out of Melbourne to survive.

AFL Footy will not be played out at Casey. It just won't happen.

Punt Rd is sitting next to a train station.

Winning football would get 40,000 to the 'G for an interstate killing.

Stop thinking small. To survive and prosper we must think bigger.

  Quote

No ones thinking small we are just trying to come up with ideas for the club to gain a profit and playing out of a boutique ground is one of them. In regards to the TPP scheme that Eddie proposed I don't think it is a good idea and isn't sustainable. There must be other ways to assist all strugling clubs not just us but giving them a bit of a boost up.

I did mention on a different thread the idea of giving bottom clubs first access to mature age recruits from around Australia ouside of the drafts. I also think that instead of a priority pick they should have a 'special' pick given to struggling clubs that can be used in the same way as the GWS mini-draft picks but must be traded for a player. This could be a middle first round pick or end of first round that you must trade to get something out of it.

Increasing salary caps opens a whole can of worms that is very hard to regulate and isn't the way forward.

Scott slams 'short-termism' on Demons

Agree with his view that the wheel will turn and we'll be ok...

  On 05/06/2013 at 03:55, cunnerz09 said:

No ones thinking small we are just trying to come up with ideas for the club to gain a profit and playing out of a boutique ground is one of them. In regards to the TPP scheme that Eddie proposed I don't think it is a good idea and isn't sustainable. There must be other ways to assist all strugling clubs not just us but giving them a bit of a boost up.

I did mention on a different thread the idea of giving bottom clubs first access to mature age recruits from around Australia ouside of the drafts. I also think that instead of a priority pick they should have a 'special' pick given to struggling clubs that can be used in the same way as the GWS mini-draft picks but must be traded for a player. This could be a middle first round pick or end of first round that you must trade to get something out of it.

Increasing salary caps opens a whole can of worms that is very hard to regulate and isn't the way forward.

There are many ways to expand.

Sadly CS lived in the 50's.

Barry Prendegast was a complete failure.

We are in the same position as Geelong in 1999.

We must hang on to the MCG though. It is home.

I remember when we severed ties in the 80's

It didn't work.

I hope Peter Jackson has the patience to look and make the right decisions carefully and not be bullied or rushed.

The MFC have not prospered at all in the post 60's Professional era.

Time to learn

  On 05/06/2013 at 04:06, PaulRB said:

Scott slams 'short-termism' on Demons

Agree with his view that the wheel will turn and we'll be ok...

Will you be saying that when our good players are taken by other clubs under free agency? As much as it hurts, we may have to pay over the odds to retain them or attract strong players from other clubs. So if the AFL stumps up the cash and the permission to spend it on players I can't see how we could say no. If there are problems in winding it back over time, I'm sure this can be managed. As the team improves so will our income and equilibrium with other clubs will be reached.

I like Scott's tone in that article, the sympathy from some makes me sick.

Reminds me of....please can I have more soop!

There are no quick fixes!

Any money should be spent on getting structures,recruiters,development right

We need to become self sufficient!

Afl have a nerve...they sink the boots into clubs like bulldogs,north....by giving them the worse exposure on Tv times & playing sundays etc fixed draws to make bigger clubs get bigger..stadium deals which are crap..when you compare what the Cats make each game over 500k at home.

Afl .....give all clubs a level playing feild & tools to allow them to market & grow their brands!

Can someone explain to me what we would do with expanded salary cap?

We have only two big money players in Clark and Dawes and we barely reach the 92% TPP minimum because our players don't have big reputations.

Davey, our next highest paid player, is out of contract this year, so we will have plenty of room to move anyway if we wanted to try and tempt a quality player.

Frawley doesn't have to be resigned and upgraded until next season and I'm sure he wouldn't anyway until he knows the next coach.

Same applies to Grimes, N.Jones, Trengove, J.Viney, Howe, Garland etc.

The only well-known uncontracted players, who other clubs will have an interest in, are Watts and Sylvia, and based on what I have read on Demonland, there are plenty who wouldn't care if either left us. Hopefully they stay on with new contracts with major performance incentives.

So why?

Agree with Scott for once that Melbourne needs to stop asking for handouts and fix its mess and that includes not requesting a priority pick because all that does is make all the other clubs view us as a charity-case. You can't win respect without earning it the hard way.

  On 05/06/2013 at 04:27, sue said:

Will you be saying that when our good players are taken by other clubs under free agency? As much as it hurts, we may have to pay over the odds to retain them or attract strong players from other clubs. So if the AFL stumps up the cash and the permission to spend it on players I can't see how we could say no. If there are problems in winding it back over time, I'm sure this can be managed. As the team improves so will our income and equilibrium with other clubs will be reached.

I respect the way North have not relied on draft concessions to develop their list. Our way out of this mess is through hard work rather than handouts. We need to earn respect and I think additional salary cap or a priority pick would undermine this.

I dont have an issue with equalisation as it allows the AFL to schedule games to maximise profit and distribute these profits in a manner that does not disadvantage weaker clubs.

Does the MFC have the money to pay its players more?

Not sure either a priority picks will do much good as it has not work in the MFC favour so far. Paying player more can also have it dangerous as not many of the current players are earning their salary now and the Club is obligated to pay most of the salary cap to its players.

Better to fix the internal issue at the MFC first so to improve the selection and recruitment processes. Thus allowing a prority pick or increase in salary cap to work much more effectively.

the funny thing is that we can have an extended salary cap by paying 100% of the cap for once instead of our usual 95% or so

When was the last time we used the entire cap?

  On 05/06/2013 at 05:23, chookrat said:

I respect the way North have not relied on draft concessions to develop their list. Our way out of this mess is through hard work rather than handouts. We need to earn respect and I think additional salary cap or a priority pick would undermine this.

I dont have an issue with equalisation as it allows the AFL to schedule games to maximise profit and distribute these profits in a manner that does not disadvantage weaker clubs.

Of course there is more respect in DIY than in handouts. But you haven't addressed the free agency issue. Nor has Deespicable who only looks at why it's not a solution to pay our existing players more. (That of course may change over time and before we become competitive, thereby halting progress towards competitiveness.)

But how do we grab someone like Franklin (not personally suggesting him) without paying more than other bidders when, as our negative posters say, 'who would want to come to the MFC'?

DIY is best, but if not feasible watch out - "pride cometh before a fall"

  On 05/06/2013 at 06:00, hogans_heroes said:

the funny thing is that we can have an extended salary cap by paying 100% of the cap for once instead of our usual 95% or so

When was the last time we used the entire cap?

1876

broughman spotworth the 3rd cost us a pretty penny that year