How about the AFL gives us a truckload of that  Marvel/Disney money they received for the naming rights to Docklands ?

If you are going to sell out our great sport to Hollywood at least give the money to the struggling clubs.

Edited December 16, 20195 yr by JakovichScissorKick

12 hours ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

This gambling business confounds me. Like it or not, it is  legal and a matter of personal choice

 I don’t understand the pressure on sporting clubs to take some sort of high moral ground and opt out of it

 

Having worked with gambling addicts for 4 years between 2006 and 2010 in conjunction with 2 financial advisors of the salvation army along with the then Major in charge of Southern Australia of the Salvo's and members of Gamblers Help I fully support all sporting clubs to pull out of gaming machines, these machines cause at least 80% of all gambling addictions.

3 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

Yep, I've made no statements about clubs being told what to do (although there has been very strong statements made by senior AFL leadership), and sure pokies are making some clubs money, but that's not the crux of what I was saying. There's no argument that that they make money.

It's not just North and the Dees that have moved out of pokies either, plenty of strong clubs have also.

Jackson was a founding director of the Responsible Gaming Foundation, so I'm not sure I agree with your statement that wasn't keen on this decision.

The RGF is about a lot more than pokies and I'm not sure it is anti-pokies, per se.  A club can have pokies and still meet the standards of the RGF. 

I wasn't saying PJ was 'For' pokies.   Whatever his personal views he knew our financials are not solid enough to take the hit of no pokie revenue, which by the way will get worse when we give up the pokie revenue at the Bentleigh Club.

And if 'senior AFL leadership' make 'very strong statements' about pokies then let them look at the revenue they and the game get from the on-line gambling advertising.   If they were serious about the social and pschological hazards of gambling they would withdraw the rights to bet on AFL games and AFL events.  Hell will freeze over before they slay that golden goose!

Edited December 17, 20195 yr by Lucifer's Hero

1 hour ago, rjay said:

The only thing I can possibly think is that there will be better opportunities with sponsorship & community funding if pokies are gone.

I guess we wait & see but so far we don't appear to be beneficiaries & our altruistic move has been just that.

There may be better opportunities but it will take a lot of community goodwill to make up a $1.5m+ lost revenue from Leighoak and Bentleigh. 

Can't see corporate sponsors being altruistic enough to reward our morality - they just don't work that way. 

Not saying we should have kept pokies long-term but the exit timing was poor for us.  A number of us raised the financial impact cooncerns at the time it was announced.

Edited December 16, 20195 yr by Lucifer's Hero

it looks bleak for the bottom 4 Melbourne clubs. The next round of TV money will not see a great increase unless the AFL allows the Optus cherry picking model with Friday night games being exclusive to one streaming entity or similar. Even then most of that money will go straight to player salary increases.

Pokies aren't the answer. The likes of Hawthorn and Essendon will be forced to ditch them in the longer term due to community backlash.

Sponsorship money growing perhaps but given the increasing diversity of the advertising spend is there much reason to think that it will grow by much more than CPI? If it does the two team cities and the power cubs will benefit far more than us anyway.

So that leaves only two sources of revenue... corporate networking money and attendance receipts. Would need a decade of winning for this to turn around substantially and our presence at the oversized MCG (for our needs) means that the task of building attendance receipts is a difficult one. The 2019 revenue impact shows how hard it can be to grow the bottom line if you depend on attendance receipts alone.

Of course we could just accept that we are not a power club and will never be one again and concentrate on being a boutique club whatever that means. Dare I say that we would be better served by a 50,000 seat stadium.

 

Edited December 16, 20195 yr by Diamond_Jim

Revenue from the Anzac eve game in 2020 will be vital.

We have 2 horror games to start the season followed by three games that while winnable are far from certainties.

Lose the first two and one other and the impact on Anzac eve revenue will be substantial. The AFL did us no favours with the "unbalanced start" for the 17th ranked team.

A disgraceful result delivered by a board and CEO that appear woefully out of their depth.

On the back of record membership numbers and substantial gouging of existing members through increased fees, the result is a $1.5M loss. And for all the talk of reduced gate receipts, these were higher than last year. The key number is a $1M drop in sponsorship, which is incredible given the hype around the club at the start of the year.

I can't wait to see what happens when our membership drops 10 - 20% this year. At this rate we will be bankrupt within three years.

The decision to drop pokies will not stop a single person from using them. All it means is that instead of a sporting club that provides some community benefits receiving this money, it goes into the pockets of some rich bloke, possibly overseas. At least the sporting clubs might engage with addicts to change their behaviour.

When the noisy minority succeeds in ridding the AFL of pokies, what will be the next target? Alcohol - goodbye Tyrells. Petrol powered cars - goodbye Jaguar. We can't afford to bow to every lobby group that knocks on our door.

I, like everyone else, would prefer the club to have 11 games in Melbourne. That is not our reality however, and the decision to dump the Darwin game will result in another massive loss of income. 

Gary Pert needs to stop wheeling out platitudes and make it very clear what his plan is to bring in the several million dollars of revenue each year that is required to replace the Darwin income and the pokies income.

 

 

22 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

The RGF is about a lot more than pokies and I'm not sure it is anti-pokies, per se.  A club can have pokies and still meet the standards of the RGF. 

I wasn't saying PJ was 'For' pokies.   Whatever his personal views he knew our financials are not solid enough to take the hit of no pokie revenue, which by the way will get worse next year when we give up the pokie revenue at the Bentleigh Club.

And if 'senior AFL leadership' make 'very strong statements' about pokies then let them look at the revenue they and the game get from the on-line gambling advertising.   If they were serious about the social and pschological hazards of gambling they would withdraw the rights to bet on AFL games and AFL events.  Hell will freeze over before they slay that golden goose!

I don't disagree at all about the hypocrisy of the AFL slamming pokies while courting betting agencies, I believe there will be shifts in that as well, but I think the pokies, particularly given the density of their operation in poorer socio-economic regions, will be the first cab off the rank.

And sorry mate, I see where you're coming from but I just can't agree with you that a founder of a responsible gambling foundation would be at all divided, particularly one who also oversaw us signing the responsible gambling charter a few years before the pokies announcement. In fact, he went as far as to say "it is an important moment for me personally" at that signing. I think you may be underestimating his stand on the issue.

I don't think we could have predicted an onfield fall from grace quite as dramatic as the 2019 season proved. Therefore, any moderate financial projections saw us breaking even or posting a meagre profit. Instead, an onfield disaster, which is clearly unsustainable and needs to be righted immediately in 2020. 

Across the business world, businesses are moving towards sustainable revenue practices/streams and often this coincides with ethical wins that can be spun as PR and positive brand positioning in the marketplace. It doesn't matter where I or the MFC stand politically on the pokies, it's a dying business, just like mining and it will eventually go the way of the dodo. 

Have we moved out of the pokies 5 years too early? I'm not sure. Don't we still have this as revenue stream until 2021? I can understand us waiting to exploit it for the next few years, but equally, those clubs signing 20 year deals are tying their wagons to an industry that will eventually see itself legislated into oblivion. Diversifying the revenue streams at this point is a good strategic move, now we just need our [censored] football team to win some games and things will turn.

Edited December 17, 20195 yr by A F

About 10 years ago, the owner of the Romsey Pub applied for a pokies licence. I believe he planned to transfer licences from another venue he owns.

A vocal local group and the council opposed this and, after a convoluted legal fight, successfully thwarted the proposal.

The result is that the Romsey Pub has been closed for the last 2 or so years and is unlikely to ever reopen. At least 15 local jobs went with it and the good punters of Romsey continue to spend their money elsewhere.

I don't want the MFC to become the AFL's version of the Romsey Pub.

1 hour ago, A F said:

it's a dying business, just like mining

Aint no way mining is going  to die.

Modern society would collapse without it. Can you imagine a world without electronics of any kind..... at all? 

Everything we touch is reliant on the mining industry in some way. If you said "coal mining", maybe you would have a point, but many other forms of mining will continue long into the future.

7 minutes ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

About 10 years ago, the owner of the Romsey Pub applied for a pokies licence. I believe he planned to transfer licences from another venue he owns.

A vocal local group and the council opposed this and, after a convoluted legal fight, successfully thwarted the proposal.

The result is that the Romsey Pub has been closed for the last 2 or so years and is unlikely to ever reopen. At least 15 local jobs went with it and the good punters of Romsey continue to spend their money elsewhere.

I don't want the MFC to become the AFL's version of the Romsey Pub.

Strange that it survived for 150 years without pokies but then folded within 2 years after not getting a pokie license.

 

16 hours ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

the rich get richer; the poor get the picture

The oils I believe 

52 minutes ago, Bitter but optimistic said:

About 10 years ago, the owner of the Romsey Pub applied for a pokies licence. I believe he planned to transfer licences from another venue he owns.

A vocal local group and the council opposed this and, after a convoluted legal fight, successfully thwarted the proposal.

The result is that the Romsey Pub has been closed for the last 2 or so years and is unlikely to ever reopen. At least 15 local jobs went with it and the good punters of Romsey continue to spend their money elsewhere.

I don't want the MFC to become the AFL's version of the Romsey Pub.

If he had to rely on getting a pokies licence the business was doomed.

How much of the impetus for selling the Leighoak was the AFL providing inducements?

3 minutes ago, Tony Tea said:

How much of the impetus for selling the Leighoak was the AFL providing inducements?

My point being that the AFL were obviously aware that the Dees, a battling club, would lose a revenue stream. Has there been a tacit agreement for us to make a statement about gambling with the AFL providing material support?

21 minutes ago, Tony Tea said:

How much of the impetus for selling the Leighoak was the AFL providing inducements?

Interesting given the timing of the Darwin game being replaced by an MCG game, a conspiracy theorist might say...

Perts 1st year & records a 1.5mill loss..  

PJ implement the pokies exit but not convinced on Pert

Whats the long term plan for profitability? I can only imagine the pressure on Goody if we have the same season again! 
 

Followed the club for 50years & never a dull moment & always a financial issue. Unlike other bigger clubs eg tigers, hawks, pies when success comes their membership just goes up & sticks with them at the gate even in poor seasons. 
We are  so fickle.... 

2 minutes ago, Demonsone said:

Unlike other bigger clubs eg tigers, hawks, pies when success comes their membership just goes up & sticks with them at the gate even in poor seasons.

they were all almost broke at stages during the eighties if that is any help. The AFL commission and the TV rights saved all the clubs.

The next fifty years is the problem. By then we will have 100k members and will pack the MCG. Mind you Richmond will have 350k members and will have virtual stadiums dotted around the city for their overflow. (mind you VR could mean no one goes to the stadium at all due to the public transport trip taking 3 hours each way from the inner suburbs of Pakenham... )

12 minutes ago, Demonsone said:

Followed the club for 50years & never a dull moment & always a financial issue. Unlike other bigger clubs eg tigers, hawks, pies when success comes their membership just goes up & sticks with them at the gate even in poor seasons. 

We are  so fickle.... 

Didn't the Hawks nearly merge with some other loser club back in 96...

19 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

The writing is on the wall for pokies if you pay attention to the industry.

Sporting clubs are widely exiting, there's cultural shifts in the hospitality industry; and in the last 18 months or so both Coles and Woolworths have divested themselves from that part of their businesses (albeit in differing ways).

It's not a matter of what is 'legal', it's a matter of what is ethically sustainable in a socially conscious consumer environment.

 

i'm sure the motorcycle clubs will be only too happy to step in (via various 3rd party fronts)

4 hours ago, A F said:

I don't think we could have predicted an onfield fall from grace quite as dramatic as the 2019 season proved. Therefore, any moderate financial projections saw us breaking even or posting a meagre profit. Instead, an onfield disaster, which is clearly unsustainable and needs to be righted immediately in 2020. 

Across the business world, businesses are moving towards sustainable revenue practices/streams and often this coincides with ethical wins that can be spun as PR and positive brand positioning in the marketplace. It doesn't matter where I or the MFC stand politically on the pokies, it's a dying business, just like mining and it will eventually go the way of the dodo. 

Have we moved out of the pokies 5 years too early? I'm not sure. Don't we still have this as revenue stream until 2021? I can understand us waiting to exploit it for the next few years, but equally, those clubs signing 20 year deals are tying their wagons to an industry that will eventually see itself legislated into oblivion. Diversifying the revenue streams at this point is a good strategic move, now we just need our [censored] football team to win some games and things will turn.

mining a dying business........that gave me a good laugh....thanks af

30 minutes ago, Demonsone said:

We are  so fickle.

You made a mistake, this should read I am so fickle.

The club is only as strong as its supporters. 

28 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

i'm sure the motorcycle clubs will be only too happy to step in (via various 3rd party fronts)

Because of the amount of regulations and red tapes involved in gaming, the closest they've been able to get is vague links through security companies. I think you might be overselling their power somewhat.