Lord Nev

Yeah he is, and to be fair the article doesn't say he's put it off until end of season, so could very well be trying to maximize his offer and in particular his contract length given the concussion history.

Of course it is. If you think Kendrick Lamar saying it is the same as Donald Trump saying it then I reckon you should do some reading about the 'reclaiming' of that particular word. Appreciate the chat, but we'll likely start going way off topic now and end up going in circles so I'll just leave it with that. Have a great weekend mate!

Yeah, look I'm with you on 'cancel culture' as a concept. I think it only furthers division if you can't talk people around calmly with facts and understanding, rather than just screaming them down and trying to silence them, which only ends up reinforcing their 'victim mentality'. In saying that, I think there's a big difference between being de-platformed and being silenced. Free speech isn't free from consequence, and publishing organizations are under no obligation to provide people doing damage with what they say an audience. As for the 'N word' topic you've raised, that's another kettle of fish, and without going off track - there's clearly nuance in the context of treating it 'equally under the law regardless of colour'.

Not sure you're correct here. Healy helped us get Roos over the line originally, has talked up our players, stood up for Goody with all the stuff going on lately, and has made appearances on fan podcasts and the like. I think often people like Healy and Lyon get misunderstood by supporters because they try to be fair and balanced in their media roles.

No, they said they wouldn't be on the same platform as him. That's totally their decision, and they gave Spotify a choice of how to handle it. They didn't say 'you must cancel Joe Rogan's show'. This wasn't 'cancel culture'.

There'd be 'better' players, but geez, imagine a forward line mix featuring Brown, TMac, Kozzy, Fritsch and Jurrah.. Ooft.

Except the stance of Young and Mitchell wasn't 'cancel culture'. They both took a stand for their beliefs and simply told Spotify they would not be affiliated with Rogan through the same service. Neither of them told Spotify they must cancel Rogan's podcast.

“It might ultimately save the game, the purchase of that stadium.” Gerard Whateley agreed, saying it will help the AFL massively for two reasons. “There could never have been a better time to own (Marvel Stadium) than now and the foresight to buy it, they could have waited about a generation and bought it for $1, but they did spend the money out of the future fund,” he said. “I imagine it is going to serve them on a number of fronts. One is against the line of credit, but two will be the staging of a season when that comes. “It’s going to be the most important asset that the AFL has and I think we’ll look back and marvel at their management to buy it at the time that they did, without being able to forecast what would happen.” https://www.sen.com.au/news/2020/03/24/the-asset-that-puts-the-afl-in-a-much-stronger-survival-position-than-the/ The AFL has offloaded a prime piece of central Melbourne real estate, originally earmarked for the redevelopment around Marvel Stadium, for an estimated $60 million. In 2018 McLachlan struck an agreement with the Victorian government to invest $225 million into the Docklands precinct redevelopment as well as guaranteeing the grand final at the MCG until 2057. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/afl-sell-docklands-real-estate-20200616-p5537q.html

From what I can find, we got: $14.8M in 2016 $15.6M in 2018 $16.3M in 2019 With COVID and reduced soft caps the AFL brought down payments via a new model across the board for 2022. That, combined, with our financial success through the sale of The Bentleigh Club ($23.7M) and a premiership year ($2.1M profit) has meant our overall payment from the AFL has been slightly reduced (can't find an exact figure atm), but the 'rich' clubs bore the brunt of reductions. I find your 'clubs like us' argument a bit strange too. We've consistently been middle to high on the list for money received from the AFL for as long as I can remember. It's not the AFL that has held us back from being able to build a home base, I'm sure you are more than aware of the full context of that situation and how much more broad it is than that. Fact is, by all professional financial analysis I've seen, the AFL purchasing Docklands has been a very wise decision and certainly not "wasted money".

Not something I've tracked very closely so don't know the plans, but there's a fair bit of government money going into Docklands Stadium, remember reading something like nearly $15M in 2020. The facts are though, it's now worth far more than what they paid and generally turns a decent profit.

How much longer do you think the tenant clubs at Etihad/Marvel would have put up with their deal as they stood before the AFL purchased it? What would they have borrowed against to survive COVID if they didn't have it? You don't think $8M PROFIT in 2 years is worth it? I would argue $8M profit is certainly a different scenario to the "wasted money" you originally said it was. They borrowed $280M, but they paid under $200M for the stadium, which as of 2018, was worth $237M. Look, I'm no financial wiz, but I don't understand how you think a massive asset that generates a profit is going to end up in 'reduced distributions'. In fact, I would suggest that (at the very least) the tenant clubs would tell you otherwise.

How Etihad Stadium has transformed the AFL into a financial powerhouse

Haha yeah, it's some 'messy' at best commentary by someone whose job is all about communication.

Cool. Still missing my point that the OP is misleading with what the article actually says.

Maybe, but I'm talking about you misquoting the article. Not sure why the need.

I mean, I hate him as much as anyone and it's a pretty thinly veiled attempt at making excuses, but that's not what he said at all. He said, in hindsight, it could have been COVID as far as they knew and the AFL had a meeting about it. Let's not have a thread about misleading media reporting and then do the same thing ourselves.

Wot?

Got passed on second hand info today, 15 players have run PBs so far this offseason. No injury worries at all. I'm off to knock on wood with a rabbit's foot while burning sage...

From what I understand, the wording of these apologies is determined as part of the legal proceedings or negotiated through legal parties afterwards, and when you see these kind of 'I'm sorry if it was taken a particular way...' apologies; I think that gives you an insight into how strong (or otherwise) the case against the journos was. It's very different to breaking someone's jaw, so perhaps not the best analogy there.

Not at the moment mate. A fair while back I mentioned he was no lock to stay with us long term, but then last year it seemed things became a bit more settled (after some very minor bumps along the road) and last I heard his folks were looking at property in Melbourne. Haven't heard any kind of update for ages now though so not sure where it's at.

First 40,823 emails: "Something something HOME BASE something...."

Absolutely. As far as I know the relationship between all parties is very good and I have no doubt Goody will be re-signed.

Just things to do with Goody's situation, there's somewhat personal things so I can't elaborate.

No, there's often more to it as situations can be unique and complex and not always as simple as money and contract length. That's particularly true in the case of Goodwin and why it's taking a little longer than most would expect.