mauriesy

It would be great to have more memberships. But the direct financial difference between our "miniscule" 27,000 members and Collingwood's "massive" 40,000 is only $2 million, minus some extra expenditure to service them (member packs, cards etc.). It certainly doesn't account for the total difference in revenue between us and Collingwood, and would be about 8% of the cost of running the club. Theoretically, you could make that up in a few additional good sponsorships. Where the difference lies is in the momentum those members bring, and the extra marketing opportunity for sponsors etc.

And the AFL is busily weaving the basket. They've effectively said to the Kangaroos that "if you want North To Stay South, then the Gold Coast push is over for you". Their first action is to remove the Kangaroos from the Gold Coast during the pre-season competition, and shift their community camp from the Gold Coast to Bairnsdale (!). They look like letting the Kangaroos play only three games instead of the requested four on the Gold Coast next year, reduced to none in 2009. Each Gold Coast game is worth $400,000, meaning a potentially reduced revenue of $400,000 in 2008 and $1.6 million in 2009. The AFL has denied any "payback", saying "the Kangaroos want to grow their Victorian base. We're actually working to achieve their ends. It couldn't possibly be argued that there's any payback or anything negative about it." <_<

According to the Age this morning, the spin from the AFL is that North Melbourne is different because they have private shareholders. Quote: "In further moves, AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou told the Kangaroos that neither the league nor the majority of its clubs would support on-going special assistance to a club run by private shareholders. North Melbourne will lose its $1.4 million annual AFL lifeline within two seasons unless the club hands its powerbase back to its members." Demetriou also says that given the board decision to remain in Melbourne, he wants the private shareholders to contribute more money, which they haven't to date.

Of course there had to be the "could not believe our good fortune he was still available at pick three" angle (on Zomer).

From one Clint B to another!

Yeah, but a tall rookie is the most speculative of the lot.

Info on Jake Spencer from footydraft.com: Jake Spencer Redlands/Queensland Ht: 203 cm Wt: 93 kg Junior position – Ruck AFL position – Ruck Spencer originally from Townsville before moving to Brisbane has been a big developer this year. Possibly the best of the Queensland rucks at the championships he has continued to improve subsequently and was very good for Redlands in the AFLQ at the end of the year. He is a palm ruck who can ruck with either hand and who often gives his on-ballers first use of the ball in good position. He is a legitimate 203 and he uses his height well. At the moment he is pretty lightly built despite coming in at 93kgs and can get bumped around by more physical rucks. He moves pretty well for a big man and seems to have reasonable endurance. He certainly works hard on the ground and is not afraid to get in and mix it up Jamie Charman like. He is unlikely to ever be a high possession type ruck but he could win a lot of ball and provide good service allowing his team first use of the ball. He is pretty new to the game and there is plenty of potential for him to improve a great deal. He can kick off either foot and his skills have improved a lot over recent times. Strengths: Good height and hard at it attitude. Has improved a great deal this year and is still a lot of potential for improvement in him. Weaknesses Not really a factor around the ground. Question marks: Will his rapid development continue Draft Prediction: Rookie

Zomer (194cm, 94kg) and Martin (197cm, 95kg) are both "speculative" talls. Wonaemirri (182cm, 78kg) is a Tiwi Islander and sounds like he's in the mould of Davey or Weetra.

I don't think we'll take Sampi because of the "Pickett factor". I'd be happy with Kangars.

The AFL's goal is to maximise revenue, and hence profit and distribution to the clubs. If that means biasing Friday or Saturday nights with Collingwood, Essendon and Carlton matches, then that's what they'll do. If it means Essendon and Collingwood always play the Anzac Day blockbuster (or even Melb-Collingwood on Queen's Birthday), they'll do that too. The alternative is to rotate the Friday and Saturday nights, the blockbusters and the interstate travel, so that over a number of years every club gets an even opportunity. That would be a fair draw, but it's not what we have now, and it would actually reduce overall attendances and income. But the fixture isn't a draw, it's a scheme of arrangement, specifically with the purpose of gaining the most attendances and television exposure. While this maximises AFL revenue, but it also leads to two unfortunate consequences: 1. Some supporters of richer clubs favoured by the draw, like Collingwood, get to think they are carrying the competition. They never factor in the bias in their draw when calculating bottom-line profit. 2. Supporters generally, and especially of poorer clubs like Melbourne and North Melbourne, get to think their clubs are welfare-dependent for exactly the same reason ... they don't factor the effect on attendances caused by the bias in the draw either. If life was perfectly fair, we wouldn't get 15 Sunday games, one or two night games and travel 50% more than a club like Collingwood. But what all clubs need to realise is that the fixture, provided it is balanced by some sort of equitable distribution, is the arrangement that makes every club richer. Given this, I think all Paul is saying is that the distributions will always be needed to make the competition fair, not that we will always be welfare dependent.

But I just have no idea of why "United" is better than "Demons" in selling the club. Manchester United came about because there was a disparate bunch of ragtag footballers from various works and railway sheds in Manchester in 1879, and the suggestion of "United" brought them all together into what turned out over the next century to be a power. Who or what exactly are we "uniting"? We pay qualified marketing people to sell our club. They have far more experience in it than me. If you or I have what we think is a good idea, we should tell them about it and they might use it. But I just think a brand name change to "United" is not one of them. And brand changes don't cost nothing. Every sign, printed item, piece of stationary, jumper, sticker and logo has to be changed. I just think we could do better with the money, especially when we don't have much of it.

If you want to spend your time discussing something that is really peripheral to our success, go right ahead. The topic subject includes "marketing" and that's a lot more than just "re-branding". I just received the Annual Report. We've made a profit of around $100,000 compared with around $800,000 last year. While our revenue is up by $1.6 million, a lot of it has rightly been sunk back into the football department. Our balance sheet (Assets minus Liabilities) is still in the red by $3 million and the auditor notes that "the ability of the MFC to continue as a going concern is dependent on the club being able to generate sufficient funds from their revenue sources ... accordingly there is a significant uncertainty whether the club will be able to continue as a going concern and therefore whether they will be able to pay their debts as and when they become payable" (standard Auditor-speak for "you'd better get more money, and if you ever go broke I'm not responsible"). Only successful on-field performance (combined with good marketing and building a modern image) is going to change that, not an irrelevant name change from "Demons" to "United".

Every club in the AFL has a unique brand, promoted every time they play. I'm not sure that's the problem. The difficulty is getting memberships, sponsorships and attendances. Whether a club has Brand A-B* or Brand A-C* will only play a minor part in success, in my opinion the major determinants are on-field performance and perceived image. * i.e. "A" is the name "Melbourne", "B" and "C" are whatever nickname (Dees, Demons, Dragons, United etc.) we want to give ourselves.

Seems like he's gone. Craig Cameron moves on after 10 years of service

I'm not putting CAC on a pedestal. I reckon he's done a good job, but there are 15 other recruiters in the AFL, some of whom have had more success than us. But as of this moment, he hasn't left and he's done all our recruiting up until now. So while it's true we haven't won a premiership on his recruiting, all the rebuilding that's going on is also based on his recruiting. The basis for the rebuilding is the players who have been recruited by CAC in the last five years, and I reckon they look pretty good. But there's nothing like time to prove me, you and CAC right or wrong.

Don't think Rivers is David Scharwz yet. Did they have Morton up on blocks? They're both supposed to be around 192cm, but Rivers kept looking up.

He's definitely a stronger, taller, red-headed Judd.

No one's irreplaceable. Yes, I'll miss Craig (and hope he drafts a few Molans at Richmond ), but when he goes, someone will replace him and we'll have some other recruiter to match wits with, criticise, praise and try to assess. I doubt many of you have stuck in the same job for 11 years. Richmond's position sounds like it's higher level again than Melbourne's, and he's looking for advancement like everyone else. Thanks Craig for the effort you have put in.

I'll leave aside the issue of DoubleDees omitting the sarcasm smilie, but I think there's a major flaw in your argument. Especially with first and second round picks, I don't think you pick to fill "holes" in your list. That can be disastrous, and there is a strong argument that "hole filling" gave rise to the mistake in picking Molan. You pick who you think are the best footballers. We didn't pick McLean just because we had a "midfield hole", we picked him because of his qualities as a hard, ball-winning player that we thought were better than all the other players available at that pick. Clearly Melbourne rated Grimes highly because of his own qualities, and was rapt to get him at 14. I reckon he could match McLean.

I can understand maybe "intrigued", or "puzzled", or "bemused". But why "furious"? Isn't that a bit over the top and emotive? It's not as though Grimes will be a waste of list space. Chances are he'll be an excellent 10-year player for us. If anything, I have a good feeling about the ability of Morton and McNamara to fill KPP roles when they have experience and "fill out". Both are tall enough and probably still growing.

Gee ... at 194.5cm and 71.5kg he'd want to put on about 20 kilos!

Given that we all drive cars, I'd much rather Hyundai than Holden, Ford or Mitsubishi. Australian vehicle manufacturers are the world's worst for environmental problems ... hardly any of the vehicles made in Australia get better than 10L/100km. Most get much worse than that. The new Hyundai i30 diesel is a fantastic little car than gets 4.7L/100km. If everyone in capital cities drove one instead of Commodores or Falcons, we'd halve our vehicle emissions and our petroleum imports. If you're going to take a potshot at a club for having a "gas guzzling" sponsor, take a shot at the Cats.

I don't know the exact figures, but some of the "special assistance" stems from the fact that the draw (which is not really random at all but a scheme of arrangement) is organised so that maximum overall crowd figures and AFL revenue are achieved. This is often at the expense of some lower-membership clubs when it comes to things like their number of Friday and Saturday night games, free-to-air television coverage, the number of times they travel interstate and non-access to some of the "blockbuster days" (like Anzac Day).

Or rationalising (badly) why he didn't get the job.

But no higher expectations than players like Thomas and Pendlebury, who were top 5 picks in the year we got Jones at 12. In the year we picked Frawley at 12 (2006), Collingwood picked Ben Reid at 8 and Nathan Brown at 10. Reid's played 3 games, Brown hasn't yet made his debut. In fact, of the first 12 picks in 2006, Frawley is third on the "games played" tally after Bryce Gibbs and Joel Selwood. Shaw would probably have been a first-round pick, except he was taken father-son. Collingwood's first two picks in the year we took McLean and Sylvia, were Brayden Shaw (delisted) and Brent Hall (delisted)! This idea that we are slow at playing youngsters is bollocks.