Dr. Gonzo

I haven't heard anything from the MFC yet on membership options for 2020. Other clubs have emailed their members to let them know what options they have on the table (some have been more underhanded than others *cough* Adelaide *cough*) but haven't seen anything from MFC yet. I'm not seeking a refund but was interested in what options the MFC had come up with. Some clubs have offered merchandise as comp including signed guernsey's and I just read on BigFooty Carlton have offered members a free GA membership for 2021 for someone who was not a member this year. Pretty clever way to grow the membership base.

I was enjoying this thread, did you hit a snag sons?

I doubt we'll pocket anything for away games though, only the home club would

Carlton and Essendon play 3 or 4 home games at the G each year generally against each other, us, Collingwood, Richmond and Hawthorn

not really, I don't think coaches will abandon full ground defense just because the interchange is reduced to 2. I don't know if anything would really get them to change their tactics initially. They would just try and control the footy more by maintaining possession and causing repeat stoppages to take the wind out of the game and allow players to recover.

Because coaches have realised there is nothing stopping your full forward running down to full back and flooding the defence.

I watched quite a few games from the late 80's/90s a few weeks back. Yeah I agree the replay picks the best parts, but I did watch some full games (and not necessarily "classics" just run of the mill home and away games). For me it was better because of the way the game was played, not necessarily the excitement of a close game. Back then you had the excitement of individual players being able to show their individual brilliance on a regular basis due to the space available to them to work in. Does that mean it was 120 minutes of magic? Of course not! But compare it to today's game and it's almost a different sport. Players these days have so little space to work in the game the individual brilliance and skill is suffocated. Even great players like Martin get scragged and gang tackled so frequently that the level of difficulty for them to break away and showcase their skill is next to impossible. I am an advocate for reducing the number of players on the ground as this will limit the ability to zone and force teams to back to a more man on man gamestyle. The interchange probably needs to be drastically reduced as well but other than that I'm not sure whether anything can really be done while keeping the spirit of the game in tact. We don't want zones or onside/offside rules so maybe the genie is just out of the bottle.

The best games from back then are superior to the best games now. They are also more common. Try and find more than 10 great games from the last 5-10 years. Great games from start to finish not just close finishes.

Premier league has no finals series so requires a full home and away fixture.

If the AFL pursue policies of "revenue maximisation" (ie geared around TV ratings and crowds) which favour some clubs above others then they owe it to the clubs who are disadvantaged to employ revenue sharing across the competition. The "compensation" we and others receive is inadequate and ensures we are beholden to the AFL. If they decide to pull that on a whim we are stuffed. These policies have long term implications on things like sponsorship, game day revenue, support base etc and have been going on for around 25 years now.

See @Cards13 Pert obviously read my post yesterday ?

Details?

The club doesn't profit from alcohol or gambling?

I'm pretty sure they are

I'm not advocating for poker machines. They should be banned, it is ridiculous that you can have computers programmed to take people's money in pubs around the state. But they are legal and while they are I would rather any profits go towards MFC rather than the pockets of those who already have more money than they know what to do with. It's going to cause a massive revenue shortfall for us in the coming years that this crisis will only exacerbate.

First thing I would be doing finance wise is getting the AFL to guarantee we host Anzac Eve and Queens Birthday next year. Get on the front foot about it. Hopefully crowds are allowed back by then.

So what? MFC sells off our licenses and the machines don't disappear. It just means instead of the money going to us it goes into Bruce Mathiesons or Wesfarmers hands. If people are stupid enough to put money into computers designed to steal it from them who are we to complain? If the government makes illegal I wouldn't complain. But while they are legal I see no issues profiting from them.

Our doing? Collingwood basically let us have the queen's birthday game as a home game for 20 years. I don't disagree with you but other clubs have it just as bad or worse than us. Something needs to be done about the AFLs unfair policies that discriminate against the smaller clubs. I've thought this for 20 odd years, but multiple MFC administration's have not wanted to rock the boat, the last one who stood up for us was Gutnick. I don't want to get back into the politics around his administration but the fact is we've kowtowed to the AFL and the big clubs for 20-30 years. To expect them to turn around and do "the right thing" by us now that the competition is facing an economic crisis is fanciful. It's going to be every club for themselves for the next few years.

Clubs should insist on a revenue sharing model if the AFL insists on revenue maximisation policies that favour some clubs over others. The big clubs want their cake and eat it too and the AFL plays along. The small clubs don't speak out because they're reliant on the whims of the AFL. They've had decades to raise a protest and do something about it but they've refused. If they don't stand up for themselves now they never will.

We've also got two blockbusters in the fixture, something North, Saints and the Dogs don't

I agree but unfortunately it doesn't matter. We've allowed things to go on like this for 2-3 decades and now in a time of crisis the other clubs who benefit from that will not be seeing things from an altruistic point of view.

Good luck with that

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/why-there-are-doubts-over-an-18-team-afl-competition-20200529-p54xoi.html "But given that two powerful club presidents emerging from the inner sanctum are prepared to publicly entertain the prospect, it underlines the mutterings across the competition that are becoming louder. There are two lines of thought, with one targeting the expansion clubs that created the ninth game and still cost the competition close to $70 million a year. The second focuses upon Victoria and the increasingly vulnerable North Melbourne, the debt-ridden Saints and even Melbourne. Once the AFL settles on a new radically reduced football department budget figure for every club beyond this emergency phase - and a soft cap albeit with new tough conditions is expected to prevail - the expectation is that the wealthier clubs will see their league distribution heavily reduced in a new financial structure. Clubs like West Coast, Hawthorn, Richmond and Collingwood will not be thrilled at the prospect of effectively being taxed and by extension watching their organisations reduced to support the survival of unsuccessful clubs."

There's no way they can reduce lists that dramatically - clubs have contracts with players which will make that impossible. If anything they'll have to stagger it over 3-5 years.

I don't see how it would add sponsorship value. Wouldn't it just become the "top tier" sponsorship with the other front of jumper sponsor being relegated to a second tier sponsor? Would sponsors be willing to pay more than they currently are for the jumper sponsorship for a larger logo? IE would Zurich pay us an extra million (?) a year for that and then we get another sponsor for the normal front of jumper logo at the rate previously paid by Zurich?