Diamond_Jim

The AFL are desperate if they think they can play into December Due to the World T20 cup all the major grounds are booked for October and November. Sure they can play in Alice Springs and at Docklands etc but there comes a time when the season would be an embarrassment (think Essendon with its players banned). If I was the TV media rights owner I would be offering 50% at best of the contracted rate.

do we have a forward line these days....certainly not our strength

Worth looking at but the reason Geelong make the money they do there are reserved seats, super boxes and ground advertising from a clean stadium.For us to get anywhere near similar revenues would require us to hire the stadium for an almost nominal sum which is effectively what Geelong gets it for due to government subsidies. You may recall that there was a push for a 30,000 seat stadium in the Olympic precinct for the very reasons you suggest.

Don't know where you got your figures. According to this ABC report there are 2200 intensive care beds in the whole of Australia. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-27/coronavirus-australia-covid-19-icu-beds-ventilators-hospitals/12090420 Out of interest Malaysia has around 3700 ICU beds so we aren't that great How many beds does Australia have? If you've been in the bustling corridors of an Australian hospital, you'll know there is rarely a spare bed. Australia has just over 2,200 intensive care beds, with almost half of these in NSW. That's around 8.9 ICU beds per 100,000 people, which is better than New Zealand (5.1 beds) but worse than Italy (12.5), where COVID-19 has overwhelmed hospitals. COVID-19 patients in ICU will need a bed for around 10 days, according to Imperial College modelling, which is a lot longer than the average time for other causes (just under four days). And those beds can mean the difference between surviving the disease and dying from it. For the patients who will be hospitalised but won't need intensive care, Australia has about 3.8 hospital beds for every 1,000 Australians, which is lower than the OECD average of 4.7. Japan and South Korea have more than triple Australia's number of beds per capita.

The local council elections going ahead in Queensland is just so wrong it defies logical discussion. You just declare the existing councilors elected for an additional term of six months and hold them then. If the politicians cannot do something so simple what hope do we have of managing this issue https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/27/queensland-elections-coronavirus-poses-lethal-risk-to-voters-experts-say

posted in wrong thread

I get the feeling that testing for this virus is becoming easier and we will see mass testing in the not too distant future. I watch a few youtubers from China and the number of"nucleic acid tests" they are doing to monitor new outbreaks is phenomenal. So would you agree to a regime that requires testing say every seven days (it's a swab stuck down the back of your throat) and in return you get a card that says you can go out and about. As I understand this is stage 2... you still have to go through the lock down process to slow the existing contagion and then you gradually let people out under the testing regime. I left Australia on 19 January which was the weekend that the story really broke but it's now just over two months later and China is coming out the other side. (Mind you if they are lying we are in trouble). Just seems that in Oz we are more into panic than dealing with the central issue and getting a path to the other side.

it's not that big a plot....maybe 50million but it's no goldmine and Docklands isn't Collins Street plus there are already masses of unoccupied apartments down there. And of course there are the planning restrictions

except that Bennell will also need five or six practice games before he is selected (unless we are repeating 2019) so I can't see him getting a clear run. You could be right though. As I see it the season cannot start before June 1 and it is hard to see more than a 12 game season plus four weeks of finals. MCC will be pressured to make the ground available for the T20 world cup (starting 18 October) even though it would make more money out of a delayed finals series etc. I assume all the other big interstate grounds are contracted to provide space for the T 20 so there is a mega full stop to the season come October. You could probably get a few more games in by playing all finals at Docklands and having 5 day turnarounds etc. The TV companies may not like the idea of too much football. After all they have to sell more advertising and the likes of Foxtel make their money by monthly subs not by the game so more games does not necessarily increase their bottom line revenue. Strange times all round

for this year only

and he is out of contract thus available to anyone

The Northern Blues or to give them their historic name Preston were along with Port Melbourne the absolute power houses of the VFA. They were trailblazers in the world of televised sport and for a while during the seventies rivalled the lesser VFL teams attendance wise. The end of a club that has been in existence since 1882. Some harsh lessons there

Carlton just announced the end of its alignment with the Northern Blues due to cuts in the soft salary cap. (reported in the Age) Not sure if it is permanent but the Casey relationship could be under pressure as could the whole VFL comp in the years to come. PS we knew that there were problems with the AFL website but still showing the countdown clock for this weekend's matches is a little strange !!

Carlton have spent 23 years in the relative wilderness. I think they have learnt humility like us. As for the rest of the power clubs which do you suggest. Deep down you know it makes sense. We just struggle from one debt laden crisis to another while the power clubs march on. Alternatively we could just join the amateurs or similar. You'd still have your club.

In a way that is why I picked them.It would be two stubborn beasts. Time that Carlton moved on from the Elliot years. Of the power clubs they are probably the most vulnerable. The Melbourne Blues also has a certain MFC ring to it

6 teams in Melbourne would mean that each is on a solid financial footing. Whether the GCS end up in Tasssie is a side issue.We all know that Melbourne cannot support ten teams.(Cannot think of another first tier sport anywhere in the world that has ten teams in a city.) So who would you pick as your dance partner. I think for us Carlton as it could be a meeting of relative equals.Geelong and the Bulldogs is a natural. Saints and North...???? The only team which is debatable is GWS. I think there is a future for them between Western Sydney and the ACT.

mmmmm I smell a small rat. The AFL commission have wanted mergers of Melbourne clubs for years. Fan backlash has made it too hard. This could be the excuse they need

As I understand it the football year runs from October to October and players have been paid 6months of their annual fee. The new salary year will commence in October by which time things should be "normal". So in reality they are being asked to take a somewhere between a 25-35% cut on their annual salary. The real debate is over the salary level for the 2020-21 year and who knows ???

as a stadium it is very hard to value. The original developers went broke and the AFL got it for one dollar in return for agreeing to play there for around 20 years. So it's chicken and egg...without the AFL it has little if any value so as a lender how do you rate it as a security. Land value?? Would a government allow you to demolish it. In the 80's some clubs borrowed against their grandstands etc. The banks realised it was a bit of a myth that they had any security

The other elephant in the room is memberships. While many may see it as a donation the fact remains that people have paid for a service that will not be delivered and it is their choice not the club's as to whether a refund is sought. Is there any different approach to say an MCC or AFL membership to that of a club membership. Do you consider the reserved seat fee differently and the list goes on. I was considering cancelling Kayo this morning as there is simply no live sport available. I decided to wait and see if they cut the monthly sub by say half and I could support that business in that way. Lots of decisions to be made.

You would hope that Burgess and a small team are kept on to maintain player fitness by means of digital supervision

I think we can all say goodbye to the annual Shanghai Sling for the foreseeable future.

no complaints then about short turn arounds. It was of course a night comp and it was the only fully televised game each week. It wasn't a Mickey Mouse comp.

It wouldn't be the AFL who made the decision. It would be the big ten. Not saying it will happen but you can bet that someone is gaming the figures and when they realise that the broadcast rights pie will stagnate if not get smaller next time round all bets are off.

St Kilda etc as well as ourselves could well be in the firing line. Ten maybe 12 team superleague and those ten/12 would do very well thank you. Ten teams in Melbourne has always been impossible as the size of the pie stagnates.