Richmond CEO outlines the “big” figure clubs stand to lose due to empty stadiums
“You extrapolate that and it’s a big number.”
www.sen.com.au
“It’s hard (to predict) an average - it does really depend on club to club. It’s an impossible exercise because we don’t know the impact of this at this stage,” he said on SEN.
“We don’t know how long we’ll be playing games without crowds. Simple maths, if you look at our game on Thursday night we’d probably expect a crowd of around 90,000.
“A crowd of high 80s, 90,000, would probably return a gate of $1.2 to $1.4 million. That’s one game.
“You extrapolate that and it’s a big number.”
We've all been focused (and rightly so) on the health crisis that is currently in-front of us as a society, however at some point in time, whether it be weeks/months/etc, things WILL return to normal.
When this happens, the world will be left to count the cost of this virus from a financial perspective, and the true scope of the damage will start to come forward. It is something that is, at this point, already inevitable, and the impact will be felt across every single industry that involves finance, which is pretty much everything we know in this world.
My question is this... with a recent article detailing the NRL's "runway" of funds being only able to realistically cover that league for approximately 3 months if there was a suspension of the league, will the AFL or its' clubs ever find themselves in a similar position, should this carry on for many more months into the future, or the season needed to be called off entirely?
And more specifically, how will this financial impact be felt by some of the "poorer" clubs in the league?
Could this virus potentially signal the end of our 18 team competition, with several poorly funded clubs not being able to survive when it's all said and done? And if so, which of the 18 clubs would most be at risk of going bust, should worst come to worst?
It sounds crazy to even imagine it, but there are many AFL clubs who are already struggling when it comes to finances, and with pressure on the finances of companies providing sponsorships that many AFL clubs (big and small) rely on, what are the real world impacts that AFL clubs and the AFL itself need to deal with when this is all over?
FWIW, I don't believe that any AFL club will actually have to fold, and I think the league's rainy day fund of $120 million (which the NRL don't have) will probably help save the day, but 2 weeks ago, I also didn't believe that Richmond Vs. Carlton in Round 1 would be played in an empty MCG either, and now that is happening. The landscape changed far quicker than anybody anticipated.
So that begs the question - if it DOES get much worse, which AFL clubs are most at risk of folding entirely due to this situation?
Last edited: