Gold Coast Suns AFL Funding - Return on value

[HairyO]

GC gives Victorian ex-pats the chance to go to the footy every second week. Their kids will be Suns fans. Unfortunately there are very few southerners west of Sydney, so they will always struggle.

When Tassie join, it will seem like they have always been in the comp. Their footy history, passion and full stadiums will bring a totally different vibe to GC and GWS. It will be like when the Crows or WC entered.

People arent going to Gold Coast games. That is the problem.

Tassie is the interesting one. Will people in Launceston (and the rest of the north coast) regularly travel to Hobart to watch games? Or after a couple of years are they going to be the Hobart team?

 

[Walshawk]

People arent going to Gold Coast games. That is the problem.

Tassie is the interesting one. Will people in Launceston (and the rest of the north coast) regularly travel to Hobart to watch games? Or after a couple of years are they going to be the Hobart team?

There will be four games in Launceston. They won’t have to drive to Hobart.

 

[Clark G]

There will be four games in Launceston. They won’t have to drive to Hobart.

Is that confirmed?

 

[Walshawk]

Is that confirmed?

The AFL obviously dies the fixture but that has been the position of the Devils since day 1. York Park has a fully funded upgrade and expansion about to commence,

 

[GC2015]

It’s a multigenerational plan.

At this stage the Swans were in their 2nd bankruptcy and the Daily Telegraph was demanding a name and colours change.

Don’t be the NRL with zero patience, patience works.

The generational plan is already starting to bear fruit at the grassroots level, as everyone is already aware given the much publicised first round picks from the Suns Academy last year. It's more than that, though. There was an article in the Herald Sun yesterday that interviewed potential top 10 Leo Lombard and he stated that he was only playing footy "for fun" on the side while he was winning national championships in jiu-jitsu. That all changed when he was placed in the Suns Academy and he quit jiu-jitsu when a genuine pathway into the AFL became clear through the academy.

If the Suns Academy didn't exist, Lombard likely would have chased a career in MMA (like his famous UFC fighter father) and a top 10 pick would have been lost to the game. This, along with the extra TV money, is where the real return on value comes from the Suns existing. Growing the game at the grassroots level in expansion markets will continue to be one of the highest priorities for the AFL and the Suns are arguably doing it better than any other northern club at the moment. To only look at on field results and ignore everything else being done is to miss the point of why the Suns were established in the first place.

tl/dr - on field success is great and will eventually come for the Suns, but the real return on value is what we're seeing off field.

 

[SnusCG]

People arent going to Gold Coast games. That is the problem.

Tassie is the interesting one. Will people in Launceston (and the rest of the north coast) regularly travel to Hobart to watch games? Or after a couple of years are they going to be the Hobart team?

17th in home attendance and 15th in away attendance and above GWS in both. Seems weird to single out the Suns there.

For a team in a non-traditional football state, that has never made finals, that's honestly fine.

Watch that number jump massively if we make finals in the next few years. The amount of kids coming through the SUNS academy nowadays is proof enough that interest in the game on the Gold Coast is increasing pretty rapidly.

If you're going to be concerned about attendance numbers, I'd be more worried about Western Bulldogs, St Kilda and North Melbourne who are have fewer avenues to grow their attendance than either the SUNS or GWS and aren't sitting that much further ahead.

 

[MelbourneGWS]

Could another team take their spot? Yeah sure,

Will you get the growth elsewhere? **** no, Gold Coast is the 6th biggest city in Australia, one of the top 10 highest growing area's as well

Come on dude.

Good point. The AFL needs a team in Gold Coast - the number of places that have a population that can support a full time AFL team is very limited, especially outside VIC, Wa and SA.

 

[Bjo187]

The afl could have saved a truckload of money by making the sharks the club representing the gold coast. They even promoted them into the vfl because they're arguably the best club in Australia, not in the afl.

Their winning culture, big hotel and pokies revenue and better location for a stadium just made so much sense. The argument nobody likes them in gold coast's local footy scene would have been defunct anyway, as their senior team doesn't play in the qafl now. Plus a club in the big league with the name gold coast sharks and different colours would have forged it's own identity away from Southport anyway.

Overall though the suns will come good, it just seems like a massive waste of money not tapping into that sharks resource, money that could have gone back into even more grassroots funding in qld.

I do wonder if they become too much of a financial drain long term, if you could actually merge the two teams to acquire all of that Southport sharks revenue. The suns will come good I'm confident of that, but if they came in as the sharks, they'd probably have a premiership, financial clout and be the toast of the gold coast sports scene by now.