NO TROLLS Is AFLW profitable yet

[Teen Wolf]

Oh good I like seeing these. 81 million revenue is massive, I dunno if any club in Australia would even come close to that (other than ones with pokies dens). Something surprising though, it's arguably the biggest most successful year a sporting club could even imagine in Australian sport and whilst the revenue is huge, the profit of 6 mill seems smaller than I expected for such a bumper year.

I suppose if anything it really shows how much it costs to run a football club, especially now with the women's team that would run at a big loss for clubs.

You mean the women's teams that average 5k members, and single sponsorships are worth up to at least $500,000 per year? While things like TPP, flights + accommodation, and ground hire are covered by the league?

Still can't work out why a bunch of previously uninterested clubs suddenly did a 180 on women's footy, eh.

 

[The Educator]

You mean the women's teams that average 5k members, and single sponsorships are worth up to at least $500,000 per year? While things like TPP, flights + accommodation, and ground hire are covered by the league?

Still can't work out why a bunch of previously uninterested clubs suddenly did a 180 on women's footy, eh.

Exactly. Plus I am pretty sure the AFL distributions match the player TPP

Quite likely the bigger clubs like Collingwood are revenue positive from their AFLW teams

 

[Bjo187]

Exactly. Plus I am pretty sure the AFL distributions match the player TPP

Quite likely the bigger clubs like Collingwood are revenue positive from their AFLW teams

Regardless it's still overly excessive money coming out of the AFL pot that could be put into much better endeavors for the game (at this stage).

 

[The_Wookie]

Exactly. Plus I am pretty sure the AFL distributions match the player TPP

Quite likely the bigger clubs like Collingwood are revenue positive from their AFLW teams

The base distribution is generally under the TPP but not by much. The average distribution is over though.

AFL would still be subsidising AFLW costs at all clubs I believe.

 

[The_Wookie]

Regardless it's still overly excessive money coming out of the AFL pot that could be put into much better endeavors for the game (at this stage).

womens players and clubs are pretty much the only reason the game is growing at grassroots over the last 5 years. You can say what you like about the top down approach the league adopted, but it HAS worked at the development level.

 

[Bjo187]

womens players and clubs are pretty much the only reason the game is growing at grassroots over the last 5 years. You can say what you like about the top down approach the league adopted, but it HAS worked at the development level.

Oh i completely agree in women's football, the growth, the fact they should be paid. I'm simply arguing the merits of player pay at this stage, it is way out of wack with what it should be at this early stage and affects other important and much needed areas of Australian football investment.

 

[The Educator]

The base distribution is generally under the TPP but not by much. The average distribution is over though.

AFL would still be subsidising AFLW costs at all clubs I believe.

Well, yes, they are as they are subsidising most of the TPP and apparently paying for most of the transport, logisticis and travel, venues etc. The question then is whether some of the bigger clubs are making the risidual costs (largely football department and extra overheads) back through their own revenues (i.e. membership, sponsorship etc).

 

[The Educator]

Oh i completely agree in women's football, the growth, the fact they should be paid. I'm simply arguing the merits of player pay at this stage, it is way out of wack with what it should be at this early stage and affects other important and much needed areas of Australian football investment.

You've never made that case. You just continue to assert it without anything more than platitudes to back it up

 

[Teen Wolf]

Well, yes, they are as they are subsidising most of the TPP and apparently paying for most of the transport, logisticis and travel, venues etc. The question then is whether some of the bigger clubs are making the risidual costs (largely football department and extra overheads) back through their own revenues (i.e. membership, sponsorship etc).

Never mind the bigger clubs (some of whom have had presidents and board members publicly state their AFLW programs are profitable), a small club like North Melbourne has been making a profit from its women's team from day one.

 

[The_Wookie]

Never mind the bigger clubs (some of whom have had presidents and board members publicly state their AFLW programs are profitable), a small club like North Melbourne has been making a profit from its women's team from day one.

This is the same North Melbourne that is ONLY profitabl because it recieves millions in additional AFL funding for the entire club to be profitable.
Ok never mind that North Melbourne clearly shows that it receives a distribution from the league for AFLW

 

[dave10]

Exactly. Plus I am pretty sure the AFL distributions match the player TPP

Quite likely the bigger clubs like Collingwood are revenue positive from their AFLW teams

Although I’m not sure Clubs are deriving much revenue yet from their AFLW teams. I’d say they’d be generating negative profitability at this point. That's excluding any TV rights income that’s washing over the game, and to the clubs.

Until we see detail of Collingwood’s result it’s hard to interpret. On the surface, $6M operating profit on $81M is a strong result. The $15M growth in revenue means it must’ve sustained strong growth on the expenses side too. I read Collingwood generated ~$3M in merchandising the week following the GF which means somewhere amongst this result there must be a few ‘ugly ducklings’ given it recorded strong growth in crowds and membership and no doubt was at a high watermark on merchandising and hospitality all year..

Did the Netball exit result in a financial impact? Did they incur one off expenses elsewhere? I don’t know, however in a golden year where everything was prefect, it feels there’s some interesting detail within somewhere.

That said, a terrific result and the Club is strong.

 

[Rob]

Never mind the bigger clubs (some of whom have had presidents and board members publicly state their AFLW programs are profitable), a small club like North Melbourne has been making a profit from its women's team from day one.

How would we even verify that? I doubt any club is going to the trouble of allocating shared expenses between both programs, and even a lot of the income would be difficult to apportion where both teams have the same major sponsors (as North does). It would all just be an arbitrary ratio to fit whatever narrative you want to spin.

 

[Teen Wolf]

This is the same North Melbourne that is ONLY profitabl because it recieves millions in additional AFL funding for the entire club to be profitable.
Ok never mind that North Melbourne clearly shows that it receives a distribution from the league for AFLW

Yeah it's the North Melbourne that receives unequal funding in exchange for unequal access to Friday night and home games at the MCG. Money which is never going away.

No club is making a profit without distributions from the AFL for men's football either. You have no point.

How would we even verify that? I doubt any club is going to the trouble of allocating shared expenses between both programs, and even a lot of the income would be difficult to apportion where both teams have the same major sponsors (as North does). It would all just be an arbitrary ratio to fit whatever narrative you want to spin.

Riiight it's club presidents and board members whose public claims (such as "our AFLW team has been profitable from day one", and "AFLW has made clubs so much money") need verification.

Why don't you ask JoBlo69 how he can verify his claim that the women's teams "run at a big loss"?

 

[The_Wookie]

Yeah it's the North Melbourne that receives unequal funding in exchange for unequal access to Friday night and home games at the MCG. Money which is never going away.

No club is making a profit without distributions from the AFL for men's football either. You have no point.

You need to look a little further.

The TV rights distribution is club revenue. They are entitled to it, it cannot be withheld by the league. It is absolutely part of their revenue. As are is distributions from afl membership club support and centralised revenues - these are not discretionary league funding. Many clubs are actually proitable under this arrangement.

The step up disequal program is something else altogether. There are 4 or 5 clubs, two or three in Melbourne, that fall under this. They have been perenially small clubs ever since the days when everyone played on saturday afternoons and had no tv coverage. None of these clubs have gotten bigger or smaller in a relative sense.

and its absoutely discretionary and can be removed by the league.

Riiight it's club presidents and board members whose public claims (such as "our AFLW team has been profitable from day one", and "AFLW has made clubs so much money") need verification.

Show me actual quotes.

Why don't you ask JoBlo69 how he can verify his claim that the women's teams "run at a big loss"?

I didnt even see his post. And I still dont care. What we do know is that North Melbourne will show a specific distribution for AFLW in its reports.

 

[Bjo187]

You've never made that case. You just continue to assert it without anything more than platitudes to back it up

I gave a full description the other day in another thread. Cbf typing it all again, i'll see if i can find it. It was around the fact that:

• 90 percent of girls would still chose Australian football if they kept the current pay rate anyway, they are simply happy to be playing.
• The average girl at the local footy club could not care less about the pay they are getting, it would not affect participation at grassroots at all (only for the 0.001% at the top that come from ireland for example).
• The competition loses up to 50 mill per year for the AFL.
• It's unfair that W players who have played for a year (ie 33 irish imports) are earning over 10x what a VFL player is earning despite those guys toiling away their whole life to make it to the top.
• The skill level of some W players does not in any way reflect the pay they are getting, it is still at amateur's level (players not being able to bounce the ball when running or kick a drop punt).
• The amount of additional resources is massive; coaches, physios, doctors, salaries, flights, accomm etc. and they are going to be paid over 12 months for a 10 to 14 week season?
• The AFL has a big problem on two fronts. Participation with multicultural Australians at grassroots and the top level. Low numbers of recruits from public schools. Money is being sucked away from these important areas, plus things like an AFL reserves comp, because they simply can't afford it due to the losses being incurred by W. Most of which are their own doing by over reaching to such an extent, its turned into a black hole for head office.

 

[Teen Wolf]

You need to look a little further.

The TV rights distribution is club revenue. They are entitled to it, it cannot be withheld by the league. It is absolutely part of their revenue. As are is distributions from afl membership club support and centralised revenues - these are not discretionary league funding. Many clubs are actually proitable under this arrangement.

The step up disequal program is something else altogether. There are 4 or 5 clubs, two or three in Melbourne, that fall under this. They have been perenially small clubs ever since the days when everyone played on saturday afternoons and had no tv coverage. None of these clubs have gotten bigger or smaller in a relative sense.

and its absoutely discretionary and can be removed by the league.

Irrelevant that it "can" be removed by the league. It never will be.

Show me actual quotes.

Again? Ok...

Adelaide football director Mark Ricciuto, 58.35 onwards:

Women’s football is not costing the Adelaide Football Club anything. It’s actually making money. It is profitable and has been since pretty much day one because of new sponsors that have come on board to the club ONLY because it’s women’s football. We could not get BHP to spend a dollar with the Crows, could not get Thomas Foods to spend as much money as they are now unless women’s footy was involved.

Then Collingwood president Eddie McGuire:

We are a mile in front because of our women’s program.

It has absolutely made football so much money in the last three years.

I didnt even see his post. And I still dont care. What we do know is that North Melbourne will show a specific distribution for AFLW in its reports.

Fwiw I wasn't addressing you in that part of my post. Nevertheless, indeed we will see "official club stuff" published, which is what I thought the thread was for (didn't realise it was another place for baseless cracks at AFLW--a post you did respond to, despite claiming not to see it).

 

[Rob]

Riiight it's club presidents and board members whose public claims (such as "our AFLW team has been profitable from day one", and "AFLW has made clubs so much money") need verification.

Why don't you ask JoBlo69 how he can verify his claim that the women's teams "run at a big loss"?

Oh OK we'll just say whatever we want and take it as the truth because reasons.

Quite seriously, do you really think North went to the huge trouble and expense to work out, with a high degree of accuracy, what proportion of the thousands of expenses that can be attributed to both programs?

 

[Teen Wolf]

Oh OK we'll just say whatever we want and take it as the truth because reasons.

Only if it's "the women's team runs at a big loss for the club". You've got no problem with that claim, still haven't asked the poster how he 'knows' that.

But quotes to the contrary from club officials aren't good enough for your selective standard of verification.

Quite seriously, do you really think North went to the huge trouble and expense to work out, with a high degree of accuracy, what proportion of the thousands of expenses that can be attributed to both programs?

Quite seriously, do you really think when people are talking about the cost of AFLW programs, we're debating how much of the receptionist's salary is paid by the men's and women's team respectively? Those costs are being covered with or without an AFLW team, hence the wise decision to align the two competitions.

We are talking about add-on football costs, which are very easy to keep track of, and some clubs explicitly announce (such as Melbourne today: $4,373,170).

 

[Rob]

Only if it's "the women's team runs at a big loss for the club". You've got no problem with that claim, still haven't asked the poster how he 'knows' that.

But quotes to the contrary from club officials aren't good enough for your selective standard of verification.

I didn't say I've got no problem with that claim. Same principle.
But I've got no problem with people taking publicly available information and putting 2 and 2 together. Doesn't mean I agree with it, but it's got more credence than a statement from a club official that's virtually impossible to verify.

Quite seriously, do you really think when people are talking about the cost of AFLW programs, we're debating how much of the receptionist's salary is paid by the men's and women's team respectively? Those costs are being covered with or without an AFLW team, hence the wise decision to align the two competitions.

We are talking about add-on football costs, which are very easy to keep track of, and some clubs explicitly announce (such as Melbourne today: $4,373,170).

No, we're talking about the many thousands of expenses (and income streams) that relate to both men's and women's programs.
Gym equipment for example, that might cost $200k in depreciation a year. How much of that relates to each program? No club would bother to work that out.
Or let's say the Mazda sponsorship, which covers both teams. That's probably not going to be apportioned and if it was its just a random guess.

 

[Teen Wolf]

I didn't say I've got no problem with that claim. Same principle.
But I've got no problem with people taking publicly available information and putting 2 and 2 together. Doesn't mean I agree with it, but it's got more credence than a statement from a club official that's virtually impossible to verify.

No, we're talking about the many thousands of expenses (and income streams) that relate to both men's and women's programs.
Gym equipment for example, that might cost $200k in depreciation a year. How much of that relates to each program? No club would bother to work that out.
Or let's say the Mazda sponsorship, which covers both teams. That's probably not going to be apportioned and if it was its just a random guess.

Gym equipment is bought regardless of the AFLW team's existence. Not hard to understand. The additional equipment specifically purchased for women would be so small to render discussion about depreciation rather desperate and pathetic.

Given various companies only agree to back a men's team as long as they are also allowed to be associated with the respective women's team (as club officials claim), we understandably don't see things like sponsorship revenue separated in the breakdowns.

But there is publicly available information about standalone AFLW club deals (of up to at least $500,000 per year) that do give us an idea of the landscape. So if people actually look for that information (much of which I've already posted links to over the years), they'll actually have some clue about the numbers (rather than "putting 2 and 2 together" based on nothing).

 

[Johnny Bananas]

Regardless it's still overly excessive money coming out of the AFL pot that could be put into much better endeavors for the game (at this stage).

Why, do the men's teams need more ivory back scratchers?

 

[RonnieRaven]

Depends what the turnover is in the gambling on the game.

 

[Walshawk]

GF sold out very quickly. Encouraging to see.

 

[Gigantor]

Whatever amount the AFLW is being subsidised by (if that is in fact what is happening), it would be an absolutely paltry sum relative to the turnover of the AFL industry.
The various spinoffs make it worth every cent, plus some.
Someone has already mentioned the sold out grand final (always big news for any womens sport).
And noticed on my twitter feed a big picture of Conti on the front page of a daily paper after winning the league B&F.
Overall, the AFLW is a major positive for the AFL.

 

[AFootballParent]

womens players and clubs are pretty much the only reason the game is growing at grassroots over the last 5 years. You can say what you like about the top down approach the league adopted, but it HAS worked at the development level.

Quite often people complain about the AFL not giving back to grassroots footy yet here it is committing $$$ to grow women’s footy which in turns grows the growth of the game.
I for one love what the woman and the AFL are doing even if it is a costly venture


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