News North might be done in Ballarat

[Tas]

Tas - I disagree with many of your posts but they are very passionate and deep down all North supporters probably share some of your sentiment. But I can't believe you are letting all the infringements by the AFL affect your membership commitment to our great club. The club is doing whatever it can to survive and thrive in the AFL environment. If you stick to your guns it could be 20 years before you are a member again. C'mon mate, I''ll buy you a 3 game membership to ease you back in.

Membership means nothing other than access to the games and having a vote. Vote are worthless in a dictatorship and I don't need it for access.

I wouldn't pull my financial support if the club was destitute, but it isn't. The club wants to sell more games to Tassie so it can put in a half-arsed effort in Melbourne, there are opportunity costs for taking that path. It would be better for the club in the long-term if our dictator got that message.

 

[kelman]

Membership means nothing other than access to the games and having a vote. Vote are worthless in a dictatorship and I don't need it for access.

I wouldn't pull my financial support if the club was destitute, but it isn't. The club wants to sell more games to Tassie so it can put in a half-arsed effort in Melbourne, there are opportunity costs for taking that path. It would be better for the club in the long-term if our dictator got that message.

Yeah, bloody Brayshaw, not listening to Tas since he came into power and look where that has got us!

Just don't go telling people you are a member or support the club when we win the flag.

 

[Kimbo]

Just don't go telling people you are a member or support the club when we win the flag.

Just think, without bottoming out for top picks and the dead weight of Tasmania around our necks.

 

[Horace]

It is not my job to come up with ideas, I am a supporter, and if the club is fortunate, a member. If JB and Carl have no ideas, other than to kill the club long-term, then step down and lets find someone else who has fresh ideas.

Perhaps if JB didn't hand pick every board member who was on the same page as he was then he would have some fresh ideas, perhaps let the members, you know, vote someone in?

Not sure where I sit at the games has any relevance. We haven't had a contract to play at Docklands for a decade and there is nothing legally requiring us to play our games there. We have an obligation to play as many games there as every Victorian club has, but no more than that. If our leaders are too timid to stand up against the AFL then that isn't my fault. I don't think they require us to play 8 games at Docklands if they can quite happily have us play 8 games in Tasmania.

I'd prefer to remain a member and for our 'representatives' to act like they represent us instead of dicatate to us. While we have a dictatorship I don't see the point of donating to the dictatorship.

What a cop out that is. Criticise the s*** out of the club and its administration but have no ideas how to help bolster support in Melbourne, nor think it is your responsibility to come up with ideas.

And you have the audacity to say if the club is fortunate, you might be a member. Unbelievable.

BTW does anyone else see the irony in a poster having the name "Tas" and at the same time bagging our involvement in Tasmania? Now maybe the Tas comes from some connection to Robbie, but it still doesn't make any sense.

 

[Tas]

Yeah, bloody Brayshaw, not listening to Tas since he came into power and look where that has got us!

Just don't go telling people you are a member or support the club when we win the flag.

lol I've been a member through two decades where we have been largely bottom half of the ladder for half my lifetime. I'm sure you will appreciate these bandwagon supporter who were never around when the club needed them. I don't just get a membership when there is a lure of a premiership.

However, the principal of the matter is important to me. The club is alienating supporters it shouldn't be and doesn't need to. We should be doing everything possible to take advantage of successful periods but our club constantly shoots itself in the foot when we should just be focusing on the team doing well.

I am not sure why people are getting aggressive with me because I don't like what the club is doing, there are probably thousands of members who wont renew for the same reason who will be replaced by bandwagon supporters. Go shout at the clouds, I am not the one that caused this grief. Whenever we sell more games, supporters churn, but for us to keep selling more and more after 2007 is pretty insulting, especially because financially we are doing okay.

 

[kelman]

And you have the audacity to say if the club is fortunate, you might be a member. Unbelievable.

Yeah, shocking comment. Perhaps if we didn't have so many supporters who are willing to drop their financial support when ever they disagree with something, then Tassie would even need to be a consideration.

I for one am sick of propping up these barrackers while they continue to enjoy my team. If you are so outraged and want to make a stand, stop watching the game, get off bigfooty, give up the roos. Simply dropping the membership reeks of tight arse.

 

[Tas]

What a cop out that is. Criticise the s*** out of the club and its administration but have no ideas how to help bolster support in Melbourne, nor think it is your responsibility to come up with ideas.

I have said a million times before that if we are going to survive here or anywhere, we need to have a large enough group of supporters wherever we play our games, dividing our supporter base makes us weak in both locations. Our goal should be to fill out Docklands. We are not getting close, despite having 45k members, there are a lot of reasons why we don't and we have to address those reasons.

We have destroyed our culture of going to games week in and week out, next year there will be a 6 week gap between home games in Melbourne, when people stop the ritual of going ot the football every week they find something else to do with their time and football suffers because of it, even when there are games here.

I don't blame Euge and JB for selling games after a couple of years, because we had to make ends meet. Since then the future fund has come in and more money has been allocated to the teams adversely affected by Docklands, we also get money that goes towards our debt. Ultimately, what will make a big difference is getting larger crowds to games. Despite the shit deal, there is scope to make some decent money if we can get a much better crowd.

What kind of promotions have we had? Collingwood has bring a friend for free for a game against an interstate team. We are not doing enough to bring more people to games. Even if we take a short-term hit financially, we need to get more people through the gate. If it is your objective, there are a lot of different promotional ideas you can make to help get people back to attending games. You could list dozens of them.

When was the last time you saw a North ad on TV? In newspapers? We do not promote the club as being anti-pokies, how many people would be impacted by problem gambling, would be an opportunity to get them to make a statement by supporting a club that isn't creating more problem gamblers.

Melbourne's population is 4.25m and is expected to be 7.7m by 2051, with Victoria hitting 10 million. That is almost 3.5m in the city alone in 37 years. It is expected to hit 6 million by 2031, that is only 17 years away.

We are not going to have a large slice of the natural increase but 60% of the increase is going to come from migration. More than 100,000 people came to Melbourne the last 12 months, we have to target these people and try and convert them.

We only need to be able to get 50k people to Docklands 11 times a year.

And you have the audacity to say if the club is fortunate, you might be a member. Unbelievable.

This shutup and buy a membership mentality is a big part of the problem, this entitlement to supporter money irrespective what the club does or how it treats the members is just plain bullshit. The club may be a non-profit organisation but it isn't a charity. Where is my money going to be going, on developing the Tasmanian market? As Pagan would say, don't piss on my back and tell me it is raining.

Having gone through all this shit, having gone from 35k members up to 45k members the club sells more games, that is a big **** You from the club to the members.

 

[Horace]

I have said a million times before that if we are going to survive here or anywhere, we need to have a large enough group of supporters wherever we play our games, dividing our supporter base makes us weak in both locations. Our goal should be to fill out Docklands. We are not getting close, despite having 45k members, there are a lot of reasons why we don't and we have to address those reasons.

We have destroyed our culture of going to games week in and week out, next year there will be a 6 week gap between home games in Melbourne, when people stop the ritual of going ot the football every week they find something else to do with their time and football suffers because of it, even when there are games here.

I don't blame Euge and JB for selling games after a couple of years, because we had to make ends meet. Since then the future fund has come in and more money has been allocated to the teams adversely affected by Docklands, we also get money that goes towards our debt. Ultimately, what will make a big difference is getting larger crowds to games. Despite the shit deal, there is scope to make some decent money if we can get a much better crowd.

What kind of promotions have we had? Collingwood has bring a friend for free for a game against an interstate team. We are not doing enough to bring more people to games. Even if we take a short-term hit financially, we need to get more people through the gate. If it is your objective, there are a lot of different promotional ideas you can make to help get people back to attending games. You could list dozens of them.

When was the last time you saw a North ad on TV? In newspapers? We do not promote the club as being anti-pokies, how many people would be impacted by problem gambling, would be an opportunity to get them to make a statement by supporting a club that isn't creating more problem gamblers.

Melbourne's population is 4.25m and is expected to be 7.7m by 2051, with Victoria hitting 10 million. That is almost 3.5m in the city alone in 37 years. It is expected to hit 6 million by 2031, that is only 17 years away.

We are not going to have a large slice of the natural increase but 60% of the increase is going to come from migration. More than 100,000 people came to Melbourne the last 12 months, we have to target these people and try and convert them.

We only need to be able to get 50k people to Docklands 11 times a year.




This shutup and buy a membership mentality is a big part of the problem, this entitlement to supporter money irrespective what the club does or how it treats the members is just plain bullshit. The club may be a non-profit organisation but it isn't a charity. Where is my money going to be going, on developing the Tasmanian market? As Pagan would say, don't piss on my back and tell me it is raining.

Having gone through all this shit, having gone from 35k members up to 45k members the club sells more games, that is a big **** You from the club to the members.

There you go again. Making completely unsubstantiated statements such as "there are a lot of reasons why we don't and we have to address those reasons".

Please tell us what these reasons are. And then please tell us how to address them. You are what was once known as an "armchair" critic. All piss and wind and no substance.

Also if you are going to quote membership figures, please get them right. Our membership this year was 40027 up from 34607 in 2013, an increase of 15.66%, which in my view is a pretty fair increase. Is any of that attributable to the current administration? Let me guess your answer. No.

And yet another completely unsubstantiated (and quite absurd) statement. "This shut up and buy a membership mentality is a big part of the problem." What problem? And do you seriously believe that people actually act on that basis? Of course not.

And once again back to your lack of a membership. If you don't buy a membership then in my view you are not a supporter, you are just a barracker.

Again I will say that times are different from 1996, when Fitzroy was banished from the AFL, but one thing that does, I am sure, remain very valid, is the intense pressure that football club boards face in trying to ensure that their club remains viable. I saw enough from behind the scenes in 1996 of the level of pressure the members of that Fitzroy board were under.

When clubs face large debt levels, pressure comes on directors from banks and other lenders to sign personal guarantees, which attach to personal assets when/if things go the wrong way. There was no way I would have or could have put myself and my family in the same position that some of those directors put themselves in.

Hence I can understand why our club and its directors today will look at all options to try to generate large profitable revenue streams, so that firstly the club has a better chance of surviving and secondly they as directors are not perhaps placed into a financial predicament that they might not individually be able to recover from. Presumably our current board is made up of people who can withstand any calls of this nature should the unthinkable ever happen.

In any event I do not see that increasing the number of games played in Tasmania from 2 to 3 is "destroying our culture" when it actually places us in a better financial position to be able to better withstand the financial pressures of the future and maybe prevent us from being forcibly co-located in Tasmania.

However no club and no director should ever assume that if their financial position becomes untenable, that the AFL and other clubs will bail them out. They won't. They will all act from their own interests and who can really blame them for that.

But really why so much hate for JB and the club, at this time when our financial position has improved so much from 2007, we have had our best season for years, our list is in good shape and we can realistically look to better things ahead?

 

[Tas]

This post is epicly long because Horace demands detail, which I have probably posted 100 times before in other threads. if you don't like it then blame him, not me.

There you go again. Making completely unsubstantiated statements such as "there are a lot of reasons why we don't and we have to address those reasons".

Really, unsubstantiated? The crowd attendance is the evidence. When I ask people who used to go to games regularly but don't go now I get a variety of reasons, I use those as substantiation. Maybe that is representative of the larger demographic, maybe it isn't. I don't think any of them would come as a shock to anyone.

To highlight some of the common reasons:
1) supporters who have been pissed off at the club multiple times, for various reasons such as previous attempts to kill the club have become disenfranchised and pretty much moved on from football entirely.
2) people got used to not going to games when we had large intervals between games, for those who only attend home games there is a 6 or 7 week period between home games in Melbourne in 2015, those kind of gaps do not promote healthy attending habits.
3) people got sick of shit schedules, like the crock full of sunday twilight games, yes, our schedule has improved of late but was crap for the better part of a decade, long-term abuse causes long-term damage.
4) our interstate away games were often not fta, so you had to have foxtel to see the games. Combined with other factors, made it hard to keep involved in football.
5) a lot of people don't like Docklands, some have referred to it as a morgue which I use jokingly from time to time.
6) for a long time we get the slops re scheduling with crap games, usually the maximum number of games against interstate teams, which lead to dull tumbleweed-like atmosphere at the morgue.
7) people stopped getting into the habit of going to the footy every week, found other interests, interests which was more reliable, more consistent.
8) we developed a rockstar-like anticipation, we kind of turn out for games against the big teams and don't show for the dull games.
9) football and the prostitution of the game no longer interests them.

We can't do anything about 9) those people will not go to games again, everyone else is salvageable if we stop doing the things which caused them to drop off, avoidable things.

Some of these factors relate to other factors and while the present doesn't apply for some categories, damage that has been done over a very long period of time can not be undone in a short period of time.

These factors are critical to the point I make about selling games, when many of the factors relate to the environment that it creates for viewers in our critical market.

Please tell us what these reasons are. And then please tell us how to address them. You are what was once known as an "armchair" critic. All piss and wind and no substance.

If you want me to continue to discuss then drop the personal attacks.

If we had a 30k stadium then it would have been much easier for us to fill it, if demand was much closer to supply or exceeding it then it is a significant better situation. A 55k stadium for us is a lot harder to fill at present and the break even mark is above our average attendance. So, we need to increase our supporter base long-term so demand exceeds supply.

This should be tackled with the AFL as part of the strategic plan, smaller clubs need assistance for promotion because most of the free advertising and promotion (prime time) is largely given freely to the bigger clubs irrespective if they considered a contender or not.

Non-contending big 4 clubs are over-hyped and over-talked up by the media, they hype these clubs because they want people to watch these games, buy their publications but it causes an imbalance in terms of market share as the coverage makes it easier for bigger clubs to get new supporters.

This is exacerbated by smaller clubs which prefer to fly under the radar, like Scott talking us down as not a top 4 team at every opportunity when we lose games we should win. Pagan loved doing it as well, it might help success but it doesn't sell confidence. Scott dodges expectation because it puts more risk on his job. He should just understand JB would never fire him, he tried to talk Laidley out of stepping down.

We need to get more people into the stadium during matches, to put more bums on seats during matches, we should have promotions against every interstate team or low drawing teams to give away free tickets, these ticket packages should be targeted at families for regions which have a high influx of immigrants. We, Docklands and AFL get nothing from an empty seat, even a free entry patron might buy some of their overpriced crap food or watered down drinks. Give family tickets because as soon as kids smell molten plastic covered with sugar, they will put pressure on parents to buy them the junk. It probably isn't a lot more ethical than robbing people with pokies, but people have variable morals.

We should have more promotions like Collingwood does where you can bring friends to games for certain low expected turnout games. Getting North supporters who have stopped attending back to games might get them back on the wagon, especially if we don't suck.

Effort has to go into restoring the football watching psyche of supporters, that is having regular access to games. That is putting pressure on the AFL to ensure every game supporters can't get access to (away games interstate) are on FTA, even if they are on 7mate, delayed or replayed. Games for expansion clubs are on FTA for every single games. SA and WA have their games on TV every week and games on the road have priority. We need to put pressure on the AFL to actively promote the smaller clubs.

Our club has to make some kind of effort to get more people to games, selling more games is a step in the wrong direction because you end up with more time during season where you can't attend, we are self-inflicting the rugby type of viewing culture on our supporters.

Promotion is critically important, Heath does a great job with limited resources but I think our club along with Saints and Dogs could successfully bargain for more funding and resources for promotion if they want the smaller clubs to bridge the gap on the larger clubs. We should actively campaign that this is a critical component of equalisation if you want to get clubs off the charity drip then they need to treat the cause of problems, not just keep chasing the symptoms which do not resolve the problem. Selling games because we don't get enough money from home games is treating the symptom. Selling games wont make more people go to games.

Also if you are going to quote membership figures, please get them right. Our membership this year was 40027 up from 34607 in 2013, an increase of 15.66%, which in my view is a pretty fair increase. Is any of that attributable to the current administration? Let me guess your answer. No.

AFL stopped recording membership sales at some point for finals allotment purposes, I used the numbers off the wiki page which do not stop recording until the memberships are no longer sold.

I think the expectation of the team doing well is largely responsible for the big surge. According to the wiki our numbers were:
2008: 34,342
2009: 30,613
2010: 29,272
2011: 30,362
2012: 33,754
2013: 35,246
2014: 45,092

Our numbers were kind of flat during the vast majority of our rebuild, jumped a little with Tasmanian members when we started to sell games and then there was the surge this year, which should be sustained if the team does well on-field.

And yet another completely unsubstantiated (and quite absurd) statement. "This shut up and buy a membership mentality is a big part of the problem." What problem? And do you seriously believe that people actually act on that basis? Of course not.

It feels that way to me, and I think I have given ample substantiation over countless threads as to why. The only reason the club returned to membership 'control' is because we were going to be bent over by the tax office if we didn't. This was no feel good moment, the shareholders had to be convinced kicking and screaming that it was that or we were screwed. We never made the move voluntarily so we didn't really change the mindset we had previously.

For decades the club had treated the members as nothing more than season ticket holders and that mentality hasn't changed in my opinion. Given JB sees no difference between 11 home games and 3 home games plus access to 8 away games in Victoria. Even though those reserved seating memberships do not give you reserved seating for those 'away' home games.

We have an election process where we are meant to choose our representatives on the board yet each position each time has been pre-filled and all the proxies go to keeping that person in power. Nobody who has ever run against a JB pupett has won. This isn't an action from someone who respects the election process or is paying respect to the members. This isn't someone who lets the stakeholders choose their representation.

To me, it was also a sign of great disrespect for JB to campaign against the amendment to the constitution, which I think would have passed if he supported it. What was it, 58% or so, would have got to 75% with his support. He put his desire to be able to hock off another 7 game co-location package without approval above the safety of the club and has left us vulnerable to someone in the future of moving all 11 games and just keeping the administration in Melbourne. It may not be what JB or Carl would do, but it will likely get progressively harder to pass a 75% constitutional change in the future with more Tasmanian representation. Then he will be the looney like Aylett is now talking about how we should have gone to Tassie if we somehow avert disaster.

Does membership mean more than just access to games? Do you feel JB represents the will of the members or is he doing what he wants to do?

And once again back to your lack of a membership. If you don't buy a membership then in my view you are not a supporter, you are just a barracker.

Are you saying that to make yourself feel better or me feel worse about my decision? I don't really care what you or anyone else thinks about me.

Outside of a few years I have explained why, I have been a member since the 80s, I switched to TruRoo when it became available and also contributed to debt reduction. However, it has increasingly become apparent to me over the years that I am nothing other than a season ticket holder and I am funding a future Tasmanian football team. The club doesn't need my money, the club doesn't want my money, they are after the easy Tasmanian money irrespective of the opportunity cost. Loyalty is a two way street.

Again I will say that times are different from 1996, when Fitzroy was banished from the AFL, but one thing that does, I am sure, remain very valid, is the intense pressure that football club boards face in trying to ensure that their club remains viable. I saw enough from behind the scenes in 1996 of the level of pressure the members of that Fitzroy board were under.

The environment today is vastly different to the one where Fitzroy was killed off. What did Fitzroy have, 5k members and no home base and turning over 10m? We would be a superpower if was 1996. Most clubs have massive more debt than they did in 96. The debt free clubs are usually the poor clubs, that is because nobody wants to lend money to entities which just service negative debt acquired by losing money, income generating debt is wealth creating debt, both for financial institutions and for investors.

When clubs face large debt levels, pressure comes on directors from banks and other lenders to sign personal guarantees, which attach to personal assets when/if things go the wrong way. There was no way I would have or could have put myself and my family in the same position that some of those directors put themselves in.

Waaa, where is your substantiation? :stern look

Our debt is guaranteed by the AFL, against future distributions. It was offered to all clubs after the AFL had to guarantee Carlton, Richmond, Dogs and Melbourne to stop them from defaulting.

Pokies as the example you have raised previously, we took a loan to purchase these machines, they are these days financed via lease, if at any point in the future we no longer wanted them then you can end the lease and they can be reclaimed, there is just a much smaller early termination cost on ending a lease, this is far less brutal than acquiring a loan to buy them outright initially.

Our directors were asked to be guarantors previously because we were servicing negative debt made from losses and while we could service the debt didn't have any financial evidence that we could repay it and had nothing of value to use as guarantee. Given the lending restrictions placed on our financial institutions, you need brick and mortar to guarantee debt. Fitzroy was killed for debt it was servicing but could not repay.

It is exceptionally difficult to make money without borrowing money, there is risk associated with it, but we are being left behind by risk takers, you are never going to keep up with those that aggressively invest. You just might end up ahead of someone who botches their investments but will be a long way behind everyone else.

Hence I can understand why our club and its directors today will look at all options to try to generate large profitable revenue streams, so that firstly the club has a better chance of surviving and secondly they as directors are not perhaps placed into a financial predicament that they might not individually be able to recover from. Presumably our current board is made up of people who can withstand any calls of this nature should the unthinkable ever happen.

Again, this is bullshit. We don't have the leadership that has the balls to be aggressive. We chased Geelong's CEO, you think his business plan would be... do nothing but what the AFL tells us to do? The ONLY reason the AFL is circling again is because JB is gullible and is stuck mentally in 2007, AFL sees the opportunity to get Tasmania off their back politically and by retaining our broadcasting numbers by turning everyone remaining into TV watching audience supporting a team playing the bulk (and eventually all) of the home games in Tasmania. For them it would kill two birds with one stone.

In any event I do not see that increasing the number of games played in Tasmania from 2 to 3 is "destroying our culture" when it actually places us in a better financial position to be able to better withstand the financial pressures of the future and maybe prevent us from being forcibly co-located in Tasmania.

Getting a bit more money is great, but there is an opportunity cost. If we are pulling 27,480 on average for the H&A at Docklands in a year we made the top 4 (which is below the break even mark) then that is not sustainable and has to be addressed. If we never address it then we will never be sustainable.

2 games into 3 isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back, it will however, start to cause the kind of damage that has been caused previously by selling more and more games.

Selling more games wont fix the problem here. Selling games against two Victorian clubs and playing four interstate teams in Melbourne not going to help either. Which other team that sells game has ever been forced to move a game vs a better drawing team? I don't recall anyone else dragging Collingwood, Carlton and Richmond games interstate.

However no club and no director should ever assume that if their financial position becomes untenable, that the AFL and other clubs will bail them out. They won't. They will all act from their own interests and who can really blame them for that. 19k vs Port, 21k vs Brisbane, 17k vs Melbourne

Our position isn't untenable. Yep those crowds are shithouse, especially in a year we finished where we did, but they have been shit for some time. Have you seen any initiatives from the club to address it? Even Collingwood has been trying to get more people to their games and they have had the red carpet treatment for decades.

If the club is doing anything it is not visible and it is not effective. If the club has no ideas or no strategy then they need to look at bringing people into the club who have some workable ideas, it isn't up to the supporters to come up with solutions. If the board and shareholders of my investments needed ideas from me then I would want to vote them out as well.

I am not saying we have to attract people who don't support the club in the short-term, just the fundamental of getting paid up members to actually attend games they have paid for. There is something vastly wrong with our image if we fail to achieve that.

This is a critical area of running the club, if you blow at getting your members who have paid for access to games to actually attend games they have paid for then there are chronic issues. Putting guilt or pressure on people to show isn't the answer, people historically haven't responded well to that, ultimately the club has to make it a much better environment. Who knows what will work, club will have to actually try some initiatives.

But really why so much hate for JB and the club, at this time when our financial position has improved so much from 2007, we have had our best season for years, our list is in good shape and we can realistically look to better things ahead?

I don't hate JB, I am thankful for him stepping up when he did but he hasn't really evolved from the 2007 JB, he has the same old ideas even if the climate has changed radically. We can't afford our leaders to be living in the past. He has dug himself into a North Korean type of leadership setup where he is all bar impossible to dislodge. There is nothing individually that is rage inducing, it is just an accumulation of things, those pebbles rolling down the hill have reached an avalanche proportion to me because I see where this is heading and I am powerless to do anything about it.

I just think he is gullible and the AFL is playing him for a fool, if I am right it is going to cost our club it's soul. I just find it extremely difficult to become emotionally attached if we are going to go through the same motions as 2007 all over again in 2016. I think just making us vulnerable to a similar kind of move after 2007 is a betrayal of the highest order, especially in light of all the moves for equality nobody should be under any threat of relocation.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, I just expect consistency.

AFL tried to knife us before, I expect them to do it again. Some of our board blindly followed the AFL, I expect some to do so again. Our 'host' went from rolling out the red carpet to placing bear traps under the carpet, I expect them to do so again. JB offered co-location before and he has not once since implied he wont do so again, and fought to ensure he has the power to do so without our approval... so I expect him to do so again.

You are hoping people don't do what they have previously done before and have blatantly shown intent to do so again. That is living in fantasy land. If a dog has bitten you on the arse before then the odds are very high he is going to bite you on the arse again if you give him the chance to.

If being a member means nothing then it is pointless being a member. People have illogical trust in the man that HAS OFFERED CO-LOCATION BEFORE. Wake up and smell the beans. JB and the AFL were unwittingly defeated by Kennett to slip this deal in behind our backs, if it wasn't for him we would be dead already. Yet he still has this ****ing messiah complex.

Back when we didn't have a lot of options I could forgive him, not now, not in this climate. We need a leader who is in 2015 mode looking forward to 2030-2050. He is in 2007 looking backwards and morons who worship him are going to give him the tools to finish off what he has started. Like Aylett, who thought our only hope was GC, JB has just changed destination and has this fantasy dream is about Tasmania.

What is gobsmacking is that the moves are being made in plain sight this time around and people are oblivious to it, at least we had the excuse of being deceived in 2007. We don't have that excuse now, there are no secret backroom deals, shit is unfolding right in front of us.

 

[Twinkletoes]

I needed a break after chapter 12. This wasn't exactly the holiday reading I had in mind on this four day weekend. Nice effort anyway Tas. It's not often you out do yourself.

 

[Kimbo]

I don't really care what you or anyone else thinks about me.

If you want me to continue to discuss then drop the personal attacks.

Horace, do you want Tas to continue to discuss? :sternlook

 

[Devski]

Tldr;

Me and my mates got pissy and stopped attending games.

The club is doomed All statistics showing otherwise are not important.

We'll be the north Melbtasmanianourne's in 2 years depsite my complete ignorance of the Tasmanian deal and the Tasmanian economic strains that cannot possibly support an increased number of games.

PS I hate James Brayshaw.

 

[Horace]

Horace, do you want Tas to continue to discuss? :sternlook

Ummm. Errr. Nooooo, as a matter of fact Kimbo. I don't have quite that much time to continue to debate this stuff to the quite extraordinary lengths that Tas went to.

One thing I will say though is that Tas has absolutely no idea, repeat no idea, whatsoever about what happened at Fitzroy in 1996 and he should never ever try to put his absurdly wrong spin on it. For anyone who might think Tas knows something about that time, once again let me tell you he has no f****** idea whatsoever.

 

[King Corey]

I needed a break after chapter 12. This wasn't exactly the holiday reading I had in mind on this four day weekend. Nice effort anyway Tas. It's not often you out do yourself.

Welcome to the banned list.

I've got some canapés ready for your arrival. Brett33 will organise a welcome drink (a 'cowboy' or something?).

 

[Kimbo]

Ummm. Errr. Nooooo, as a matter of fact Kimbo. I don't have quite that much time to continue to debate this stuff to the quite extraordinary lengths that Tas went to.

At your age, I totally respect that decision. We're all only allotted so much time on this earth.

 

[Tas]

I thought as much.

 

[Saintly31]

Just imagine how long Tas' post would be if we break 50,000 members, become strong financially and win a grand final?

Would be so disappointed and angry would make the thesis look like a one liner I suspect!

 

[Higgins2Waite]

I can't believe how ridiculous this is. The benefits to our club are for all to see. In the short term it is helping...and we bloody needed it. Once we are sitting pretty we will be firmly settled in Melbourne like we should be. The Tassie venture has helped this club survive.

Kimbo any chance you can get your mate Walshy in here to sort Tas out?!

 

[Higgins2Waite]

Welcome to the banned list.

I've got some canapés ready for your arrival. Brett33 will organise a welcome drink (a 'cowboy' or something?).

I'm banned????????? Fair enough.

 

[Twinkletoes]

Welcome to the banned list.

I've got some canapés ready for your arrival. Brett33 will organise a welcome drink (a 'cowboy' or something?).

If by "banned list" you mean "ignore list", I have some disappointing news...........us Chaddy Food Court latte sippers are unignorable, in all seriouslyness.

 

[Higgins2Waite]

Oh...ignored list. Yeah I've been ignored by Tas for a while now. Ever since I caught him selling out North within minutes of our loss to West Coast last season.

At least I'm not ignored by a member

 

[naturally north]

I can't believe how ridiculous this is. The benefits to our club are for all to see. In the short term it is helping...and we bloody needed it. Once we are sitting pretty we will be firmly settled in Melbourne like we should be. The Tassie venture has helped this club survive.

Agree but also understand others POV's regarding this, but as we can only work with facts I'm comfortable enough.

When Petrie fired off his right foot outside of boot banana against * I wasn't thinking of our homes games in Tassie.

When LT went nuts in the first quarter against the Cats in the final I didn't give Tassie a thought. But did think of the anti LT's on these boards

I read recently around here how we've lost a big ticket home against Richmond by moving it to Tassie. Well people should remember the game may only be our home match because we offered to send it to Tassie.
The AFL could of just given us a game against the Dees for example.

In 2011 we made a massive 97K in total from our home matches at Etihad.

Tassie is helping us thrive and I haven't read a cash strapped article in a long while.

But I'll tell you what pisses me off, being shit, having shit people in important roles cause we've no money to pay for anyone better.

Not having staff to develop our young guys, not having recruiters because we can't afford them.

Missing out on Rory Sloan because a kok was in charge. But getting Hay , Green McConnell etc.

Three games is all I see us playing in Tassie over the next few years, I personally can't see that changing. Because there's no need for it.

Young kids outside of the usual way they find their club for life are more likely to jump on a prelim playing club than a broke basket case.

All in my most humble opinion

 

[numchuks]

This post is epicly long because Horace demands detail, which I have probably posted 100 times before in other threads. if you don't like it then blame him, not me.



Really, unsubstantiated? The crowd attendance is the evidence. When I ask people who used to go to games regularly but don't go now I get a variety of reasons, I use those as substantiation. Maybe that is representative of the larger demographic, maybe it isn't. I don't think any of them would come as a shock to anyone.

To highlight some of the common reasons:
1) supporters who have been pissed off at the club multiple times, for various reasons such as previous attempts to kill the club have become disenfranchised and pretty much moved on from football entirely.
2) people got used to not going to games when we had large intervals between games, for those who only attend home games there is a 6 or 7 week period between home games in Melbourne in 2015, those kind of gaps do not promote healthy attending habits.
3) people got sick of shit schedules, like the crock full of sunday twilight games, yes, our schedule has improved of late but was crap for the better part of a decade, long-term abuse causes long-term damage.
4) our interstate away games were often not fta, so you had to have foxtel to see the games. Combined with other factors, made it hard to keep involved in football.
5) a lot of people don't like Docklands, some have referred to it as a morgue which I use jokingly from time to time.
6) for a long time we get the slops re scheduling with crap games, usually the maximum number of games against interstate teams, which lead to dull tumbleweed-like atmosphere at the morgue.
7) people stopped getting into the habit of going to the footy every week, found other interests, interests which was more reliable, more consistent.
8) we developed a rockstar-like anticipation, we kind of turn out for games against the big teams and don't show for the dull games.
9) football and the prostitution of the game no longer interests them.

We can't do anything about 9) those people will not go to games again, everyone else is salvageable if we stop doing the things which caused them to drop off, avoidable things.

Some of these factors relate to other factors and while the present doesn't apply for some categories, damage that has been done over a very long period of time can not be undone in a short period of time.

These factors are critical to the point I make about selling games, when many of the factors relate to the environment that it creates for viewers in our critical market.



If you want me to continue to discuss then drop the personal attacks.

If we had a 30k stadium then it would have been much easier for us to fill it, if demand was much closer to supply or exceeding it then it is a significant better situation. A 55k stadium for us is a lot harder to fill at present and the break even mark is above our average attendance. So, we need to increase our supporter base long-term so demand exceeds supply.

This should be tackled with the AFL as part of the strategic plan, smaller clubs need assistance for promotion because most of the free advertising and promotion (prime time) is largely given freely to the bigger clubs irrespective if they considered a contender or not.

Non-contending big 4 clubs are over-hyped and over-talked up by the media, they hype these clubs because they want people to watch these games, buy their publications but it causes an imbalance in terms of market share as the coverage makes it easier for bigger clubs to get new supporters.

This is exacerbated by smaller clubs which prefer to fly under the radar, like Scott talking us down as not a top 4 team at every opportunity when we lose games we should win. Pagan loved doing it as well, it might help success but it doesn't sell confidence. Scott dodges expectation because it puts more risk on his job. He should just understand JB would never fire him, he tried to talk Laidley out of stepping down.

We need to get more people into the stadium during matches, to put more bums on seats during matches, we should have promotions against every interstate team or low drawing teams to give away free tickets, these ticket packages should be targeted at families for regions which have a high influx of immigrants. We, Docklands and AFL get nothing from an empty seat, even a free entry patron might buy some of their overpriced crap food or watered down drinks. Give family tickets because as soon as kids smell molten plastic covered with sugar, they will put pressure on parents to buy them the junk. It probably isn't a lot more ethical than robbing people with pokies, but people have variable morals.

We should have more promotions like Collingwood does where you can bring friends to games for certain low expected turnout games. Getting North supporters who have stopped attending back to games might get them back on the wagon, especially if we don't suck.

Effort has to go into restoring the football watching psyche of supporters, that is having regular access to games. That is putting pressure on the AFL to ensure every game supporters can't get access to (away games interstate) are on FTA, even if they are on 7mate, delayed or replayed. Games for expansion clubs are on FTA for every single games. SA and WA have their games on TV every week and games on the road have priority. We need to put pressure on the AFL to actively promote the smaller clubs.

Our club has to make some kind of effort to get more people to games, selling more games is a step in the wrong direction because you end up with more time during season where you can't attend, we are self-inflicting the rugby type of viewing culture on our supporters.

Promotion is critically important, Heath does a great job with limited resources but I think our club along with Saints and Dogs could successfully bargain for more funding and resources for promotion if they want the smaller clubs to bridge the gap on the larger clubs. We should actively campaign that this is a critical component of equalisation if you want to get clubs off the charity drip then they need to treat the cause of problems, not just keep chasing the symptoms which do not resolve the problem. Selling games because we don't get enough money from home games is treating the symptom. Selling games wont make more people go to games.



AFL stopped recording membership sales at some point for finals allotment purposes, I used the numbers off the wiki page which do not stop recording until the memberships are no longer sold.

I think the expectation of the team doing well is largely responsible for the big surge. According to the wiki our numbers were:
2008: 34,342
2009: 30,613
2010: 29,272
2011: 30,362
2012: 33,754
2013: 35,246
2014: 45,092

Our numbers were kind of flat during the vast majority of our rebuild, jumped a little with Tasmanian members when we started to sell games and then there was the surge this year, which should be sustained if the team does well on-field.



It feels that way to me, and I think I have given ample substantiation over countless threads as to why. The only reason the club returned to membership 'control' is because we were going to be bent over by the tax office if we didn't. This was no feel good moment, the shareholders had to be convinced kicking and screaming that it was that or we were screwed. We never made the move voluntarily so we didn't really change the mindset we had previously.

For decades the club had treated the members as nothing more than season ticket holders and that mentality hasn't changed in my opinion. Given JB sees no difference between 11 home games and 3 home games plus access to 8 away games in Victoria. Even though those reserved seating memberships do not give you reserved seating for those 'away' home games.

We have an election process where we are meant to choose our representatives on the board yet each position each time has been pre-filled and all the proxies go to keeping that person in power. Nobody who has ever run against a JB pupett has won. This isn't an action from someone who respects the election process or is paying respect to the members. This isn't someone who lets the stakeholders choose their representation.

To me, it was also a sign of great disrespect for JB to campaign against the amendment to the constitution, which I think would have passed if he supported it. What was it, 58% or so, would have got to 75% with his support. He put his desire to be able to hock off another 7 game co-location package without approval above the safety of the club and has left us vulnerable to someone in the future of moving all 11 games and just keeping the administration in Melbourne. It may not be what JB or Carl would do, but it will likely get progressively harder to pass a 75% constitutional change in the future with more Tasmanian representation. Then he will be the looney like Aylett is now talking about how we should have gone to Tassie if we somehow avert disaster.

Does membership mean more than just access to games? Do you feel JB represents the will of the members or is he doing what he wants to do?



Are you saying that to make yourself feel better or me feel worse about my decision? I don't really care what you or anyone else thinks about me.

Outside of a few years I have explained why, I have been a member since the 80s, I switched to TruRoo when it became available and also contributed to debt reduction. However, it has increasingly become apparent to me over the years that I am nothing other than a season ticket holder and I am funding a future Tasmanian football team. The club doesn't need my money, the club doesn't want my money, they are after the easy Tasmanian money irrespective of the opportunity cost. Loyalty is a two way street.



The environment today is vastly different to the one where Fitzroy was killed off. What did Fitzroy have, 5k members and no home base and turning over 10m? We would be a superpower if was 1996. Most clubs have massive more debt than they did in 96. The debt free clubs are usually the poor clubs, that is because nobody wants to lend money to entities which just service negative debt acquired by losing money, income generating debt is wealth creating debt, both for financial institutions and for investors.



Waaa, where is your substantiation? :stern look

Our debt is guaranteed by the AFL, against future distributions. It was offered to all clubs after the AFL had to guarantee Carlton, Richmond, Dogs and Melbourne to stop them from defaulting.

Pokies as the example you have raised previously, we took a loan to purchase these machines, they are these days financed via lease, if at any point in the future we no longer wanted them then you can end the lease and they can be reclaimed, there is just a much smaller early termination cost on ending a lease, this is far less brutal than acquiring a loan to buy them outright initially.

Our directors were asked to be guarantors previously because we were servicing negative debt made from losses and while we could service the debt didn't have any financial evidence that we could repay it and had nothing of value to use as guarantee. Given the lending restrictions placed on our financial institutions, you need brick and mortar to guarantee debt. Fitzroy was killed for debt it was servicing but could not repay.

It is exceptionally difficult to make money without borrowing money, there is risk associated with it, but we are being left behind by risk takers, you are never going to keep up with those that aggressively invest. You just might end up ahead of someone who botches their investments but will be a long way behind everyone else.



Again, this is bullshit. We don't have the leadership that has the balls to be aggressive. We chased Geelong's CEO, you think his business plan would be... do nothing but what the AFL tells us to do? The ONLY reason the AFL is circling again is because JB is gullible and is stuck mentally in 2007, AFL sees the opportunity to get Tasmania off their back politically and by retaining our broadcasting numbers by turning everyone remaining into TV watching audience supporting a team playing the bulk (and eventually all) of the home games in Tasmania. For them it would kill two birds with one stone.



Getting a bit more money is great, but there is an opportunity cost. If we are pulling 27,480 on average for the H&A at Docklands in a year we made the top 4 (which is below the break even mark) then that is not sustainable and has to be addressed. If we never address it then we will never be sustainable.

2 games into 3 isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back, it will however, start to cause the kind of damage that has been caused previously by selling more and more games.

Selling more games wont fix the problem here. Selling games against two Victorian clubs and playing four interstate teams in Melbourne not going to help either. Which other team that sells game has ever been forced to move a game vs a better drawing team? I don't recall anyone else dragging Collingwood, Carlton and Richmond games interstate.



Our position isn't untenable. Yep those crowds are shithouse, especially in a year we finished where we did, but they have been shit for some time. Have you seen any initiatives from the club to address it? Even Collingwood has been trying to get more people to their games and they have had the red carpet treatment for decades.

If the club is doing anything it is not visible and it is not effective. If the club has no ideas or no strategy then they need to look at bringing people into the club who have some workable ideas, it isn't up to the supporters to come up with solutions. If the board and shareholders of my investments needed ideas from me then I would want to vote them out as well.

I am not saying we have to attract people who don't support the club in the short-term, just the fundamental of getting paid up members to actually attend games they have paid for. There is something vastly wrong with our image if we fail to achieve that.

This is a critical area of running the club, if you blow at getting your members who have paid for access to games to actually attend games they have paid for then there are chronic issues. Putting guilt or pressure on people to show isn't the answer, people historically haven't responded well to that, ultimately the club has to make it a much better environment. Who knows what will work, club will have to actually try some initiatives.



I don't hate JB, I am thankful for him stepping up when he did but he hasn't really evolved from the 2007 JB, he has the same old ideas even if the climate has changed radically. We can't afford our leaders to be living in the past. He has dug himself into a North Korean type of leadership setup where he is all bar impossible to dislodge. There is nothing individually that is rage inducing, it is just an accumulation of things, those pebbles rolling down the hill have reached an avalanche proportion to me because I see where this is heading and I am powerless to do anything about it.

I just think he is gullible and the AFL is playing him for a fool, if I am right it is going to cost our club it's soul. I just find it extremely difficult to become emotionally attached if we are going to go through the same motions as 2007 all over again in 2016. I think just making us vulnerable to a similar kind of move after 2007 is a betrayal of the highest order, especially in light of all the moves for equality nobody should be under any threat of relocation.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, I just expect consistency.

AFL tried to knife us before, I expect them to do it again. Some of our board blindly followed the AFL, I expect some to do so again. Our 'host' went from rolling out the red carpet to placing bear traps under the carpet, I expect them to do so again. JB offered co-location before and he has not once since implied he wont do so again, and fought to ensure he has the power to do so without our approval... so I expect him to do so again.

You are hoping people don't do what they have previously done before and have blatantly shown intent to do so again. That is living in fantasy land. If a dog has bitten you on the arse before then the odds are very high he is going to bite you on the arse again if you give him the chance to.

If being a member means nothing then it is pointless being a member. People have illogical trust in the man that HAS OFFERED CO-LOCATION BEFORE. Wake up and smell the beans. JB and the AFL were unwittingly defeated by Kennett to slip this deal in behind our backs, if it wasn't for him we would be dead already. Yet he still has this ******* messiah complex.

Back when we didn't have a lot of options I could forgive him, not now, not in this climate. We need a leader who is in 2015 mode looking forward to 2030-2050. He is in 2007 looking backwards and morons who worship him are going to give him the tools to finish off what he has started. Like Aylett, who thought our only hope was GC, JB has just changed destination and has this fantasy dream is about Tasmania.

What is gobsmacking is that the moves are being made in plain sight this time around and people are oblivious to it, at least we had the excuse of being deceived in 2007. We don't have that excuse now, there are no secret backroom deals, shit is unfolding right in front of us.

^^^My face when starting and then realising the length of this post.

 

[Higgins2Waite]

Agree but also understand others POV's regarding this, but as we can only work with facts I'm comfortable enough.

When Petrie fired off his right foot outside of boot banana against * I wasn't thinking of our homes games in Tassie.

When LT went nuts in the first quarter against the Cats in the final I didn't give Tassie a thought. But did think of the anti LT's on these boards

I read recently around here how we've lost a big ticket home against Richmond by moving it to Tassie. Well people should remember the game may only be our home match because we offered to send it to Tassie.
The AFL could of just given us a game against the Dees for example.

In 2011 we made a massive 97K in total from our home matches at Etihad.

Tassie is helping us thrive and I haven't read a cash strapped article in a long while.

But I'll tell you what pisses me off, being shit, having shit people in important roles cause we've no money to pay for anyone better.

Not having staff to develop our young guys, not having recruiters because we can't afford them.

Missing out on Rory Sloan because a kok was in charge. But getting Hay , Goldstein, Green McConnell etc.

Three games is all I see us playing in Tassie over the next few years, I personally can't see that changing. Because there's no need for it.

Young kids outside of the usual way they find their club for life are more likely to jump on a prelim playing club than a broke basket case.

All in my most humble opinion

EFA

 

[King Corey]

Oh...ignored list. Yeah I've been ignored by Tas for a while now. Ever since I caught him selling out North within minutes of our loss to West Coast last season.

At least I'm not ignored by a member

Not a member? Well there you go.

You've just become Tas' unofficial cliff notes.