St Kilda: the blueprint

[SaintWodonga]

Reading this sounds like doom & gloom, IMO I think it's not going to be as bad as people say. Thoughts?

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/s ... 1kf9c.html

[plugger66]

My thought is how the hell did this board lose 1.5 million in a year. It is disgraceful.

[bigcarl]

My thought is how the hell did this board lose 1.5 million in a year. It is disgraceful.

Might have to bring back Butterss for the austerity and GT to coach. To pull the club out of the shyte again.

[Dr Spaceman]

My thought is how the hell did this board lose 1.5 million in a year. It is disgraceful.

PM Barks - he's got a few ideas

[derby Street]

I am guessing but due to a number of reasons I reckon our revenue will be down in some key areas on what was budgeted for this year. Unfortunately we probably didn't wind back our spending until it was too late or we were committed to that spending.

Jeff

[hungry for a premiership]

The reason we're losing money is because we are paying off etihad stadium for the AFL.

Faharking disgrace.

[jays]

true

[tweedaletomanning]

Someone or some people are Defintely not doing their job properly.

Wouldn't mind an independant Audit of some sort, cos a 1.5mill loss in one year is an extraordinarily bad result after playing in 3 grannies in a row.

Whatever is going on at the club at the moment, it aint producing acceptable results on OR off the field.

Can we even Afford a decent coach?

[SainterK]

The argument is flawed.

The board must of been torn about it's position moving forward, surely?

Nearly winning premierships, sustained success, and not capitalising (profit, sponsors) is one of the criticisms.

Dour defensive football that people switch off and/or don't even bother turning up to see is another criticism continually levelled at the club.

It's becoming pretty obvious to me that the two issues are very much related?

[GoTheTorp]

My thought is how the hell did this board lose 1.5 million in a year. It is disgraceful.

Part of it is paying out one ex bomber or was that bummer

[BigMart]

They make no mistakes though.....because they know all the facts

[Leo.J]

We just moved surely that costs money?

[realdeal]

We just moved surely that costs money?

You would've thought so, maybe actually building it cost a little bit of cash as it doesn't grow naturally.

There's the reason.

So what is going to happen in regards to the unfair ground costs associated with playing at Etihad? We're not going to the MCG so can the current deal going to be changed, or will it just be further 20 years of bleeding cash?

[The Fireman]

Lindsy Fox

[PaytonPlace]

From a media/public vantage point, the Saints have had something of a siege mentality, the team having forged an us-and-them mindset - perhaps a coping mechanism - known as ''the bubble''. Access to players has been extremely limited, with the key players feeling burned by the off-season schoolgirl shenanigans and the other off-field traumas. Lyon was accessible and forthright, but the load was not shared.

Absolute deluded drivel. What difference does having a good relationship with the press make to anything? The richest sporting club in the entire world - Manchester United - have a manager who tells any pressman he likes where to go and has banned the BBC from talking to him for about 7 years! It hardly makes a dent in their finances...

Having ground the game into a daily, repetitive docu-soap of mis-informed facts and lowest common denominator opinion that has actually driven sponsors from the game, not to mention adopting as their "credible source" a deluded teenage - well I won't say the word I was thinking of - and quoting her every word as factual and accurate, to turn around and say "we help gain you sponsors if you talk to us" I find incredible.

And by the way - Nicky Dal is a regular on the Footy Show, Goddard was on the SFS today, Leigh Montagna is a big part of Channel 7s coverage, Roo is a regular on that Hamish whatever his name is show, Milney sat down for a Footy Show interview, Ross Lyon had Robbo in the box for an article, we made the Challenge, after the nude photos Roo did a press conference...that's a lot of access, but of course that's not what newspapers want. You want gossip clarified, "how do you feel when"...

In truth, the secret is we don't need them. Old media is dying out. They need us. Any "burst the bubble" reference is for them, not us. A Nick Riewoldt interview helps them, not us. I hope clubs realise this. Clubs can keep as much as they want in house. They can put interviews on their website (which their utopian Collingwood did when Alan Didak returned to football), there's Twitter, there's Facebook, there's commercial work behind the scenes players and officials can do to get sponsors. No one ever got a sponsor from a Mike Sheahan interview. And when was the last time you learned something from a football article in a newspaper article anyway? Something tactical, maybe even something interesting? Something that wasn't re-heated gossip or an obvious statement of fact?

And how many expansive, interesting people get shot down in flames by the Herald Sun and Age anyway for having the cheek to say something interesting? Exactly.

Our club has many issues to face, many many issues, but a good relationship with the press is not a pressing concern. An expansive winning brand of football gets you noticed, not how many times you can provide quote of the week.

[Teflon]

From a media/public vantage point, the Saints have had something of a siege mentality, the team having forged an us-and-them mindset - perhaps a coping mechanism - known as ''the bubble''. Access to players has been extremely limited, with the key players feeling burned by the off-season schoolgirl shenanigans and the other off-field traumas. Lyon was accessible and forthright, but the load was not shared.

Absolute deluded drivel. What difference does having a good relationship with the press make to anything? The richest sporting club in the entire world - Manchester United - have a manager who tells any pressman he likes where to go and has banned the BBC from talking to him for about 7 years! It hardly makes a dent in their finances...

Having ground the game into a daily, repetitive docu-soap of mis-informed facts and lowest common denominator opinion that has actually driven sponsors from the game, not to mention adopting as their "credible source" a deluded teenage...well I won't say the word I was thinking of and quoting her every word as factual and accurate, to turn around and say "we help gain you sponsors if you talk to us" I find incredible.

And by the way - Nicky Dal is a regular on the Footy Show, Goddard was on the SFS today, Leigh Montagna is a big part of Channel 7s coverage, Roo is a regular on that Hamish whatever his name is show, Milney sat down for a Footy Show interview, Ross Lyon had Robbo in the box for an article, we made the Challenge, after the nude photos Roo did a press conference...that's a lot of access, but of course that's not what you want. You want gossip clarified, "how do you feel when"...

In truth, the secret is we don't need them. Old media is dying out. They need us. Any "burst the bubble" reference is for them, not us. A Nick Riewoldt interview helps them, not us. I hope clubs realise this. Clubs can keep as much as they want in house. They can put interviews on their website (which their utopian Collingwood did when Alan Didak returned to football), there's Twitter, there's Facebook, there's commercial work behind the scenes players and officials can do to get sponsors. No one ever got a sponsor from a Mike Sheahan interview. And when was the last time you learned something from a football article in a newspaper article anyway? Something tactical, maybe even something interesting? Something that wasn't re-heated gossip or an obvious statement of fact?

And how many expansive, interesting people get shot down in flames by the Herald Sun and Age anyway for having the cheek to say something interesting? Exactly.

Our club has many issues to face, many many issues, but a good relationship with the press is not a pressing concern. An expansive winning brand of football gets you noticed, not how many times you can provide quote of the week.

Great post, my only concern lies in the fact that the mum/dad readers of the Hun turn out to be our members and we need members.

I too have utter contempt for the football media but reality is they shape perceptions right or wrong........and good perceptions translate to better member/sponsor relationships.

We wont win them all - we havent, Mike jumps on/off us quicker than a bikie in a hookers shop, but we must do what we can.

[plugger66]

The reason we're losing money is because we are paying off etihad stadium for the AFL.

Faharking disgrace.

Is this the first year that happened. Nearly 2m profit last year and 1.5m loss this year. Hope it is due to the move otherwise pathetic.

[PaytonPlace]

Great post, my only concern lies in the fact that the mum/dad readers of the Hun turn out to be our members and we need members.

I too have utter contempt for the football media but reality is they shape perceptions right or wrong........and good perceptions translate to better member/sponsor relationships.

We wont win them all - we havent, Mike jumps on/off us quicker than a bikie in a hookers shop, but we must do what we can.

I don't necessarily disagree, but to play devils advocate for a moment, how do clubs actually go about building these good perceptions? A good relationship with the press? It doesn't translate. We had Mark Robinson in the box for a NAB Cup game and it got us nowhere. A nice article and then its gone the next day. Bad press takes up its own momentum, and facts are completely irrelevant. An entire summer of lies and mis-information and we've lost sponsors and face. They've turned their football coverage into a race to the bottom: I don't think clubs benefit from a good relationship with the press at all. One minor incident and it's exaggerated and distorted so much that everything ends up ruined no matter how much you "lift the bubble"....

And by the way - most of this "bubble" talk is because we didn't open all areas up to the media in Grand Final week? Again, a reactive opinion. If we'd won, we'd have been professional and clincial. We lost, so we're tense and tight. If The Filth lose, they are big headed and got ahead of themselves for letting everyone in. I would have thought most of our players are regular media participants, but because they don't get involved in gossip it's a bubble? As far as I could see, Roo did a press conference after you know what, Heath Shaw did the same, and only one of us got praised for it...

And to strictly take newspapers on their own - this Ross Lyon story is a classic example of them overhyping their importance. The story broke on Twitter, carried on on Fox News and League Teams. Riewoldts opinion was given on Gameday, Goddards on the Footy Show. Starsky broke the news about the Craig Kelly angle (to the masses) on the Footy Showafter ESP put out its press release. Both St Kilda and Fremantle held press conferences to put their side out. The fan anger was on Facebook and Twitter. The "fourth estate" was left to profer up half baked opinion pieces from Walls and Sheahan as their take on the subject. They contributed nothing to the debate.

I would argue that if a club treats its sponsors and members well, and plays attractive football, they don't need the Herald Sun to generate sponsorship or membership. We benefit nothing from making our players available. The "we grow the game" line is nonsense. They contract the game with their coverage, cost teams sponsorship and are left to wonder why interesting opinion and co-operation is in short supply.

To play ultimate devils advocate: If St Kilda broke their co-operation fully with the Herald Sun, do you think we would suffer?