stadium deals- where's the saints?

[saintbrat]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/ ... 42,00.html
AFL to act on stadium deals for Victorian teams
Damian Barrett | April 10, 2008 12:00am

WEST Coast reaped almost $15 million from its stadium deal last year. North Melbourne received less than $6 million. Never before had a discrepancy in one facet of football club revenue been so great, and it has compelled the AFL to act, not just for North but all Victorian clubs.

On the day - March 13 - the 16 clubs unanimously supported the Gold Coast and western Sydney expansion plans, they also empowered the AFL with improving the stadium deals of Victorian clubs.

"At that meeting of the club presidents recently, what sort of got lost in the club's support of the 17th and 18th licences was that they all said, 'Please, while, you are doing that, look after and fix the stadium returns of the Victorian clubs'," AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said at a media briefing this week.

"They all said, 'So while you are growing the competition, can you please turn your mind to how you can address the stadium returns for Victorian clubs'?"

Officially, the Roos, playing at Telstra Dome, raised $9.3 million less than the Eagles, which effectively took full control of Subiaco on game days in 2007.

The difference is expected to be at least as great this year.

Based on the 2007 figures, West Coast's Subiaco co-tenant Fremantle has the next best stadium deal, followed by Sydney, Collingwood, Brisbane, Essendon and Adelaide.

Ten of the 16 clubs fell below the $8.25 million average, with the two Adelaide clubs among those 10.

"There is no doubt if you play at the MCG and Telstra Dome, you do not get the same returns as you do if you play outside Victoria," Demetriou said.

"We have done the figures. The question is: how do we work with the stadiums to try to generate or extract more, or cut the pie in better ways to try to get better revenues for the Victorian clubs?

"We have already commenced that with Ian Collins (Telstra Dome boss), and we will have that conversation with Stephen Gough (MCG)."

Of the clubs that use Telstra Dome as a home venue, only Essendon's contract allows it to negotiate directly with stadium management.

The other clubs, including North Melbourne, Carlton and the Western Bulldogs, need to go through the AFL to alter arrangements.

Telstra Dome boss Ian Collins said the mooted changes to the clubs' deals were "all hearsay to me".

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so saints don't exist???

[Enrico_Misso]

I think they said at the AGM that our deal with Dirty Deals Collins is being renegotiated this year.

[esaint66]

Bring back waverly is all i can say haha

[Mr Magic]

I think you'll find that the 3 Clubs mentioned are all receiving 'assistance' from teh AFL and as such may have signed a 'contract' ensuring the AFL has input in major funding issues like stadium deals?

[ace]

The Kangaroos, Doggies and Saints got bad deals but Collins looked after his Carlton. When he negotiated Carlton's deal he represented both Carlton and Telstra Dome and he knew exactly what deals other clubs had.

[saintlee]

If you look in the paper (not online version) there is a graph of all teams, we are sitting in the middle of the pack, we don't have a great deal, but not a bad one either....from memory we get a better deal that carlton....

[No1_Saint]

I vaguely remember that the AFL underwrote our home crowds to a certain figure...eg. 33,000 regardless of how many people we did attract. Any excess profit gained over that was then handed to the AFL.

It was an issue I think a couple of years ago as we were pulling in crowds much larger but not profiting from them because of the above deal. I am not sure when this arrangement finishes, does anyone remember this deal? I think it was done when the contract regarding Waverley expired and we were still financially unstable.

[spidoir]

when 10 of the 16 team are below the average (about $8m) and the leader is reaping in double that in a 'fair' competition i.e. salary cap, draft we dont have a good deal

[Solar]

I vaguely remember that the AFL underwrote our home crowds to a certain figure...eg. 33,000 regardless of how many people we did attract. Any excess profit gained over that was then handed to the AFL.

It was an issue I think a couple of years ago as we were pulling in crowds much larger but not profiting from them because of the above deal. I am not sure when this arrangement finishes, does anyone remember this deal? I think it was done when the contract regarding Waverley expired and we were still financially unstable.

I'm pretty sure we renegoiated this deal a couple of years ago after the underwriting deal was finished. From all accounts we will be doing a deal with collo at the end of this year.