docklands - 2003 article from Butterss about club $$

[saint08]

Butterss admits: We haven't delivered
February 25 2003




It's put-up or shut-up time at St Kilda, and Saints president Rod Butterss pulls no punches in his appraisal of the club to Stephen Rielly.


When Rod Butterss succeeded Andrew Plympton as president of St Kilda in August 2000, he inherited a debt-free football club that, although in the last days of an ill-fated partnership with coach Tim Watson, had been a finalist two years earlier.

This, at least, was the popular view of Butterss' inheritance.

The president, who was reappointed by the St Kilda board last week for a further three years, has a different interpretation of affairs. It is one he believes partly explains why, under his guidance, the club has won only nine matches in two seasons and is now burdened by $2.5 million of debt.

Much of the blame for the decline he has overseen is his own, Butterss agrees, and he will not question the Plympton legacy.

"How would I assess our performance? I would give ourselves a five out of 10," Butterss said. "On a range of fronts, I underestimated the complexities and demands of football. We've made mistakes."

Not least the decision to appoint Malcolm Blight as Watson's successor on a contract worth $1 million a season, an error that was manifest within months. Blight was sacked 15 rounds into the 2001 season and the new administration appeared stunned - firstly into a state of paralysis and, later, introspective caution.

"We were so passionate and enthusiastic about introducing change and seeing things happen that we enticed Malcolm out of retirement a year or two before he was ready and we both got burnt," Butterss concedes. "I don't look back on it often, but when I do, I think that we both erred."

As Butterss sees things, his inexperience, and that of his board in 2000, served to undermine the tremendous energy and the flow of ideas introduced to the boardroom at the time, which amounted to a belief that radical change was required.

"It took some time to understand that unlike in the traditional small business world, where changes of fortune and direction can be made in a matter of months through a range of initiatives, football doesn't allow quick turnarounds," he said.

"You live with your decisions in this game for a very long time."

It is the way of all leaders to impose themselves, but Butterss and Brian Waldron, the chief executive he appointed in 2001, were almost zealous in their determination to make fundamental changes.

Their view was shaped, overwhelmingly, by one fact - the undeniable failure of the club to regularly contend. St Kilda's rock'n'roll habits of self-destruction and excess were to be tempered rather than disowned, for to scythe them completely would be to dishonour much of the club's unique appeal, but failure and a chronic shortage of funds were no longer acceptable.

"The new regime came to power and we took the view that the St Kilda formula of the past was, in essence, flawed. One premiership in 130-odd years was a testament to the fact that it was simply not working and had rarely ever worked," Butterss said.

"Notwithstanding the many grand contributions from people such as Andrew Plympton or Robert Harvey or Nathan Burke or any number of others, the model in place at St Kilda was not delivering even the opportunity of a premiership every 10 years.

"So the only option, as we saw, it was to strip the club back to its very basics and rebuild. Now stripping anything back that far can threaten its very existence but we felt there was no alternative."

The club has not quite been imperilled over the past two seasons as others - namely the Western Bulldogs and Kangaroos - have, but nor has there been much gain for a lot of pain.

"The truth is we haven't yet delivered a damn thing," Butterss concedes.

The story of his presidency thus far is not, however, entirely one of naivety, well-intentioned haste and on-the-job learning. The decision to relocate from Waverley Park to Telstra Dome - one Butterss says was impossible not to make, given the inflated financial estimates provided to clubs by the AFL when it was spruiking the venue - coupled with two dreadful seasons while coach Grant Thomas rebuilds the list have amounted to an "unfortunate combination".

This year, the club should, at "the very least", break even, says Butterss. If, by the end of his new term, the club is not financially stable and deriving funds from non-football related activities, supported by at least 25,000 members and entrenched in the top eight, Butterss says he ought to step down.

He thinks the fans would demand that, anyhow.

"The average fan really does know his football and while I'm heartened by the support we seem to be receiving and the widespread sense of optimism about our direction, I know some still have misgivings and others are holding their judgement and those people won't do that forever," he said. "Nor should they keep the faith if we don't start to offer them reasons to believe."

[evertonfc]

What do you make of that, saint08?

Particuarly the part you've highlighted...

[stinger]

...read this........might give you an idea of how we were and are being screwed.........afl are f****** crooks....


...League fails clubs on stadium agreements

Caroline Wilson | May 10, 2009

IT IS more than six years ago since the AFL gathered senior journalists to a media briefing in a bid to put some positive spin on the stadium which seems to have now become its mortal enemy.

The AFL bosses, including then heir apparent Andrew Demetriou and the game's financial boss Ian Anderson, poured scorn on home clubs at the then named Telstra Dome — specifically St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs —- for complaining about poor match-day returns from the stadium. Wayne Jackson, Demetriou, Anderson and co made a mockery of St Kilda president Rod Butterss' complaint that a 30,000 crowd at the Docklands earned his club a meaningless five-figure sum of money and that such a deal would send his club broke. Not true said the AFL, which proceeded to produce a working paper on the issue claiming St Kilda actually made roughly $300,000 from a 30,000 crowd, insisting the club take into account membership, signage, corporate money and reserved seat sales from such a game. The figures produced by the AFL fooled some people and rightly enraged Butterss, who publicly wondered why the AFL didn't throw in sponsorship and gaming money as well.

Butterss and his board then realised there was no point taking on the competition's governing body because the AFL would only publicly belittle you in return and potentially punish you as well. Bulldogs president David Smorgon said nothing, but he, too, was aghast at such a tactic, choosing to fight his battle in private.

How ironic that the AFL is now the champion of these clubs, even going so far in recent days as to hit out at the high cost of food at Etihad Stadium — something it has been happy to let the punters suffer for decades. And how ridiculous for the league to give credence to a suggestion that Bulldogs fans might have to travel to Geelong next season to watch its home games rather than at Etihad simply because the AFL did a terrible deal for its clubs and is unwilling to compensate as much as it probably should for the shortfall now being suffered by a frightening amount of clubs given that Etihad has thrown away any pretence of fair play and refuses to even renew what were not particularly good deals for clubs like St Kilda in the first place.

The AFL should be severely embarrassed by the manner in which it has let down its clubs. It has attempted to blame the poor deal it extracted for the MCG tenant clubs on the fact that the agreement was reached in 1992 and the league could not have estimated then just how impressive its attendances would become. But it had a far better idea by the start of this decade when the stadium decided to rebuild the ground's northern side and needed AFL assistance to build it. Despite 18 months of fragile, costly and occasionally heated negotiations which ended in 2002 with the Melbourne Cricket Club and the MCG Trust, the league failed to extract a better deal for tenant clubs.

Almost 2.8 million fans — all of whom are taxed as part of the new agreement each time they enter the ground — watched football at the MCG last season. This was almost 600,000 more than the required minimum and yet the AFL put nothing in the agreement which could see it compensated financially for the larger crowds. Now it is trying to break the contract and is blaming the State Government for not taking charge.

The AFL is a wealthy organisation. It boasts the richest television deal in Australian sport and has demonstrated it would be prepared to sacrifice tradition for more TV dollars next time. If the competition is prepared to play ball with the networks in designing a fixture even more favourable to the more popular successful clubs, most parties agree that magic $1 billion figure over five years is eminently reachable.

The AFL also boasts close to $100 million in the bank, which it is saving for a rainy day. Not to mention Etihad Stadium and its real estate value come 2025. In fact, the AFL has so much money, it knows it can afford to boldly move into western Sydney despite the risk and high cost involved.

Better to spend millions developing the game despite potential failure than ploughing more money into the bank accounts of its players, who already live their lives on a pedestal above the vast majority of their fans. In 2009, footballers will earn more than $130 million between them and that's not counting the extra $9 million the best known stars will share in marketing money from their clubs.

The equation is all wrong. The AFL is rich, the players are rich and close to half the clubs are dangerously poor. For Wayne Jackson, the former league boss to attack the administrations of some of those clubs as long-term failures was outdated and cruel when you consider what an organisation like the Western Bulldogs has achieved.

Jackson should be embarrassed, too, having overseen the dreadful Docklands deal he spent so many years defending. It was Jackson who was still in charge — just — when those ridiculous figures were rolled out in an attempt to belittle the Bulldogs and St Kilda back in 2003 and which were faithfully reported by some sections of the media. Demetriou was there that day, too, and he also owes Butterss and Smorgon an apology. The AFL seems confident it will achieve some resolution with the MCG, but a new deal with Etihad Stadium seems out of the question in 2009 at least.

Demetriou knows he will have to dig into his own coffers to fix this, at least for the 2009 season. Only Collingwood and Essendon are immune at Etihad — the AFL also oversaw the Carlton deal the Blues are trying to get out of.

That club has even asked the MCG to buy it out of the stadium that its former president put it into for a short-term pay-off.

At least seven clubs, if you include Port Adelaide, rightly deserve special assistance because of their dreadful stadium agreements and all the PR in the world from the clubs cannot disguise the fact the AFL has failed them.

And now the AFL is openly at war with its second most popular venue. What a mess.

Caroline Wilson can be heard on 3AW football.

[saint08]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

[stinger]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

yep....and have a look at the draw so far this year.......6 interstate teams.......and of our two games aginst vic teams......one a poor drawing twilight game...with wtfk's on a monday night game......f**** our membership drive though.....

[saint08]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

yep....and have a look at the draw so far this year.......6 interstate teams.......and of our two games aginst vic teams......one a poor drawing twilight game...with wtfk's on a monday night game......f**** our membership drive though.....

the sunday games are notr big drawing games eitherf . just as well we are doing well on field.

[plugger66]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

yep....and have a look at the draw so far this year.......6 interstate teams.......and of our two games aginst vic teams......one a poor drawing twilight game...with wtfk's on a monday night game......f**** our membership drive though.....

I suggest people look at the last few years before they have a go at this years draw.

[evertonfc]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

True, but the question now is this: what are we actively doing to bring about a solution?

I heard Greg Westway speaking on SEN the other day and he wasn't happy with the free-to-air deal in 2009. Fair enough, and I agree. But what are we doing about it?

Are we lobbying TV execs? Are we working with newspapers to ensure our high profile? Are we using market-leading publicity experts (preferably ones who don't lie on their CVs) to maximise our brand?

We know we're getting a raw deal. It's my belief that we can change that - if we want too.

Heck, we've missed the finals once since 2003 finished. Are we captalising properly or not?

[saint66au]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

yep....and have a look at the draw so far this year.......6 interstate teams.......and of our two games aginst vic teams......one a poor drawing twilight game...with wtfk's on a monday night game......f**** our membership drive though.....

I suggest people look at the last few years before they have a go at this years draw.

The Club has said from the get go that our 09 draw is great from a footy "who we play" perspective but awful from a corporate/membership perspective...and theyve been proven spot on so far.

[plugger66]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

yep....and have a look at the draw so far this year.......6 interstate teams.......and of our two games aginst vic teams......one a poor drawing twilight game...with wtfk's on a monday night game......f**** our membership drive though.....

I suggest people look at the last few years before they have a go at this years draw.

The Club has said from the get go that our 09 draw is great from a footy "who we play" perspective but awful from a corporate/membership perspective...and theyve been proven spot on so far.

Yes but the last 2-3 years has been great and unless you are the pies it all evens itself up in the end.

[stinger]

Just seems like there is a history of us not getting a fair shake from the afl

yep....and have a look at the draw so far this year.......6 interstate teams.......and of our two games aginst vic teams......one a poor drawing twilight game...with wtfk's on a monday night game......f**** our membership drive though.....

I suggest people look at the last few years before they have a go at this years draw.

The Club has said from the get go that our 09 draw is great from a footy "who we play" perspective but awful from a corporate/membership perspective...and theyve been proven spot on so far.

correct mate.....that's what i have been saying..........lousy draw for trying to increase your membership numbers......

[Legendary]

I guess the payoff is that if you finish top 2 and make the Grand Final, your membership is going to be taken care of for the following season ... particularly if you can turn it into a flag.

[saint66au]

unless you are the pies it all evens itself up in the end.

Try telling a North, Bulldogs, Melbourne or even Richmond fan that and they'll laugh in your face...and pretty much rightfully so

You cannot put the word "even" in a sentence when discussing the AFL draw...there are a gazillion reasons why not..and far too many of them have to do with the perception of Collingwoods crowd-pulling power being the saviour of the AFL universe

[plugger66]

unless you are the pies it all evens itself up in the end.

Try telling a North, Bulldogs, Melbourne or even Richmond fan that and they'll laugh in your face...and pretty much rightfully so

You cannot put the word "even" in a sentence when discussing the AFL draw...there are a gazillion reasons why not..and far too many of them have to do with the perception of Collingwoods crowd-pulling power being the saviour of the AFL universe

Yep and untill those sides make it worthwhile to play major games it is bad luck to them otherwise every club would be stuffed. However for a middle of a road club like ourselves it evens itself up in the end. By the way dont worry about the Tigers they get a good run. Just out of interest how would you run the draw so the AFL make enough money on TV rights to keep all clubs alive?

[linz]

I don't give a stuff about finances as much anymore so long as we have a war chest to allow us to survive for another couple of years.

Our best form of defence is attack by winning a flag this year or next. Our members & sponsors will then remain on board. If we keep winning on-field everything else will fall in place. Butterrs, Balanced Budget B/-hit is OK for survival but it's not what football clubs profit on.

The powerfull clubs win premierships.

That should be our aspiration.

[Legendary]

Once the two new teams are introduced, I would play a 17-match home and away season (everyone plays each other once).

However, I would expand the 8 to a system of a final "10" and restructure and lengthen the finals series.

This would satisfy the TV broadcasters, as well as even up the draw during the home and away season. Furthermore, it would give clubs a greater chance of playing finals and enjoying some success.

[stinger]

unless you are the pies it all evens itself up in the end.

Try telling a North, Bulldogs, Melbourne or even Richmond fan that and they'll laugh in your face...and pretty much rightfully so

You cannot put the word "even" in a sentence when discussing the AFL draw...there are a gazillion reasons why not..and far too many of them have to do with the perception of Collingwoods crowd-pulling power being the saviour of the AFL universe

i remember going to a mcg match against the pies when was it.....91????..the game where sheldon pulled young craig devonport over the fence...well nearly.......we won by a point without plugger....


......the game was a sellout....... 91, 000 there...........we could always pull big crowds......but never really given the chance by the afl.......

[saintsRrising]

I mean all this Sunday Twilight games we have this year would bea real dettant in articular to Members with kids joing up this year.

If you had to cross off all those game (school next day)...then many who are tight for $$$ would question the value of buyinga 2009 Membership Ticket.

[No1_Saint]

unless you are the pies it all evens itself up in the end.

Try telling a North, Bulldogs, Melbourne or even Richmond fan that and they'll laugh in your face...and pretty much rightfully so

You cannot put the word "even" in a sentence when discussing the AFL draw...there are a gazillion reasons why not..and far too many of them have to do with the perception of Collingwoods crowd-pulling power being the saviour of the AFL universe

i remember going to a mcg match against the pies when was it.....91????..the game where sheldon pulled young craig devonport over the fence...well nearly.......we won by a point without plugger....


......the game was a sellout....... 91, 000 there...........we could always pull big crowds......but never really given the chance by the afl.......

Don't forget the successful Easter Monday games against Richmond that were ditched from some unknown reason. We got 70,000 at Waverley against them in the late 90's.

Give us that against them at the G and another annual blockbuster against Geelong and that would help out cause.

[ace]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all get a salary in excess of 1.5 million for being as incompetent at our jobs as Andrew Demetriou.

[ace]

[quote="stinger"][quote="saint66au"][quote] unless you are the pies it all evens itself up in the end.[/quote]

Try telling a North, Bulldogs, Melbourne or even Richmond fan that and they'll laugh in your face...and pretty much rightfully so

You cannot put the word "even" in a sentence when discussing the AFL draw...there are a gazillion reasons why not..and far too many of them have to do with the perception of Collingwoods crowd-pulling power being the saviour of the AFL universe [/quote]



i remember going to a mcg match against the pies when was it.....91????..the game where sheldon pulled young craig devonport over the fence...well nearly.......we won by a point without plugger....


......the game was a sellout....... 91, 000 there...........we could always pull big crowds......but never really given the chance by the afl.......[/quote]

It is hard to pull big crowds at Jihad Stadium.
The ground has an official capacity of 53,355.
But even in a large crowd there are heaps of empty seats in the Medallion Club, Access One Premium and AFL Members areas.

There are supporters who turn up to all matches but the people who make for big crowds only attend some matches.
These people are doomed to sit up the back of level #
They would get a better view of the moon than the game if the roof were left open

[plugger66]

Wouldn't it be nice if we could all get a salary in excess of 1.5 million for being as incompetent at our jobs as Andrew Demetriou.

Always wonder who people want to to do this hob. Who do you want and whilst we are at it what has AD done that has distroyed this great game that is my opininon is an even better game that it was 10 years ago.