couple more too.
there are loads of melbourne clubs whose finances are shyte.
A football club (as opposed to a privately owned franchise), as a non-for-profit CLUB has the primary purpose of winning football games and premierships.
They will, and should within reason should spend every cent they can get their hands on trying to win games of football. Ideally this would leave all clubs with a very small profit.
In reality Clubs revenue rises and falls in line with form (due to memberships, ticket sales, merch, sponsorships with performance clauses etc). What this leads to is clubs may make profits for a few years then losses for a few years then profits again as form fluctuates. A few clubs making losses in any one year, despite the fact that the newspapers love to write stories about it, actually is no big deal (a majority of clubs making losses in one year would be a problem, but is not the situation).
The Melbourne Demons are currently in this downward trend. The $4.5 million debt number is about right, however $2m was raised at a dinner earlier this month to reduce this.
The further complexity for Clubs like Melbourne, North (my team) and the Bulldogs is that there will always be big clubs and small clubs. Unfortunately at times the smaller clubs push this financial balance a little too far trying to keep up with the spending on coaches, sports medicine etc that the big clubs can afford. This can become dangerous.
The inequality in fan support that delivers the financial inequality, built up over 100+ years of history, will always exist and it is in the AFLs best interest for it to remain so. The AFL will always keep raising the bar on costs as it allows them to pressure the clubs on the edge to do their bidding.
The AFL want games on the GC, wave a cheque at North (thankfully we resisted the relocation), games in Canberra or Darwin, well call the Bulldogs. Even a club like Hawthorn has secured its future by giving the AFL 4 games in Tassie. Maybe the AFL needs to fulfill a contract to supply games to the Telstra Dome, send North and the Bulldogs, and if this means they clubs get bad match day returns then give them a little extra as long as the AFL gets to decide how a club gets to spend it.
One, two or even more Melbourne clubs may end up gone in the future (or none hopefully), but that will ultimately be the AFLs decision as they control much of the games revenue. The game can afford to keep them if it chooses, no one is sure what choice will be made at the moment, the communication from Vlad changes every second year.
Clubs will make losses some years, and certain clubs will be on the breadline, its not really a huge deal, but the challenge for Melbourne clubs (non-Melbourne clus will always be supported by the AFL) is to stay out of the bottom two in the Victorian profitability ladder in the fear that one day the AFL will say goodbye. The positive thing for the AFL is that they have the choice.
