Because :shock: There seems to be an unfortunately high proportion of Saints fans who are anti-Melbourne post the GF. Wonder why that is...
No, I'm pretty sure most us already were extensively unhappy about the fact that a failing business gets handouts constantly LONG before this years GF.
meltiger, you sound like an intelligent bloke, which has me wondering why you are trying to justify what is unjustifiable, as another poster said, in a city of 4 million people they should be able to drum up some cash.
In spite of what the fund manager said in regards to my earlier post about pulling the plug on something that isn't making money, I still say that if something hasn't made a profit in a few years, it is probably not going to mate, 12 years of financial failure despite on field success, and still NO JUNIOR BASE, is not just deplorable, it is beyond the realms of possibility that there is a way back from here.
Let's just assume a figure of 7million (and it would probably be a figure close to that) a year for the last 12 years, that is $84 million.
Profit = $0
Loss= $84,000,000
TV rights, a few shirt sales here and there, I still fail to see how keeping this life support based club in business is having any long term benefits for the games finances, its all a bit similar to the old statement "we are going to make Laurie Daley a household name in America!" to me at this point in time, and many past points in time.
Don't get me wrong, I will be step back and say ween them off it slowly, if they can make the $$$ to stay in the comp and be competitive then so be it, if they can't and another private owner can prop them up so be it (NOT News Ltd or anything closely related) BUT there must come a point, within the next 5 or so years, when that magical investment amount of $100,000,000 will be touched on, where they MUST stand on their own two feet and justify their own existence with a steady income stream, an ability to balance their own books, a credible junior base of some description (it doesn't have to be QLD standard, but there must be something) and the ability to function without News Ltd's high handed intervention.
If they can, then so be it, if they can't afford to play in the big show, the door is just to the left.
There is a distinct difference between development (long or short term) and propping something up in spite of its failings.
As for the fund manager who had different ideas to me on what constitutes good business practices and investment and divestment points, the company I work for pulled a profit of about $1,100,000,000 out of NSW alone (that's 1.1 billion) a similar amount out of QLD and about another $15,000,000,000 from the operations in other countries, whilst at the same time divesting large chunks of a company they paid overs for a little while back, what was worth $38,000,000,000 is now only worth $16,000,000,000 (pre GFC purchase gone bad, paid too much) we ARE NOT propping it up till the cows come home, it was given a time frame to un-f**k itself, the time has passed, parts of that company have now been scattered to the four winds for sizeable chunks of money that have come pretty close to levelling the ledger.
LESSON: To move forward, in a positive manner, emotional attachment must be disgarded, a vision to what is the future must not let blur what is the current reality, if the current reality is not good enough after attempts to make it so, then it's inclusion in an asset group must be considered..............
