St George Illawarra Dragons - The most valuable club in the NRL

[Goddo]

Looking at the AFL ladder, it is pretty skewed towards the bigger clubs this year. It would be like having an NRL top 8 of:

South Sydney
St George Illawarra
Canterbury-Bankstown
Brisbane
Parramatta
Newcastle
Melbourne
Wests

With such a big advantage to the bigger clubs, I wonder how the sh!te AFL clubs compare - I bet the crapper ones are going backwards at a rate of knots.

 

[Cumberland Throw]

I believe this list is bullshit.

If Freemantle is bigger than the broncos I'll give up

And where's the Australian cricket team ??

 

[Sans Souci Sainter]

No way the Dorkers have anything on St. George or Broncos.

Throw the list in the bin.

 

[Packy]

Poor Illawarra. The forgotten club.

 

[_snafu_]

Who?

 

[Cumberland Throw]

Funny how collingwood count the revenues from gaming machines, but if bulldogs or penrith did this we would get bashed up

 

[Perth Red]

No way the Dorkers have anything on St. George or Broncos.

Throw the list in the bin.

In terms of memberships, avg attendance, income and profit then the Dockers would sit above any NRL club. Not sure what criteria the list actually uses though.

Not sure how up to date this is but has clubs ownership models identified:
http://www.insidesport.com.au/is/index?pg=features&spg=0706_Your-Team_13.htm#South-Sydney-Rabbitohs

 

[Perth Red]

Funny how collingwood count the revenues from gaming machines, but if bulldogs or penrith did this we would get bashed up

Agreed, they should count any grants they get from league club operations that directly fund the AFL club but beyond that it isn't relevant. they probably run as totally seperate companies.

 

[docbrown]

I believe this list is bullshit.

If Freemantle is bigger than the broncos I'll give up

And where's the Australian cricket team ??

I recall the Repucom list listed NRL teams at 1, 3 & 5 either last year or the year before. He admits takes he takes their numbers and "adjusts" them...

 

[flamin]

I recall the Repucom list listed NRL teams at 1, 3 & 5 either last year or the year before. He admits takes he takes their numbers and "adjusts" them...

I think that was the TV ratings list for clubs docbrown.

 

[docbrown]

I think that was the TV ratings list for clubs docbrown.

That's the one.

It was 2009 and Broncos were 1, Eels 2 and Collingwood 3rd.

To me the obvious logic is to take the cumulative television audience for games shown for that team per season as a percentage of the overall audience. Now whether or not you choose to include regionals in that depends on whether or not you want to ignore those areas entirely. Obviously teams like the Knights or Cowboys are disadvantaged by that if you did.

Then I would take that % audience share - and not times it by the broadcast deal - but actually times it be the advertising revenue generated. Because that's the real worth of the material in broadcast terms - not the deal made but the money the game attracts to the broadcasters.

Then add that to the other media advertising revenues, sponsorships, hospitality, merchandising and revenue from seat sales (either memberships or at games).

 

[brokendigit]

Unfortuntely, Repucom's figures aren't 100% accurate, because they assess Syd & Melb as the same size advertising market. As we all know, Ad revenue in Sydney is, in fact, significantly higher than Melb, simply because of population.

In terms of pure $, the top 4 Sydney clubs would rank ahead of the top AFL club. Brisbane will always be top 5 because they have complete market dominance of Australia's 3rd largest revenue market.

 

[docbrown]

Unfortuntely, Repucom's figures aren't 100% accurate, because they assess Syd & Melb as the same size advertising market. As we all know, Ad revenue in Sydney is, in fact, significantly higher than Melb, simply because of population.

In terms of pure $, the top 4 Sydney clubs would rank ahead of the top AFL club. Brisbane will always be top 5 because they have complete market dominance of Australia's 3rd largest revenue market.

Well I don't know what the rankings would be but the NRL attracts alot of advertising dollars. That's the team's real value - what they generate. Imagine if teams signed direct deals with broadcasters.

If you base your results on some poor deal made 5 years ago of course it's going to be low.

The fact remains though that we need to address memberships.

 

[Perth Red]

How do you explain the lack of direct sponsorship $'s to clubs? Surely main shirt sponsors, for example, should be worth a lot more for NRL teams than AFL teams but they aren't. Likewise main sponsor of the code, Toyota pay al ot more for AFL than Telstra do for NRL.

 

[minichiello]

Only valuable cause of synergy. I wonder how they'd value if they were split

 

[docbrown]

How do you explain the lack of direct sponsorship $'s to clubs? Surely main shirt sponsors, for example, should be worth a lot more for NRL teams than AFL teams but they aren't. Likewise main sponsor of the code, Toyota pay al ot more for AFL than Telstra do for NRL.

There is reality and there is perception. These two things aren't necessarily the same.

At the moment the NRL suffers from a narrow perception - that it has a smaller audience, that's it's lower socioeconomically, that it's male dominated etc. They haven't worked hard enough to dispel those myths. On the otherhand the AFL are brilliant at generating myths and creating brand awareness.

The fact is our audience base, our age demographics, our audience economic and gender base are all on par or exceeds the AFL's. Except - that's not the story that's rammed down our throats constantly.

Change perception and you get the $'s. That's why Ian Elliott will be such an important commissioner because it's in his blood.

 

[Cumberland Throw]

If someone like Fremantle get a crowd of 35k with 34k members in the ground

Wouldn't that be an actual gate receipt of 1000 x $20. $20k

When broncos get 40k with 10k members in the stadium

Isn't this 30k x $20. = $600000 gate per game

Has this been counted

 

[magpie_man]

Season tickets > gate receipts in terms of exposure for sponsors.

 

[Perth Red]

If someone like Fremantle get a crowd of 35k with 34k members in the ground

Wouldn't that be an actual gate receipt of 1000 x $20. $20k

When broncos get 40k with 10k members in the stadium

Isn't this 30k x $20. = $600000 gate per game

Has this been counted

Fremantles income is around $40mill a year, Broncos is rumoured to be $22mill.

 

[docbrown]

Season tickets > gate receipts in terms of exposure for sponsors.

Perhaps. I guess there's the safety factor of knowing you have a sizeable audience.

But it's a bullshit excuse to ignore the last 5-7 years of crowds and say "there's no guarantee Broncos will pull 30k+ this year".

By the same token you could say - Lions will generate X amount of attendances based on previous memberships - and get it totally wrong when they lose 1/3rd of their membership base in a year. It's still no guarantee.

I do admit though that we must grow our memberships. Tier A clubs should be aiming for 25k. Tier B 20k and Tier C & D 15k.