This will be up to the 'new board' that Pratt is lining up

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For some silly reason, you people want to assassinate him, and it's just rubbish. You people. All of you, ALL of you!

you have to spend money to make money

at the moment we dont have money to spend to make money

the only way to increase revenue is to make things like membership more appealing etc..

really, in all honesty, i think you guys need to get a grip on what the club can actually do with regards revenue.

its not good buying merchandise - the afl gets that, the only money the club gets is if you buy them directly from the club.

its all about memberships

increase the value of memberships and suddenly those that dont renue will be more enticed to do so.

at the moment, what we get offered as members is crap.

however, to do all that you need money that the club doesnt have due to our debts.

we have no debts, suddenly we can invest money to try and create extra forms of revenue.

our alternative strip changing every couple of years is but one idea

increasing the benefits of membership is another

a more positive vibe for potentional sponsors, a more positive vibe from the players ... it all increases coming from the knowledge that the doom and gloom coming from servicing our debt is no longer there.

you have to spend money to make money and you cant make money if you have no money to spend

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

We have to work with what we will get.
they enjoy our pain. As a club, it is times like these that you got get even.
I reckon Sticks showed that with a bit of spirit mountains can be overcome.

Self belief goes a long way!

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Revenge is a dish best served cold

&

I AM PROUD SPONSOR OF THE CAROLINE WILSON HATE CLUB

great idea, but you need money to improve the facilities, you need money to promote the thing, you need money to do anything.

at the moment, just about every cent the clubs goes into surviving.

there is no money to do such things.

we dont have the debt, which this proposal should see us in, we suddenly have the money, we suddenly can do these things, and its all up from there.

but it comes back to the current plight - we can not seek new sources of avenue without spening money - money which we dont have due to us paying debts and also not recieving as much money as we used due to no longer playing at OO.

We aleviate those problems and we are well on our way to further forms of increasing revenue.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

Now Prez the board made the decision to not play games at Optus Oval which I agree with 100%. Surely the board in making this decision realised that the revenue stream from the social club would dry up. How can they possible use this as an excuse for the financial position were are in? They decided to move the games, they need to take responsibility.
Social club revenue is going to dry up, how are we going to generate a different revenue stream to compensate for the shortfall?

ahh, you see, this is where i disagree.

i think our board was incompontent with our move from OO and didnt consider the ramifications at all and got no where near what they should have at the time.

in large part that was due to the vast majority suggesting the old nutshell "we have no currency - we have nothing to bargain with" and all that other tripe that alot of people tried to convince me off, i never thought it then, and i dont think it now.

its all bullshit - we got shafted and shafted badly and anyone that suggests otherwise is mad.

we are now asking for a deal that we should have got when we moved and i wonder how different we would have been if we did get something like what we are asking back then.


for me the board was indeed incompontent and deserves as much blame as elliot does.

we got 2.5 million as a bonus from leaving OO

thats fantastic isnt it.

right - 1.8 in upkeep costs for the first year

right - 1.5 in loss social club revenue due to leaving OO

thats 3.3 million and us in the shit for 700k before we even start to look at it from a yearly point of view.

so for the first year we are 700k in the shit

but from every year we are also 3.3 million in the shit instantly, and that doesnt even include our debt that we are servicing.

and you think the board was compotent for the deal we got from the AFL for our move and consider everything? i say bullshit, they drastically over estimated things and are now paying the price for it. Elliot was buy part 1 of our problems, the current board is part 2.

im treading the danger line of the big "i told you so" and that is not my intention, but we got shafted and shafted hard at the time, was this to bring the club to its knees, no doubt IMO and was indeed payback for all the shit that Elliot had got up to over the year.

what we are asking for now, is what we should have asked for when we first left/dragged from OO.

now consider all that gone.

we have no debt, no upkeep for the ground and we consider the income from our social club, around the 250k a bonus.

so here we are 250k infront before we begin instead of 4 million in the shit.

now lets start looking at other things now that we have close to an extra 4 million in revunue to use. (upkeep as well as no debt) that we can use to invest in other sources of revenue.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

My gut feeling is we're gonna be more than ok (financially) one way or another very soon.

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There's so much I could say...

Look, it's going to come down to increasing revenue from a variety of areas. They include;

- Sponsorship - the value of these must be at a premium, particularly the high end sponsorship categories. Just because we have a full suite of sponsors on board, it doesn't necessarily translate into big dollars. Collingwood is the example here. We should not be undersold.

- Membership - the lifeblood of a club. This needs to be at minimum 30 to 35K. This will improve through on field performances, and the value proposition. The club should invest aggressively in this major revenue stream when money becomes available.

- Merchandise - All Carlton supporters should purchase these either online (via carltonfc.com.au) or at the 2 designated venues (MC Labour Park and Faraday St). Money stays will the club.

- Community - Do lots of work in this space. This costs nothing and the upside is more Carlton junior members, sponsor exposure, and brand awareness.

- Technology - Utilise your part of the marketing strategy into the online space. The internet and e-mail are powerful tools and we just don't do enough in this space to increase our revenue stores. Technology is there and costs very little to utilise to get to the masses both locally and internationally.

- Interstate & Internationally - been under utilised in my opinion. Many untapped markets. Ireland is an example of where we haven't capitalised from a marketing perspective. We should be creating affiliates with other sporting codes to spread the Carlton Brand. Whilst volume of revenue is not going to set the world on fire, it's putting a stake in the ground and saying 'We are Carlton'.

Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts

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For some silly reason, you people want to assassinate him, and it's just rubbish. You people. All of you, ALL of you!

I see it the opposite way Prez. I see it as a decision of foresight, one of courage and one that should have been made many years ago.

So basically, if somebody else pays out all of our debts for us, we can afford to start borrowing money again!!!!!..................Brilliant!!! maybe we need to get Jodee Rich and the old 'One Tel' board down to MC Labour Park for some 'strategising'.

We need to find a way to leverage off what we have. We need to forget trying to catch up to what others are doing. If indeed we do get a fresh canvas to work with we need to recreate ourselves. What would p1ss me off more than anything is if we get bailed out and then the board used the opportunity to pander to old 'traditionalists' etc rather than use the opportunity to cut off the baggage and get a jump on the competition.

What about doing something bold like investing in finding international support, signing alliances with overseas sporting teams. How do the big clubs overseas generate $$$ why dont we copy them? Be an innovator, do something new and get a jump on the Adelaides and Collingwoods of the league. Offer to use our resources to promote and support the Oceania interests of an overseas sporting club and have them do the same for us overseas. Offer to stock their gear in the Carlton Shop if they'll have our stuff in their club shops etc etc. If the Melbourne Market is saturated then look outside the market.

Finding somebody to pay off the violin for us wont help if we only use the opportunity to keep playing it whilst Rome burns around us!!

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"Who discovered we could get milk from cows, and what did he think he was doing at the time?" Billy Connolly

how hard is it to understand.

these are all very good sources of revenue.

BUT THE CLUB DOESNT HAVE THE MONEY TO PURSUE THESE OPTIONS DUE TO ITS DEBT (ELLIOTS FAULT) OR NOT GETTING OR ANTICIPATING THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF REVENUE AFTER OUR MOVE (THE CURRENT BOARD'S FAULT)

and im screaming as i get the impression you guys just want to blame elliot for everything we find ourselves in.



the current board has had 3 years to get it right and i reckon we are in worse shape now than we where 3 years after we booted Elliot - and IMO that is due to our move.

but please, continue to make excuses for the current board if you want, but understand, we are [REDACTED] until we get on a level playing field.

we can only get on a level playing field until the board does something about our plight (which the article is about)

for me

we are in the shit for two reasons.

1. elliot and the previous board for reasons i need not explain

and

2. Collins and the current board and our move from OO. We clearly didnt get anything near what we should have with respect to loss of revenue and the cost of maintenance etc.. and we are paying the price for that as well.

molsey, dont disagree with the move and i supported it, im saying now, like i did then, that we should have got far more out of it is all and the club certainly should have aquired better facilities for its members.

this latest proposal from the current board is 3 years two late IMO

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

There is no way the AFL will or should alter the PP laws that apply to all clubs, just because we want better players on our list.

Frankly I'm embarassed that it's even being mentioned at Rd 7 with 2 wins already to our name. Wonder what the players think???

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#DonTheStash

Prez I agree with you that given the on-going costs and revenues lost from our move away from Princes Park, the club failed to even remotely get an equitable return for the move. Not even after the 1st year of leaving the ground we were already out of pocket.

However, at the time some of the key platforms for the move were compelling and a lot of supporters focussed on those. One was lack of FTA coverage because we were playing at PP. More often than not we were overlooked for FTA because of the ground and our performances didn't help either.

But I think the biggest incentive was that the council especially, but state and AFL funding as well, threatened to withdraw all funding for the redevelopment of the ground if the club chose to continue playing games at PP.

We would've preserved some of our revenue streams but we would still incur upkeep of PP but also lose the opportunity to acquire significant funding to redevlop our archaic facilities at the ground. Since the move was ratified there have been some important pledges not kept or haven't eventuated.

- upkeep costs are still being incurred regardless
- progress on the redevelopment of the ground appears to have stagnated and there is still no confirmation on anything there
- FTA coverage hasn't changed much but that is probably more a result of our performances

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C'mon Blueboys!

If the AFL agree to these terms, then we lose our independence.
In regards to threatening with throwing in our licence, we would claim insolvency threaten to close down and the AFL would be faced with massive law suits from the TV companies. The contract in the TV rights deal requires 16 teams, so if a team folds, the AFL suffers the consequences.
The debt is due to the Legends Stand. Graham Samuel told Carlton to go ahead with the development as OO was going to become the third major ground. It was to feature more games, concerts etc. However, after Carlton had committed and the building was in progress, the AFL changed its mind and decided to go with Telsra Dome. The AFL washed its hands of the expense and refused to use it as a major ground, meaning that Carlton had been left with the massive debt.

This is what i'm talking about when i say the AFL got us into this mess.

And i would rather threaten them with insolvency so that we get the money and maintain our independence.
It would be a lot cheaper to please Carlton than to take on the TV corporations.

[/quote]

No where does it say that Carlton has to be one of those 16 teams. We could threaten them with it and they could turn around and give that licence to a second Sydney team theoretically.

I thought some of you thought we dont need priority picks.
We had our chance.... Deledio ... Franklin...

We preferred to go for the "winning culture" ten wins and the 70% .

Were not going to be given a PP... and even if we were.. wed try our hardest to win 5 games... for the memberships... etc...

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Out of interest does nayone know the running costs of Windy Hill? Its still their training and admin base. Does it cost them $1.8 mil to maintain? Why are PP's running costs so high?

I don't think we'll get a PP this year with Essendon*, Port and the Roos easy targets, but we have nothing to lose by pushing the envelope and asking for an early priority pick. If we do win 3-4 games we would have rock bottom and they should cough up another early selection after they settled on a maximum of 16 points when they changed the rules.

But we'll gladly take a second round priority pick since 8-12 players are considered better than Murphy ATM and a second round pick will still get us a Kennedy or Thomas.

They don't.

Prez I think you will find that the Collins board when doing the sums on the move were anticipating larger revenue through crowds and the G and at the Dome - We had a few games there last year when two men and a dog turned up - The club would have taken a hit there quite dramatically. I think they looked at the finances of Essendon* and Collingwood and thought they were strong due to playing on the big grounds and pulling in the crowds . If we had a done this 4-5 years earlier it may have paid off but to do it when the club was at its lowest ebb was almost madness in hind sight . And by the state of the books it may have been better to stay at Optus until the on feild results improved .

Another peice of short sightness was the notion that we only got Saturday afternoon games at Optus this meant no Free to air in Melbourne thus limiting the chances to pull in sponsors . These Saturday afternoon games were being telecast to a much wider audience interstate in QLD and NSW and with a bit of thought this avenue could have been used to attract interstate sponsors or even partnerships.


By the way when are you going to get a bowling attack that can dismiss 4 tail enders in a day . Bloody pathetic effort that was

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

that was another one of my gripe.

the carrot was dangled infront of us for all the reaosn to move as you stated.

as i said then, give them as a 100% guarantee and you have yourself someone that was 100% behind the move.

it wasnt guaranteed and it hasnt come to fruition yet like i feared.

having said all that, that is old news, and we need to forget it.

and we can, if the AFL helps us out here.

we can finally start fresh and on a clean slate, it is only then that we are able to invest in new forms of revenue etc..

its got me stuffed how people would even wonder about a "hand out" me thinks, some people need to swallow some pride, take the chance for help, start fresh and look ahead to the future with our head above water for the first time in several years.

if we are still in the same problem in 3 years, after recieveing the help, then we are indeed a dead duck, but at the moment we can not compete against even the likes of the Bulldogs, Melbourne etc.. let alone Collingwood and Essendon* when we are several million behind before the season even starts.

the deal being offered, is not a hand out, its what we should have got when we first moved. IMO we didnt get it then, so that the AFL could finally gain control of the last club it didnt have control of.

That has happened. forget your independance, we dont have any, nor does any AFL club.

But we will get bigger, we will get better and we will advance, but at the moment we need for this to happen so that we can pursue excellence.

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod