SA vs SCG

[Mark]

The most important factor is that Telstra/Aus stadium costs the club a small fortune every time and every year we play there.

Yet again this year, despite a succesfull season, this ludicrous AFL inspired adventure will reap a large loss.

Make a profit at SCG, or lose money at stade Aus

ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEST

[blinddog]

Here is my two cents why I don't like SA. 1st, it sells Tooheys beer and for crap beer they charge more for it. 2nd, they shut down the drinking venues at the stadium halfway thru the 4th quarter. 3rd the trip home, I don't mind getting there but I can't just wander and sample the ales thru Surry Hills, Newtown and finally to St Peters. 5th No boards to easily bang on from a high advantage. As far as the cold goes, bring a hip flask, I do.

Also for getting there I find it a hell of a lot better catching the train to Concord west, grabbing a beer or two at the Concord hotel (read the review here - Concord West Hotel ) and then a quite walk through the park (which you will need to take a roadie with you - approx 15min to 20 min walk)

As I stated these reasons are not around the game as I do believe the ground is far superior. Oh my biggest bug bear with SA is that you cannot take prams in hence why my family does not join me at SA games, someone remind me why do I have a family membership?

[Bart]

Originally posted by Mark
The most important factor is that Telstra/Aus stadium costs the club a small fortune every time and every year we play there.

Yet again this year, despite a succesfull season, this ludicrous AFL inspired adventure will reap a large loss.

Make a profit at SCG, or lose money at stade Aus

ABSOLUTELY NO CONTEST

Mark you are mixing up the cost of staging a game and the cost of the pre match entertainment last year.

Pre-match apparaantly cost the club in the region of $1m last year contributing a major part of the loss.

This has been scaled back this year to bare bones.

I believe the club is on a veriable cost structure that links hiring costs to the size of the crowd.

Still the money spent last year was not money down the drain. Like any good marketing campaign you need to invest heavily upfront to win in the long term.

[Mark]

This is an absolute falsehood, the club have openly admitted that the costs of hiring and ground staffing were the major contributor to the close to $900,000 loss on the Stad Aus adventure last year.

In an effort to reduce some of these costs (only staffing)the club pre judge the crowd and only request staffing for a limited number of outlets(hence few outlets and crappy service at Carlton game). As well as cancelling prematch ent.

Therefore, the only savings are minor staffing adjustments and no pre game entertainment. The games still need to be marketed (slightly less freebies as well).

The major costs is ground rental and to offset this the estimate is average crowd between 50-55, 000. merely to break even !!!!!

It is a pipe dream to average this sort of crowd for all games at the stadium (as has been proven yet again in a successful season).

STAD AUS MEANS WE LOSE MONEY SIMPLE AS THAT

[Bear]

Originally posted by Mark
This is an absolute falsehood, the club have openly admitted that the costs of hiring and ground staffing were the major contributor to the close to $900,000 loss on the Stad Aus adventure last year.

In an effort to reduce some of these costs (only staffing)the club pre judge the crowd and only request staffing for a limited number of outlets(hence few outlets and crappy service at Carlton game). As well as cancelling prematch ent.

Therefore, the only savings are minor staffing adjustments and no pre game entertainment. The games still need to be marketed (slightly less freebies as well).

The major costs is ground rental and to offset this the estimate is average crowd between 50-55, 000. merely to break even !!!!!

It is a pipe dream to average this sort of crowd for all games at the stadium (as has been proven yet again in a successful season).

STAD AUS MEANS WE LOSE MONEY SIMPLE AS THAT

Garbage - watch the news next week to hear how many hundreds of thousands this game will earn the club. To play this game at SCG would be sheer stupidity. Are you interested in the development of the club and code or purely your own self interest?

[Bart]

Originally posted by Mark
This is an absolute falsehood, the club have openly admitted that the costs of hiring and ground staffing were the major contributor to the close to $900,000 loss on the Stad Aus adventure last year.

In an effort to reduce some of these costs (only staffing)the club pre judge the crowd and only request staffing for a limited number of outlets(hence few outlets and crappy service at Carlton game). As well as cancelling prematch ent.

Therefore, the only savings are minor staffing adjustments and no pre game entertainment. The games still need to be marketed (slightly less freebies as well).

The major costs is ground rental and to offset this the estimate is average crowd between 50-55, 000. merely to break even !!!!!

It is a pipe dream to average this sort of crowd for all games at the stadium (as has been proven yet again in a successful season).

STAD AUS MEANS WE LOSE MONEY SIMPLE AS THAT

Jeez Mark, you must be privy to some serious inside information.

Where and when has it been written that 50-55000 is the breakeven and which club source has admitted this ? Have you noticed that the club closes off ceratin sections of the stadium for smaller crowds i.e. the entire upper deck on the Stadium members side.

You would have noticed from media reports that the fixture in future years could reap the club $1m.

[sharp9]

It was in the paper today (or was it yesterday) with reference to the huge cost of renting the ground....you would think they would have abit of bargaining power, though. I thought that the govt and SA were worried about the fact that so few people wanted a stadium that big....it's not like it used three times a weekend and they can pick and choose their tenants!

[chewyonyourboot]

I too have heard the 55000 figure for breaking even using SA. I can't tell you where, but I heard that figure ages ago..

Personally I intensely dislike SA. I haven't had one good experience there and I think I've only missed one game ....It's just been lousy..The food and drink is too expensive, yes, there are new people in the crowd, but most of them were horrible, and there is no atmosphere.. And I get home really late...In contrast to the SCG where I would be happy to go alone, ( being female and small) I wouldn't go alone to Homebush..too imtimidating...
I hate it!

I'm going on Saturday Night, because i want to boo Eddie..

I do support the growth of the game, and I can see why the swans want to bring it to the west of Sydney. However, I don't really like how they seem to be taking it away from the supporter base in the East and North...I come from the inner west BTW...


Anyway, that's just my opinion and I hope everybody including me has a great night on Saturday...

Actually our experiences at SA have been so bad that we were considering giving up our memberships because they didn't seem cost effective with so many SA games...I wish the club would offer memberships with no SA option..

[Mark]

To answer the questions (or were they accusations hard to tell !)

50-55k break even figure was widely reported when deal for Stad Aus was originally brokered by the AFL. shortly thereafter North and the Dogs pulled out. The club has never denied this figure and in fact confirmed it along with the $900,000 loss on the venture last year.

As for the "You would have noticed from media reports that the fixture in future years could reap the club $1m"

We lost $900,000 last year will still lose on the overall package despite the mamoth crowd on Sat night. One game with a large crowd is not enough !!!!

Undoubtedly sat night was a huge success for the club and if it could be repeated on a regular basis would be great news. You may also have noticed a great deal more money was spent on media advertising ! Sadly it wont happen for all the games out there and will end up as a yoke around our necks for years to come, especially in poor years (form wise)

If you choose to believe in fairy stories like "You would have noticed from media reports that the fixture in future years could reap the club $1m" good for you