sell the pokies and invest in crypto
Iām telling you: turn The Hangar into some prime medium term parking for Melbourne Airport and with the profits buy the entire AFL.
We win all the premierships.
I note ārental incomeā derived was -$280K and assume this was the lost income after the Western United A League team fell over.
Thereās still no sign of any movement on ānon footballā business opportunities. This is an area the Club has failed dismally in and as a result the club canāt exit pokies or insulate itself from poor football performance and rebuild its financial strength.
In the next 5 years (?), the Club will need to invest heavily in improvements at The Hangar, it has only low levels of cash reserves and would need to take on debt most likely.
The performance of its āvenuesā is saving the club from multi million dollar losses annually atm.
We have also exited a $2.5M per annum sponsorship and I can almost be certain we donāt sign a replacement that puts in as much of that next year.
The commercial performance of the club really is mediocre too.
Well, itās saving us from receiving a greater distribution of funds from the AFL. That would be the first thing to occur.
Given clubs seem to want to avoid that, it must come with some strings attached, but I have no idea what they are.
theyāve been looking to diversify from pokies for over a decade and itās a more important form of revenue than ever. Perhaps we should be looking to build that out. AFL is synonomous with gambling.
Yeah, time the club diversifies and takes out shares in Sportsbet or some other betting agency ![]()
And given that the profitability of those venues relies on the fact that more than 2/3rds of pokies revenue comes from those experiencing gambling harm, may I propose a toast to all those suffering from addiction.
They are the true champions, who enable our mighty football club to keep posting profits, without which we would surely be resigned to finishing in the bottom half of the ladder each season!
Time to put the drug dungeon to profitable use.
Partner with a bikie gang and get into the drug distribution business.
Given there are still no seats there it seems an accurate representation.
Itās an ok result given how cooked our season was.
Iām still shocked how much it costs to run an AFL club compared to every other sport in the country, the cost base of running an AFL club and the massive cost of all the staff at AFL HQ is way too much. With the revenue the game makes, the code should be absolutely dominating.
We all make choices and whilst on balance Iād much prefer we derive our income without needing pokies, Iām not one to tell people how to live their lives. These venues employ lots of people in their own right and in most cases are a positive influence on communities on balance..
If they do sell the pokies venue they should sell it to the fans.
Research shows that gaming venues are not a net postive on communities. Gaming machine density has linked to increased police call-outs for domestic violence incidents, for one.
On choices though, itās the club making the choice to have a business model which relies on the use of machines that are designed to keep people playing for longer. In practice that means the games which are less successful at keeping people playing get swapped out for ones that bring more money in. In other words, for the machines, itās survival of the most addictive.
From a business sense though, if thatās more your thing, player losses were pretty stagnant but venue profit this year was down 6.4%. Who knows if the government will ever bring in their regulations around mandatory carded play, or keep pushing it out, but thereās real risk of regulatory impact on venue revenue. Not to mention the compliance burden.
I donāt blame the current directors who, largely, werenāt there when the club made the call to renew their EGM leases for another 20 years while other AFL clubs walked away. But unless we see alternative revenue streams being implemented, then itās poor business regardless of if you care about the human impact or not.

