David Koch speaks at a press conference with chief executive Keith Thomas in the background. Source: News Limited
FOOTBALL clubs' annual meetings are rarely engrossing shows … until now, particularly at the Adelaide and Port Adelaide football clubs.
Power president David Koch put on his act last week — with much of the sting in explaining how Port Adelaide's $2.5 million loss could have been softened by a better return at Adelaide Oval dulled by the leak to The Advertiser of the new stadium deal. This will deliver $3 million more to the Power and Crows next year and $4 million in each of 2016 and 2017 before another review.
Crows chairman Rob Chapman has his moment on Wednesday when the Adelaide Football Club will formally announce the two directors (Brownlow Medallist Mark Ricciuto and, most probably Rod Jameson) elected to the board room for the first time by the club's members. This will place three former players in the board room (with Andrew Payze).
Chapman, like Koch, will use all his experience in banking with financial charts to explain how in a year of record membership and attendances the Adelaide Football Club did not report a significant profit. His chart detailing how the Crows start each season handing over $3 million in payments to external authorities will leave much of the membership speechless.
In contrast to past annual meetings — with the most memorable being at Alberton where a lady drilled the Port Adelaide board on the timetable for the Footy Express buses to Football Park — this year's sessions are very much about money. Big money — and where to find more and more of it.
The Adelaide Football Club always has been a corporate darling, as emphasised by the Crows holding its major sponsorship with the Toyota Motor Corporation since the club's AFL journey began late in 1990.
The Port Adelaide Football Club tried to sell itself to Corporate Australia after the 2007 AFL grand final appearance, but has not made a profit since that success — and paid dearly for putting the corporate world ahead of its members and traditional supporters. Koch took charge at Alberton in October 2012 when the club was on a financial death row and had its commercial staff struggling to leave their business cards at the security gates of corporate headquarters in Sydney and Melbourne.
Koch declared he wanted to make Port Adelaide a "national brand". His era has delivered international sponsors, French carmaker Renault, the world's largest dairy conglomerate Parmalat and in the next week the Power is primed to announce another significant corporate deal.
The question is: Has Port Adelaide learned from the disaster of its last courting of the corporate world when it started to take its traditional fans for granted?
And the far-ranging question is: Will the AFL, with its ferocious appetite for money, ultimately price itself out of the traditional fans' wallet?
Colleague Graham Cornes notes, with a fair assessment of the Power's financial model, that Port Adelaide does not generate enough from its fans at Adelaide Oval. They have the AFL's cheapest tickets, generating — in the term Chapman made famous last season — a low "yield". What the Power does not take from its fans' hard-earned pay packets, it has to find from the corporate world.
And while fans hand over their cash with emotional spending, corporate board rooms are far more circumspect in how they doll out shareholder money.
Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas — whose bond with the most-basic fan at Alberton is now rock solid — makes no apology for "underselling" the Power's tickets. After all, the club — after betraying all Port Adelaide stood for after the 2007 success, both on and off the field — had to win back the fans.
Now that the Power appears on the verge of challenging for a premiership again, Thomas remains reluctant to put a premium on ticket prices. And, as Thomas has reflected with his monthly bulletins to the members, he is not going to ignore the fans while drawing more and more money from board rooms around the world.
Koch makes no apology for sanctioning decisions that had the Power spend more money than it earned last year. He calls it an "investment" in the football team and the club. He will invest more again this year, but expects the pay-offs to be much more significant to the club's financial statements. He has put more than his reputation on the line that Port Adelaide will report a profit at its next annual meeting in 12 months.
As much as it is about money — big money — in an AFL system that chews through more than a billion dollars each year, AFL club annual meetings do give the guys in their Armani suits a timely reminder of the little folk.
The lady who made a fuss about the bus timetables was not at Alberton last week, but another did challenge Koch on the cost of food and drink at Adelaide Oval. He could only shrug his shoulders and pass the buck to the Stadium Management Authority. Pity he did not remind the lady this was new AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan's opening promise to the fans.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"I'm putting my proverbials on the line saying Port Adelaide will make a profit (in 2015)"
Power president DAVID KOCH makes a bold statement
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