Sea Eagles won’t make any money from 10 NRL games at Brookvale

[bob dylan]

Breaks my heart to think Penn is losing money.

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Q. How do you set up the Penn family in a small business?

A. Put them in charge of the Manly-Warringah club and wait.

 

[Little Grubber Kick]

I don't know why anyone is getting pissy about this - they ran the same story about why the Dogs playing at Belmore doesn't work just the other week. They pack Belmore and break even. It's the same for all clubs playing at suburban grounds. The numbers just don't add up.

This isn't really about moving to Gosford as much as it is just painting the picture that a ground like Brookvale with it's current arrangement is uneconomical for a full slate of home games. And further to that - where do you even make up the money? Maybe here - screen hire, entertainment, production ($20,000). That is ****ing ridiculous for what they provide. Someone somewhere is skimming the fat big time. Partly the council - but who else?

There is a point with this where the owner says enough is enough as far as losing money goes. And we as fans cannot expect them to just continually piss money away for eternity just to play at Brookvale. If you do then you are a bigger idiot than the fat **** Zorba. Something needs to give if you want the club on the whole to survive in the long term. Gosford only works for the ground - there is no corporate money up there. It's a wasteland. Homebush probably carries the same positive metrics in terms of money but you lose atmosphere and become a bit of a non entity fan wise.

The reality is probably something like 8 games at Brookvale (on a re-negotiated fee), 2 at Gosford, 1 bush and one major stadium game utilising Easter show or long weekend double header crowds.

Absolutely!!! Straight away part of the $10 million can be spent on a permanent screen etc (to the chagrin of those doing the big time skimming), easy start IF THERE IS A WILL......

 

[sheridanstand78]

It's a shame that the club can't just buy the place from the council and 're developed it.

I would prefer that the club stays at Brookvale and we play 1 Gosford game and 1 Easter time game at Homebush.

I worry about the club's long term sustainability. The club have 5 years to decide or the decision might be taken out of our hands.

 

[Darren]

No Fluffy you are right, I can't get to games anymore. Been travelling to Brookie since 15, Leaving the Gong at 9am, train to Wynard, bus or ferry over and walk to ground, return trip 6 hours every home and away game for a long time. Aged 46 now with kids and weekend committments so sadly fallen away. If they were near us I'd be there nearly every game with my girls. I was there squeezed in with the 80's game against Parra with 27k (amazing stuff)

I worry that the league would be happy to see us dissolve. We are in an area that is rich, wealthy and non footy minded. We need to make sure our financial side is right otherwise I will end up seeing a Steelers disaster again.

 

[manlyfan76]

A couple of things
Titans pay 200k per home game to half fill their stadium.
A lot of teams take home games on the road for more cash.
The council ( wherever you live) are fcck wits

 

[Snake]

See my post a little bit up...
They KNEW that this was the situation BEFORE they bought Quantum out. How is this suddenly a surprise for the Penns?

I didn't say it was a surprise, I just said that it's very different when it's your money being chewed up. If we are fair dinkum with ourselves, we don't really know anything about their true intentions nor do we have the same level of insight into the clubs current financial position, so we can speculate but it's not fact.

 

[robbiea]

When the article actually says:

“From a benchmark point of view, the hiring fee is significantly higher than any other suburban ground,” Manly chief executive Joe Kelly said.

“We are certainly very keen to remain at the club’s spiritual home for the majority of our games. But we have to secure a better commercial deal than we currently have with council.”

Then no, I don't know why people are getting pissy at the club.

This is clearly a go to gain some leverage and get a better deal with the idiots at the council...

Nothing is so clear for me these days,I see too many cloaks & mirrors from mgmt.

 

[Wombat64]

Alright guys - lets just show how much bullsh1t is here in very simple maths.

125K per game and we only break even.

Corporate boxes start at 2K per game we have quite a few but lets limit it to 20, that is another 40K per game

right now we are behind 85K per game.

lets say we have an average of just 2000 walk up tickets per game, costing only $20 each

That is 40K

right now we are losing 45K per game.

The cheapest membership is $400 for a family of 4 which gets you 10 games or $10 per game. This is the cheapest way of entering the ground. So lest assume the other 8,000 in our average crowd of only 10,000 are coming through on the cheapest way possible of $10 per game (although in reality it has to be higher given reserved seats are up to $75 per game). So we have 80K from membership.

so already we are making 45K per game using super conservative figures.

Hence this is bullsh1t

You are missing the huge amount the club has to pay to feed Zorba on game day ..... Not only does the guy cause heaps of **** but he is eating all the profits too .... that fat bastard

 

[Peter C]

Now I know why they might want to move.

Brookie - fee per game $125,000
Gosford - fee per game $0

Warringah Council is gouging the club.

I don't think the council is gouging the club, it costs the council over one million dollars a year to maintain the ground to NRL standard.
What manly pays just maintains the status quo, as the council would still have to maintain the ground if Manly was not there, but perhaps not to the standard required for NRL games.

 

[The Who]

The Who, half of our crowds come from outside the Northern Beaches, even our poll here showed 20% local on this website. We can't even get most locals in the gate, can't see how we can mobilise them to protest? This is Wollongong (Steelers) all over again, most locals don't care less, hence our low crowds. Souths tonight will make the crowd near 50/50. If its true we make 25k tops from the top drawing team, then this scenario can't last much longer.

Funnily enough, in AFL, fans of Melbourne based clubs said they would die, Carlton, Hawthorn, Carlton, Collingwood leaving their traditional old grounds but most of them are loaded with more money than ever. To think Albury with 6500 was our most profitable game shows how bad Brookvale is in terms of revenue. Channel Nine is our saviour, not the supporters!!!

Well Darren I may be in the minority, living out of the area, but within weeks I'm moving to the Northern Beaches!
The only thing no-residents can't do is vote in Council elections. It doesn't mean they can't voice their protest, as we saw when South Sydney were kicked out of the comp.

 

[jbb/james]

Pretty sure the last deal with the council was 30 k a game.pretty steep increase if that was right.
Manly is a club and not just a footy team and all areas need to be successful long term to ensure a viable team in years/ decades to come. Regardless of the motive behind the release of this info the current arrangement with brookvale is destined to be untenable in the future as clubs need to justify there existence on and off the field with expansion.

This club has been a financial carcass since super league and needs to turn its finances around. We are currently only viable due to weatlhy Manly supporters and our on field success has distracted us from our position.

The penns would not be ensuring the clubs future by merely continuing with the status quo. Regardless of the sentiment regarding brookie , its highly unlikely that the required cash will ever be injected for it to be considered as a suitable venue moving forward.

It would be a shame to lose brookie as the spiritual home , but given the ownership structure of the ground, the capital required, and the governments view we have to accept that at some point manly will have to move or perish.

I know how unhappy people are when tickets increase in price, or memberships go up. Surely we must accept that we either move or pay a massive premium to stay. That is the world we live in

 

[ManlyArmy]

Dave Perry got us back in to the positives, but the Penn sacked him

 

[Blue pill]

what would happen to the leagues club if no brookie , take it on the road with a caravan bar and food truck

 

[Loobs]

Dave Perry got us back in to the positives, but the Penn sacked him

lol - what once during the decade of dominance and 2 GF wins. Bravo Perry!

 

[Shoe1]

Where do people think the money comes from that makes it sweet for teams to play out of ANZ? It's the state government that's where. The Olympic precinct is heavily subsidized by the gov to stop it being a colossal white elephant. The Authority makes a loss by paying tenants to play there, effectively. Not a level playing field.

 

[Darren]

The Who, it worked for Souffs as they have full on passionate fans which we saw. It would never happen for us. People would be annoyed if 400 Manly fans blocked the Spit Bridge.

 

[Shoe1]

The Who, it worked for Souffs as they have full on passionate fans which we saw. It would never happen for us. People would be annoyed if 400 Manly fans blocked the Spit Bridge.

I marched that day in my manly jersey in support of the arl. As did many many norths, wests, balmain etc fans. This often gets ignored by souths these days, but it was a fairly multi-partisan (is that a word?) event. Lots of souths people shook my hand and thanked me for being there in solidarity. It was as much anti-super league as it was pro-souths.

 

[Loobs]

The Who, it worked for Souffs as they have full on passionate fans which we saw. It would never happen for us. People would be annoyed if 400 Manly fans blocked the Spit Bridge.

Just don't do it tomorrow. Taking the kids to the zoo in the morning...

 

[StuBoot]

It's a simplistic look at the figures.
TV effectively dictates when you play so your crowds are controlled by that.
Until clubs can go to the NRL and say we need to play our home game on these days it's always going to be a problem, but the bean counters at the NRL only look at TV $$, then use an article like this to push their large stadium agenda.
Look at the Tigers for example - last Friday night at Leichhardt v the Storm get 7,500 but would get another at least 3,000 if played at 2.00pm on a Sunday whether they are going like busteds or not.
Depends on who you play and on what day as to how much the gate is....