Nov 07 2007
Gold Coast or Bust
There’s a reason why AFL commissioner Andrew Demetriou isn’t being as bold with his plans for world domination as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Demetriou’s league can’t even conquer all of Australia.
You can see that in the chaos now surrounding the North Melbourne Kangaroos, who have basically been ordered by Demetriou to move to the Gold Coast by 2010 or else. The Kangaroos are one of ten AFL clubs based in Victoria, and Demetriou clearly believes that market is saturated and wants to tap a new one.
This is an awfully ham-handed way to go about it, though, isn’t it? Yes, I get that the AFL is propping up the club and probably thinks that gives the league the right to determine its fate, but the club still has supporters at Arden St., and they don’t want to see their club get pushed out to Carrara so quickly. Why are those footy fans suddenly getting the shaft?
Because, according to Patrick Smith of The Australian, other forms of football are encroaching on the AFL’s territory.
The acceleration has been caused by several factors. Not the least is that the leadership at the Kangaroos has been stagnant and unimaginative. Tucked away at decrepit Arden Street in Melbourne, the club has gone backwards while everything else about the competition has churned on.
Sit that beside the hold the rugby league side Gold Coast Titans has taken and then sit both of those beside soccer’s aggressive plan to prepare the nation for the possibility of staging the World Cup in 2018 and you see why the AFL has hit the accelerator.
Yes, the AFL wants to remind all the natives on the Gold Coast that Aussie Rules is this nation’s football game, not soccer or rugby league. It’s already losing the hearts and minds of casual fans, thanks to all the speculation of players using drugs, and it cannot afford to be seen as a game that’s only popular in its Victorian stronghold and a few other major cities. The AFL has to spread across all of Australia before fans decide their native football game isn’t their favorite anymore — which would really suck, consider how well it’s done for the last century and a half.
There’s been talk that the ‘Roos won’t survive if they stay in North Melbourne. That may be true, but the AFL could do better than to order a club to move so publicly. Shouldn’t the club itself have to want to move first?
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Good summary Dave, but I don’t know about using the term “quickly”. I think you’ll find that although the AFL have made their intentions very clear in the past 6 months, it is no secret that the Kangaroos have been “homeless” and relying on the league’s support for many years now.
They have tried various experiments to gain supporters in new markets outside of their home, playing some home games each year since 1999 in areas where there aren’t any existing AFL clubs. Starting in Western Sydney before moving on to Canberra and more recently lured by dollars and the AFL to the rapidly growing Gold Coast in a region (South East Queensland) where footy has grown substantially in popularity (though arguably not enough to support a team in the increasingly competitive national competition).
Regardless of how you measure success, none of these ventures were particularly successful. In terms of crowds, the “Canberra Kangaroos” venture was probably the most successful, but ultimately Australia’s capital city, split between 4 football codes, didn’t have the population or corporate dollars to keep the Kangaroos. There are many who ask the same questions about the long-term viability of any Gold Coast AFL team - a relocated “Gold Coast Kangaroos” otherwise. There are just as many who seriously question the Roos ability to survive without leeching more money from Gold Coast supporters and their AFL drip feed. In many ways, it really is a Catch 22 situation for the club.
Unfortunately the AFL has a conflict of interest in this issue, which is patently obvious. The Gold Coast represents a massive television market, which is a big bargaining chip in television rights, a massive money spinner for the league. A Gold Coast team would mean that there would be a local rivalry with the nearby Brisbane Lions, which would keep Queenslanders interested when one of the clubs is not performing well. But what the AFL wants is not necessarily what all football supporters want and it is understandable for Roos supporters to feel like they are being bullied and their response is defiance.
The AFL’s only playing cards against the Roos are on one hand massive monetary and draft enticements and the other hand the threat of pulling assistance and expanding the competition admitting a new licence (something the league has not done since 1995). Most people know that a new licence is at best going to seriously struggle without major assistance, causing a player and finance drain that many AFL clubs may not support. The Kangaroos on the other hand have the advantage of an existing history and supporter base, albeit a small one. So the Kangaroos feel like the AFL are simply calling their bluff.
To make matters worse for the AFL, the Gold Coast supporters there have been sold on the possibility of owning the Kangaroos - now the club is saying that they neither want or need them and their money. So it is not just the Kangaroos supporters getting shafted, but the Gold Coast supporters. If they do eventually go there, they may well be perceived as a desperate second hand Victorian reject that never wanted to represent the Gold Coast in the first place. This is unfortunately not a good combination for any regional sporting team, and most Queenslanders take a particular disliking to all things Victorian. A clean move rather than protracted toe dipping would have been the right result for all parties involved.
In whatever case, the Roos have never been a popular club and many fans have separated themselves emotionally due to their inevitable fate.
It would be very sad to lose the only club in a national sporting competition with Australia’s national symbol, and one of the oldest football clubs in the world (having formed in 1869), but unfortunately their indecisiveness and stubborness may be their own undoing.
Sean: It sounds like you’re suggesting that the Kangaroos’ management is responsible for the club’s potential demise. Are they really that reluctant to move? Have they spent too many years collecting AFL welfare checks?
Absolutely Dave. The management is a rabble. They brought about their own undoing through a public share float in the 1980s to try to raise cash.
This puts them in a very vulnerable position in terms of AFL clubs, and severely dilutes their leadership and decision making. What makes it worse than other clubs is that for years their members have been denied the right to vote for their board, so until very recently the club has rarely been seen to represent the best interests of its supporters. One example of this is when the club removed the words North Melbourne from their brand in an attempt to extend their supporter base, which alienated traditional supporters.
In recent years the AFL has been busy buying shares to try to keep them afloat and steer the club in their direction. In addition, the club gets arguably the largest Competitive Balance Fund distribution payments from the AFL (this is money distributed to struggling clubs). The Kangaroos board has been doing exactly what you say, relying on AFL welfare whilst struggling just to fix the leaking roof on their ageing suburban facilities. They lack any sort of vision for their long term survival, and are prone to destructive infighting among board members.
For anyone interested, there is a pro-North Melbourne website with lots of background worth checking out.
http://northernkangaroos.com/backgroundnorthmelbourne.html
The site is obviously biased, and somewhat anti-AFL (talk about biting off the hand that feeds you!), but raises some pretty good points against the whole Gold Coast venture.