North Melbourne

[GVGjr]

Apparently the deal:

3 years
North sell two games a year (6 games in total)
Get approximately $2M per year
Will stay in WA and ?host? back to back games
One in Perth, another in a regional centre
WCE & Freo set to stop complaining about travel with the extra home game each, each year


Seems pretty desperate and short sighted from North.

The AFL is breaking their own rules if the above is accurate and by the sounds of things it is.
The regional centre should be the only one that North should be allowed to play at.
The AFL should not regard Perth as an emerging market.

North are clearly concerned with their financial position. I heard earlier in the year that they were offering significant discounts to try and attract sponsors. I don't think they had a sponsor for their shorts.

North need that Hobart cash and must be in a dire position.

[comrade]

God what a shit show.

[The Underdog]

What a bush league.

Yeah, shut it down.

[Grantysghost]

If it's become so lop sided for teams like North to survive I'm wondering what's the point.
Selling wins for cash.

[GVGjr]

The North decision a few years back to rip into the playing list to then secure some early picks and bank on a decent bounce back has really backfired on them in a big way and they've never really recovered. Unless they can get their Melbourne based supporters on board with this they are going to continue to struggle. They need to show some progress and bank some wins to help attract supporters and sponsors.

[The Underdog]

The AFL should not let them. There's an integrity issue here.

I understand that clubs should be able to play 'THEIR' home games wherever they like. At the same time, if that location is the home venue (or home venue adjacent) to another club, it should not be allowed.

I should probably shut-up as I said not a single word when we played some games up in Cairns - clearly NOT part of the Bulldogs heartland - but North playing in Perth is just plain silly. If there was a suitable venue available, I could ALMOST understand them trying to play a game in regional WA (Bunbury) - but there just isn't (great country venues are not even the standard of state league grounds in most cases and in the case of Bunbury that is definitely the case) but to play in Perth in front of a crowd filled with opposition supporters? Should not be allowed to happen.

Ironically, the Fox Sports article mentions Bunbury specifically as a possible location for one of the games.

[comrade]

For those who shit on our arrangement with Ballarat and complain about playing games here, it?s a million times better than what North are being coerced into doing.

[Grantysghost]

For those who shit on our arrangement with Ballarat and complain about playing games here, it?s a million times better than what North are being coerced into doing.

Yes true comrade. It's the lot of the smaller clubs I really think there should be more collective bargaining with us, North, Saints, etc to put more pressure on the AFL.
It's terrible what North are being asked to do, a line has been crossed for mine.

[azabob]

Is Norths home ground docklands or MCG?

Either way the AFL hasn't fixed the cash takings disparity between the two venues.

[Grantysghost]

Is Norths home ground docklands or MCG?

Either way the AFL hasn't fixed the cash takings disparity between the two venues.

Yep and Essendon's godfather deal where they get a cut of everything from everyone isn't helping.

No wonder they don't want to leave.

If the game had any integrity the AFL would ensure that North gets enough from their home games to not have to sell actual wins for dollars.

Imagine if they have a decent season and miss the 8 by a game or two.

Unlikely but maybe in that three year bloke it's possible.

[Rocco Jones]

Yes true comrade. It's the lot of the smaller clubs I really think there should be more collective bargaining with us, North, Saints, etc to put more pressure on the AFL.
It's terrible what North are being asked to do, a line has been crossed for mine.

AFL have malevolent in their benevolence with their equalisation funding. Set up a system where fixturing is unequal but sell it via helping out the smaller clubs so their survival is guaranteed for long enough. AFL has equalisation funding, Northern NGAs and fixturing to really compromise clubs from putting pressure on them/complaining.

Dogs, North, Dees and Saints, as well as Swans, Giants, Suns and Lions (AFL largely on their side anyway) are very compromised by the AFL.

[Sedat]

AFL have malevolent in their benevolence with their equalisation funding. Set up a system where fixturing is unequal but sell it via helping out the smaller clubs so their survival is guaranteed for long enough. AFL has equalisation funding, Northern NGAs and fixturing to really compromise clubs from putting pressure on them/complaining.

Dogs, North, Dees and Saints, as well as Swans, Giants, Suns and Lions (AFL largely on their side anyway) are very compromised by the AFL.

100%. That's why I've dirtied up so much after losing the 2021 GF - if we had 2 flags in the bank I would likely have given up on the AFEL because meaningful success will always be stacked against us.

Give the plebs just enough crumbs to survive, and they wont dare criticise their masters.

[Rocco Jones]

100%. That's why I've dirtied up so much after losing the 2021 GF - if we had 2 flags in the bank I would likely have given up on the AFEL because meaningful success will always be stacked against us.

Give the plebs just enough crumbs to survive, and they wont dare criticise their masters.

That's it. A couple of other things.

The AFL have Damian Barrett and Kane Cornes on the payroll. They have a lot of control over the media narratives if they need it. The pair are okay with really sticking it to a struggling club. Says a lot about the AFL having those two on board.

They also have a very (purposefully) loose Integrity Unit. I am sure it can gain teeth and hurt clubs that don't play ball.

[The Underdog]

Is Norths home ground docklands or MCG?

Either way the AFL hasn't fixed the cash takings disparity between the two venues.

Not to mention that no team with Marvel as a home ground has finished top 4 at the end of a home and away season since 2010. But the surface is fine, I’m sure.

[GVGjr]

From Code Sports

As revealed by the Herald Sun, the Roos are set to sell two home games a year to West Australia to play back-to-back weeks at Optus Stadium and Bunbury as they ease their way out of their Tasmania deal.

The Roos have been painted into a corner but how did the AFL think this was the only solution in an era of equalisation, forcing Victoria’s worst side into a deal that looks an on-field disaster?

The Roos need the cash ($2 million a year) and the AFL would like to lessen the WA teams’ travel burden.

But surely the better option for the Roos was to spend the final three years trying to find neutral venues to replace that cash before Tasmania enters the league in 2028.

The only upside is this – it will replace some of the roughly $3.5 million the Roos receive to play four games in Tasmania with Spirit of Tasmania branding, in a contract that expires next year.

The Roos will continue to play seven home games in Melbourne and ideally will bring one or two of those games back to Victoria from 2026 onwards because of the financial scope of this deal.

Ideally selling a game to a Victorian regional venue – similar to the Western Bulldogs deal in Ballarat – would have worked but the state government was broke and didn’t have a dollar to spare to throw at the Roos.

And yet if it makes sense financially, selling a game to any other stadium other than the one where the ‘away’ team already plays 12 home games a year would have been preferable.

How does Clarkson pitch the move to Luke Davies-Uniacke, open to signing a free agency contract extension but suddenly spending an extra fortnight in Perth every season and with finals further than ever away?

Or George Wardlaw, who like his great buddy Harry Sheezel some chance to sign a mega-extension past 2026 but not prepared to do so until he sees signs the Roos are getting their act together?

Or the free agent they will try to sign next year, with even more cap space with Jaidyn Stephenson’s retirement and contracts to Aidan Corr and Callum Coleman-Jones also expire?

Clarkson has been kept up to date on the move and football boss Todd Viney has visited the Bunbury site, aware this move will allow the club to pay a full salary cap and soft cap in years to come.

But only months ago he made clear a side that hadn’t climbed out of the bottom two in the past five years needed to get a wriggle on.

The fans are pragmatic enough to know this club needs radical moves to survive.

But say what you want about the Roos playing well at Optus Stadium (they have won four of nine games there), it is preposterous to suggest they have a better chance of winning against Fremantle or West Coast in WA than playing in Melbourne, Tasmania or even a neutral venue.

St Kilda abandoned its Cairns home games last year after its 2022 season turned on its head after a loss to Port Adelaide in wet slippery conditions, with a previously 5-1 St Kilda outfit losing its way and missing finals.

The club’s year-end review recommended the club “sharpen our focus on football” and minimise distractions, which saw the club having “decided not to sell a home game in 2023”.

Richmond’s three games in Cairns were similarly disastrous, featuring a nine-point win over a bunch of Gold Coast babies, that infamous loss with Karmichael Hunt’s matchwinner and then another loss to the Suns the next year.

The Roos will play a Dockers side that should be stacked in those next three years, and a West Coast side it will simply have to beat if it wants to make a finals charge.


Go west: How North’s WA sell-off will impact 2025 fixture
The two sides have played their last seven games with the margin either way not more than 15 points.

And while the Roos have beaten the Eagles twice at Perth Stadium in that time … well everyone beat the Eagles at Perth Stadium and they should be vastly improved from here on in.

So while the Roos keep their financial bottom line out of the red, and the AFL gets a solution to the travel burden for WA clubs, this time it is Clarkson who is getting the proverbial shizen sandwich.