CANCELLATION OF THE 2020 SEASON NOT HAPPENING!!

[kosifantutti]

Has anyone figured out that
- June 11 start + 16 weeks = end of September
- Final series in October

So without any interuptions to the remainder of the season, there may not be the need for 4/5 day breaks and it will be Thursday or Friday to Sunday footy as required by ground access and the normal 5/6/7 day breaks.

I think they mentioned a potential Grand Final on Cox Plate Day. Is that the end of October?

[Ghost Like]

Has anyone figured out that
- June 11 start + 16 weeks = end of September
- Final series in October

So without any interuptions to the remainder of the season, there may not be the need for 4/5 day breaks and it will be Thursday or Friday to Sunday footy as required by ground access and the normal 5/6/7 day breaks.

I think they mentioned a potential Grand Final on Cox Plate Day. Is that the end of October?

Yes Kosi, the last weekend. A great lead in to the Spring Carnival.

[The_Dud]

Are they going to do a week off before finals?

[ace]

I am quite enjoying going undefeated every week.
Why do some want to go and spoil that ?

[Ghost Like]

I am quite enjoying going undefeated every week.
Why do some want to go and spoil that ?

Yes but each week we get closer to a season we lost every game.

[Shaggy]

I'm very certain the club will not earn any revenue from playing games this year but it will still cost a huge amount of money to play each game.

In the business world that is called trading while insolvent.

Sponsors and Media will pay if we play so I hope that alleviates a lot of your concerns.

Gill is a collaborative negotiator and is likely to have had a rough indication of how much they will be likely to pay prior to settling on player payments for 2020.

Hence my guess of 50% revenue for the year.

It is also not insolvent trading. Businesses can make losses for years even with negative net assets and not be trading whilst insolvent so long as they have a backer of substance to cover cash flow.

The clubs have the AFL and the AFL has the $600 million credit facility to draw upon.

The backer of substance is a bank. We start off with $20 million in debt. We haven't made more money than we spend for a very long time, in a severely depressed economy it is going to be extremely difficult to generate enough cash to pay down our debt let alone find cash to remain competitive.

I'm guessing 2021 and 2022 are the years when we will have a real fight on our hands for survival.

If the $20 million debt becomes too much I assume we will sell RSEA park on a sale and lease back and pay the debt off.

But it’s a rollover not a paydown facility so it should not become too much. The interest cost would only be $750,000 at today’s interest rate which is less than 2% of 2019 revenues.

Banks are in the business of lending not recovering. They want to work with, not against the large number of influential people involved in the AFL.

Looking at the Saints in isolation – NAB is lead manager of a syndicated loan of $950 million loan with Andrew Bassett through Seek. They are not going to put their relationship at risk with Bassett over a $20 million loan. Add in influential supporters such as Ryan and Fox and the Banks have a lot to lose depending upon who they bank with. We also have 45,000 members. That is a lot of people banks want to win rather than piss off as potential clients. Banks spend more than a $1 billion on marketing each year trying to develop their client base. They are not going to kill the good will over relatively small money Saints owe.

IMO if things really go wrong banks will compromise and restructure their debt rather than ever appoint insolvency managers to the AFL or individual clubs. It would be marketing suicide to do otherwise.

I guess that is not your experience but the AFL and Saints have influence with the Banks you and I do not.

For the time being that is enough from me on the topic.

I hope when footy resumes you can enjoy it.

[Secret Kiel]

If the $20 million debt becomes too much I assume we will sell RSEA park on a sale and lease back and pay the debt off.

But it’s a rollover not a paydown facility so it should not become too much. The interest cost would only be $750,000 at today’s interest rate which is less than 2% of 2019 revenues.

Banks are in the business of lending not recovering. They want to work with, not against the large number of influential people involved in the AFL.

Looking at the Saints in isolation – NAB is lead manager of a syndicated loan of $950 million loan with Andrew Bassett through Seek. They are not going to put their relationship at risk with Bassett over a $20 million loan. Add in influential supporters such as Ryan and Fox and the Banks have a lot to lose depending upon who they bank with. We also have 45,000 members. That is a lot of people banks want to win rather than piss off as potential clients. Banks spend more than a $1 billion on marketing each year trying to develop their client base. They are not going to kill the good will over relatively small money Saints owe.

IMO if things really go wrong banks will compromise and restructure their debt rather than ever appoint insolvency managers to the AFL or individual clubs. It would be marketing suicide to do otherwise.

I guess that is not your experience but the AFL and Saints have influence with the Banks you and I do not.

For the time being that is enough from me on the topic.

I hope when footy resumes you can enjoy it.

How could we sell RSEA if we don't own it? The State Government, Kingston City Council and the AFL are the financiers of the property.

That aside I think the issue that will affect us before any possible threat to survival is our abilty to be competitive due to the AFL directing funds and resources away from us to other clubs based on AFL agendas.

[samuraisaint]

Do we play 17 more matches this year, or just 16 more. Each team has already played one opponent - so surely each club should only have 16 games more to play? Apologies if this has already been stated on here.

EDIT: BackfromUsa has already posted that we have 16 matches left for the regular Home and Away season.

[Mr Magic]

Take it for what it's worth,
but I was told yesterday by the brother of a Demons player that they are expecting to play us in the first (round 2) game.

Also they (all players, and I assume officials involved in training/game day activities) have to go into lockdown/isolation to be eligible to participate. So if your partner is a nurse (or other frontline worker) you/he/she have to move out for fear of contamination.

[samuraisaint]

Take it for what it's worth,
but I was told yesterday by the brother of a Demons player that they are expecting to play us in the first (round 2) game.

Also they (all players, and I assume officials involved in training/game day activities) have to go into lockdown/isolation to be eligible to participate. So if your partner is a nurse (or other frontline worker) you/he/she have to move out for fear of contamination.

We might actually get a win then!

[The Fireman]

we haven't won a game yet in 2020.