Power chief executive Mark Haysman addressed the media again on Wednesday, this time with the good news of two new sponsorships in BBX and Betezy, as well as the extension of Reebok to 2012. He was speaking before the club’s Season Launch luncheon at the Adelaide Convention Centre.
The ensuing questions from the media largely revolved around the club’s financial deal at AAMI Stadium, and the AFL’s response to a submission for funding over the next three years.
Here’s some of what the Power boss had to say…
“The position at the moment is that we are working through our stadium arrangement with the SANFL and we’ll work through that and resubmit some plans to the AFL and they’ll look at what support they’ll give us. That process is well and truly in place and we need to make sure we come up with the right stadium arrangement with the SANFL, submit that through, then we may get some additional funding support from the AFL.
“The gap at the moment we think is at a minimum between $1.5 to $2.5m a year in terms of impact on the Port Adelaide footy club, that’s our starting point. If we were playing at the Gabba we would be in the range of $3.5 to $5m better off with the existing crowds so that is the quantum of the opportunity we’ve got and the challenge we’ve got.
“The AFL is really keen to have two really strong clubs in South Australia as it expands its national footprint and the SANFL absolutely want us to prosper and the local footy to prosper as well so there’s no doubt we’ll get a good outcome.
“What they (AFL) said was they haven’t said ‘no’, they’ve said ‘not yet’, and that’s because we’re working through with the SANFL - as the owner of our club and the owner of the stadium - the right arrangements with them around stadium deal and once we’ve resolved that with them the three parties will get together and we’ll work out what needs to be done from there.
“I spoke with the players again this morning. We had a catch up on Monday afternoon but it’s a fast moving environment and there was some new news yesterday and I just caught up with them to let them know that they just need to focus on playing great footy and preparing themselves for Round 1 against the Bombers at AAMI Stadium and there’s no doubt they’ll be ready to go.
“We’re absolutely committed to building our membership and building our supporter base and getting more people to the footy, that’s taken as a given. We’re working really hard on that and have some great initiatives we’ll roll out next week around the lead up to game 1. They will be experiences you can only get at the game and playing terrific, fast, exciting footy. The stadium deal needs to be sorted that’s the core issue but that doesn’t mean we’re not working on supporter base, and turning more supporters into members.”
