Profit puts Tigers of gold back nearer black
Jake Niall | September 7, 2007 | The Age
RICHMOND'S 2007 profit will exceed a million dollars despite the club finishing last and enduring one of the worst seasons in its history.
With the club showing signs of stronger financial health, Richmond president Gary March said he intended to remain at the helm and seek re-election later this year.
March said the club would record its second consecutive profit of more than $1 million and it would reach seven figures without taking into account its windfall from the Melbourne farewell game for Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy and champion James Hird, receipts of which are shared between Essendon and the Tigers.
March said the Tigers were one of few clubs to have recorded a seven-figure operating surplus while finishing on the bottom of the ladder, noting that Brisbane Lions and Port Adelaide had posted substantial losses when they fell down the ladder in the years after premierships.
"There wouldn't be many clubs … I would have thought we're one of the first clubs in a long, long time that has made a seven-figure profit finishing on the bottom of the ladder, winning three games."
While Essendon made a million-plus profit with the same dismal win-loss ratio last year (three wins and a draw) — finishing 15th rather than the last — March said the Tigers had achieved their result without significant investments or non-football income. He said Richmond's non-football income was "next to nothing".
"The only difference is that there's about three clubs that have got significant non-football assets. The year that Essendon made a million-dollar profit, they made nearly $2 million from non-football revenue; they lost a million dollars on football.
"We'd be lucky to have $200,000 from our gaming venues this year in our number."
The Tigers' coffers will be further boosted, to the tune of perhaps $150,000, by the round-21 Essendon game.
March confirmed, too, that the board had requested that he remain as president next year and that he would therefore be standing for election at year's end: "I said yes and the board are pretty keen for me to continue, at the moment."
Richmond's debt, which peaked at about $5.5 million in 2005 and includes the building debt from the redevelopment of Punt Road Oval, has been reduced by $1.5 million over the past 18 months, with further reductions planned.
March said the club planned to spend more on its football department, which has become better resourced this year after two years of being one of the lowest-cost operations in the AFL.
"I'm not too bothered by the debt," he said. "We haven't been up in the eight. When you get that, we get a huge free kick and we'll virtually wipe the debt out in a year or so."
March said the club had increased its football department outlay to the point that it was in the middle bracket of spenders.
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