Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

Mugwump wrote:I posted this in "other AFL", but since that is a graveyard in the on-season and probably worse in the off, I thought it was worth noting here as well.

I read today that Gill's compensation package was $1.7m last year, for presiding over a sport that has become progressively less watchable, with flatlining crowds and a hunger for money that has made it a suckling pig for corporate executives on absurd sums who would probably not get a gig in a major global corporation.... and I reflected on whether my personal contribution to that mattress stuffing is really worth it.

At the risk of sounding like Hiss, the game attracted crowds of around 100,000 to great games in the 1970s when it was essentially run by amateurs. Then, somewhere around the mid 1980s the big end of town invaded it and started to create executive jobs out of it for Hawthorn and Camberwell-dwellers like them. Funnily enough, at about that time it steadily started to decline as a spectacle, while becoming much more expensive for punters.

As a further note, the league's revenue in 2016 was around $500m. This is around half the revenue of an average FTSE 250 company, where the CEO typically receives a package of about $0.9m. Revenue is not the only way to measure a CEO's challenges, but it is a good place to start. And since the AFL is a "corporation" with no truly significant competition, and no truly discretionary shareholders, its CEO surely does less to earn his coin than the average FTSE 250 CEO trying to make it in a competitive market. Half the revenue, nearly twice the package, half the challenge. Good on you, Gill.

Is there something wrong with this whole picture ? This mostly comes from our pockets, in one way or another - do others find that strange ?

npalm wrote:I think that Gill's salary package (like most CEO packages) is highly excessive but I don't think it's strange. His salary is probably consistent with Australian standards.
See this report from 2014 http://www.afr.com/business/salary-surv ... 209-123pii

Whilst he probably couldn't win an equivalent CEO role with a large corporation he does have the sporting administration experience that makes him marketable in the sports industry. Apparently has has knocked back significant offers from NRL and Liverpool FC

Mugwump wrote:
At the risk of sounding like Hiss, the game attracted crowds of around 100,000 to great games in the 1970s when it was essentially run by amateurs.