marinermick
Well-Known Member
Use it or lose it, Burraston warns fans
BY BRETT KEEBLE
Newcastle Herald
THE Knights could be lost to Newcastle forever unless crowd numbers increase, club CEO Steve Burraston warned yesterday.
In an explosive interview with The Herald yesterday, Burraston said privatisation, mergers and moving games away from EnergyAustralia Stadium all of which have been anathema to most Knights fans for 20 years would be explored out of necessity if home crowds did not increase dramatically before the end of the season.
He is yet to formally discuss his ideas with Knights directors, but some of the controversial scenarios he is considering to ensure the club's long-term survival include:
-Full or partial privatisation;
-Moving some home games to Bluetongue Stadium at Gosford, ANZ Stadium at Homebush, other Australian cities, or venues in New Zealand;
-Accepting the NRL's $8 million carrot and partially relocating the club to include the Central Coast, or fully relocating interstate.
Burraston's bombshell came after he had anticipated a near-capacity crowd of 25,000 for Newcastle's game against the top-of-the-table Sydney Roosters at EAS last Sunday, but only 19,253 attended and as many as 1000 of those tickets were complimentary.
"If that's the best we can do, then as a club we have some major financial problems," Burraston said.
"What I'm saying here is and I'm not being critical of our fans but it's a plea to say that if Newcastle want the Knights to survive, and Newcastle want a team to support, then people need to show that at the gates."
The Knights have averaged crowds of 19,020 at seven home games this season, which is right on the break-even mark Burraston budgeted for after the club's $1.3 milllion loss last year.
But he said the impact of soaring interest rates and petrol prices meant supporters were spending less on food and drink at each game, and the club now needed to average closer to 20,000 a game to either break even or return a small operating profit.
"There are about 12,000 true supporters that form the cornerstone of our club, and I'm not directing any of these comments at those people," he said.
"They turn up in good times, bad times, all sorts of weather conditions, and it really doesn't matter where we are on the table.
"I also understand the strain on family budgets from things like higher interest rates, increases in rent, record petrol prices, and the costs of goods that go up as a result of those things.
"[But] if we can't get people through the gate, we still have a cost to our business, and we can't afford to run at another significant loss, and we can't put two or three years of losses together or we'll just have to wind the business up and we won't have a team.
"That is a reality."
Burraston said the Knights might be forced to follow the lead of cash-strapped Sydney clubs and move home games to venues where there were guaranteed financial incentives.
"Maybe that's an alternative we will have to look at if we can't get people through the gate, and take some of our low crowd-pulling home games to another ground where we're guaranteed $100,000 or $150,000 in revenue just to put the event on," he said.
"Bluetongue is certainly a good venue for us, but it would sheerly come down to a financial equation. We took a trial to New Zealand this year, and I know other teams in previous years have taken NRL premiership games to New Zealand.
". . . They're the sorts of things we have to grapple with.
"Beyond that, the other alternatives are places where people say they don't want to go.
"There's obviously part-privatisation or full-privatisation, where you get funded externally by a private party, or there's the $8 million on the table from the NRL for merger or relocation."
Burraston said such measures were "real possibilities" if the club could not make money.
"But I believe the power is in our hands here," he said. "We've got five home games to go this year, and if our supporters can get behind us and we can pack 20,000 or more in for each of those, we'll get ourselves back in the black by the end of the year."
Burraston added that it would be embarrassing for a new-look stadium to open at the end of 2010 with a rebuilt western grandstand and ground capacity of up to 40,000 if the Knights could not attract more than 20,000 supporters on a regular basis.
"I can honestly say that I'm fighting to keep a club that I love alive, and there's a whole lot of people in here working very hard to do that as well," he said.
"All we're asking people is that if you want us to maintain the status quo, if you want the Newcastle Knights to be the Newcastle Knights and not a hybrid, a Knights based in Newcastle and playing out of a new EnergyAustralia Stadium that isn't privately owned, then you need to support us.
". . . I don't want to wait for 12 or 18 months and say, 'Geez, I'm sorry, but now we're broke and we've got to move to Adelaide or wind up the business because we're insolvent'.
"I'm saying to people right now that the alarm bells are starting to ring.
"We can decide whether we want to do something as Novocastrians and support and keep and grow our team, or we can say we don't want to support a Newcastle side any more, we're happy to just watch it on TV, and we really don't care if you privatise or relocate or merge."
Burraston was prepared to cop criticism for his comments but was determined to get his message across.
"We've lost rugby union (Newcastle Wildfires), basketball (Newcastle Falcons and Hunter Pirates), we've now lost our netball team (Hunter Jaegers), and we've got the Knights and the Jets (soccer) left, and hopefully they're here for a long time to come," Burraston said.
"But I don't know if there is the will in the town to keep both of us alive in the long term."
BY BRETT KEEBLE
Newcastle Herald
THE Knights could be lost to Newcastle forever unless crowd numbers increase, club CEO Steve Burraston warned yesterday.
In an explosive interview with The Herald yesterday, Burraston said privatisation, mergers and moving games away from EnergyAustralia Stadium all of which have been anathema to most Knights fans for 20 years would be explored out of necessity if home crowds did not increase dramatically before the end of the season.
He is yet to formally discuss his ideas with Knights directors, but some of the controversial scenarios he is considering to ensure the club's long-term survival include:
-Full or partial privatisation;
-Moving some home games to Bluetongue Stadium at Gosford, ANZ Stadium at Homebush, other Australian cities, or venues in New Zealand;
-Accepting the NRL's $8 million carrot and partially relocating the club to include the Central Coast, or fully relocating interstate.
Burraston's bombshell came after he had anticipated a near-capacity crowd of 25,000 for Newcastle's game against the top-of-the-table Sydney Roosters at EAS last Sunday, but only 19,253 attended and as many as 1000 of those tickets were complimentary.
"If that's the best we can do, then as a club we have some major financial problems," Burraston said.
"What I'm saying here is and I'm not being critical of our fans but it's a plea to say that if Newcastle want the Knights to survive, and Newcastle want a team to support, then people need to show that at the gates."
The Knights have averaged crowds of 19,020 at seven home games this season, which is right on the break-even mark Burraston budgeted for after the club's $1.3 milllion loss last year.
But he said the impact of soaring interest rates and petrol prices meant supporters were spending less on food and drink at each game, and the club now needed to average closer to 20,000 a game to either break even or return a small operating profit.
"There are about 12,000 true supporters that form the cornerstone of our club, and I'm not directing any of these comments at those people," he said.
"They turn up in good times, bad times, all sorts of weather conditions, and it really doesn't matter where we are on the table.
"I also understand the strain on family budgets from things like higher interest rates, increases in rent, record petrol prices, and the costs of goods that go up as a result of those things.
"[But] if we can't get people through the gate, we still have a cost to our business, and we can't afford to run at another significant loss, and we can't put two or three years of losses together or we'll just have to wind the business up and we won't have a team.
"That is a reality."
Burraston said the Knights might be forced to follow the lead of cash-strapped Sydney clubs and move home games to venues where there were guaranteed financial incentives.
"Maybe that's an alternative we will have to look at if we can't get people through the gate, and take some of our low crowd-pulling home games to another ground where we're guaranteed $100,000 or $150,000 in revenue just to put the event on," he said.
"Bluetongue is certainly a good venue for us, but it would sheerly come down to a financial equation. We took a trial to New Zealand this year, and I know other teams in previous years have taken NRL premiership games to New Zealand.
". . . They're the sorts of things we have to grapple with.
"Beyond that, the other alternatives are places where people say they don't want to go.
"There's obviously part-privatisation or full-privatisation, where you get funded externally by a private party, or there's the $8 million on the table from the NRL for merger or relocation."
Burraston said such measures were "real possibilities" if the club could not make money.
"But I believe the power is in our hands here," he said. "We've got five home games to go this year, and if our supporters can get behind us and we can pack 20,000 or more in for each of those, we'll get ourselves back in the black by the end of the year."
Burraston added that it would be embarrassing for a new-look stadium to open at the end of 2010 with a rebuilt western grandstand and ground capacity of up to 40,000 if the Knights could not attract more than 20,000 supporters on a regular basis.
"I can honestly say that I'm fighting to keep a club that I love alive, and there's a whole lot of people in here working very hard to do that as well," he said.
"All we're asking people is that if you want us to maintain the status quo, if you want the Newcastle Knights to be the Newcastle Knights and not a hybrid, a Knights based in Newcastle and playing out of a new EnergyAustralia Stadium that isn't privately owned, then you need to support us.
". . . I don't want to wait for 12 or 18 months and say, 'Geez, I'm sorry, but now we're broke and we've got to move to Adelaide or wind up the business because we're insolvent'.
"I'm saying to people right now that the alarm bells are starting to ring.
"We can decide whether we want to do something as Novocastrians and support and keep and grow our team, or we can say we don't want to support a Newcastle side any more, we're happy to just watch it on TV, and we really don't care if you privatise or relocate or merge."
Burraston was prepared to cop criticism for his comments but was determined to get his message across.
"We've lost rugby union (Newcastle Wildfires), basketball (Newcastle Falcons and Hunter Pirates), we've now lost our netball team (Hunter Jaegers), and we've got the Knights and the Jets (soccer) left, and hopefully they're here for a long time to come," Burraston said.
"But I don't know if there is the will in the town to keep both of us alive in the long term."
