Collingwood continue to fly off the field with multi-million-dollar profits

REAL FOOTY

Despite missing the finals for the past two years Collingwood's financial health remains undented, with the club recording a total profit for this year of almost $3.5 million.
The club's profit was built on an operating profit of almost $1.9 million and the sale of the lease of the Diamond Creek Hotel for $1.6 million.
The impact of the AFL's new equalisation measures and a 12th-place finish - their second year of missing the finals - did not alter Collingwood's robust financial health. After aggressively writing down their assets by more than $2.6 million this year Collingwood will record a net operating profit of $848,076.
The Collingwood result comes after premiers Hawthorn this year announced an operating profit of $3.33 million, with the club recording a profit in excess of $3 million in each of their "threepeat" premiership seasons. The club this year also received a $2 million donation, which was not included in the figures.
Richmond also recorded a profit of $500,000, their 11th consecutive profit, with a record membership just shy of Collingwood's at 71,339.
"In a year in which we spent a further $18 million on the Glasshouse, our brilliant new community and function centre, and tipped almost $1.4 million into the AFL's equalisation pot, we continued to stand on our own two feet," Collingwood president Eddie McGuire said of the club's 15th successive profit.
Collingwood have no debt, despite construction recently being completed on the second stage of their home at the Glasshouse. The federal government contributed $10 million towards the Glasshouse community centre, with Collingwood funding the remainder.
The venue is expected to be a revenue earner for the club in future years.
While still boasting the biggest membership, Collingwood's membership fell about 5000 from 2014 to 76,516 yet still generated revenue of $16 million.
While the club is a wealthy entity, significantly a large contributor to their profit is the fact the Magpies also earned significant income from non-football sources, $2 million in net revenue coming from gaming machines.
Collingwood contributed $1.4 million in equalisation, which included the gate levy and the maximum amount in the soft tax on football spending. Hawthorn, whose total membership was 72,924 this year, paid a similar amount on equalisation ($1,349,000).
Collingwood have assets of $37.9 million. The completion of the Glasshouse will go into next financial year's accounts, consequently softening any operating profits over the next 20 years with significant write downs on the venue.
"The last 10 years has been about building the business model to remain profitable whether we have finished in the finals or not," said chief executive Gary Pert.
Borrowing from the experience of European sporting clubs such as Barcelona, the Magpies have sought to use their profits to keep costs to members as low as possible.
The philosophy is to keep the cost of joining a club as low as possible and thus attract as big a fan base as possible and generate greater income by leveraging the size of the membership base for sponsorship and broadcast rights income.
"We want to keep costs low for our members so the profits we have made have enabled us to freeze our membership prices for the last three years and keep the costs for our members as low as possible," Pert said.
"We consider one of the key reasons that its important to remain profitable is that we can keep costs to members down and that is something we have learned from the bigger European clubs and that is something we see as important in a business sense, but also important because it is in line with our philosophy as being a club for everyone."