Interesting too that this coincides with yesterday's front page article featuring Nick Bianco's reaction to not winning part of the defence contract to build new warships. Perhaps the loss of contract has meant no spare cash to prop up the Reds.
In the USA there was a study a while back that highlighted that the consolidation of businesses in a number of sectors had led to fewer businesses with strong links to regional centres and cities (e.g., through relocations of head offices). As a result, some regional economies were getting left behind and there was less sponsorship and financial support of clubs and organisations from businesses in those regions than in others.
SA has lost a few large businesses or their head offices in the last 10 years, including Southcorp, Mitsubishi and others I can't recall (News Limited was a bit earlier than 10 years ago - early 90s I think). While the mining boom is meant to revitalise the economy, the big miners (BHP-Biliton, Rio Tinto) are not based here and probably won't be splashing out sponsorship dollars here (more likely to do so in WA).
Perhaps these events surrounding the 36ers, the Reds and the Power are reflective of a regional economy that is starting to struggle to keep up with the larger economies of Qld, NSW, Vic and WA. All of those economies grew (until recently in NSW) a lot faster than SA's over the last decade or so.
No hard data to back this hypothesis, just a thought.
