Before that decision can be made, we'd need to see the report. Where is it?

Maybe ask julian assange.

The whole thing hasnt been reproduced obviously but those profit numbers at face value warrant discussion imo.

At face value, it does seem very steep, yes. Very steep.

Then again, you can't exactly out a dollar value on the 'community' concept either. Personally, I don't think it will have a great great impact on the public in Townsville. The people in this city generally don't seem to invest much interest in the Crocs. I would think the plan is more about reducing costs than garnering more revenues.

Mick, how come your heart is with Townsville and not Melbourne if you live down there? Townsville ex-pat?

Does this factor in single or multiple import signings?

Pie in the sky - all is not well in the land of the Croc. They were offered assistance at the TEC but this was withdrawn and they still get slugged a small fortune. Season memberships, sponsors are all down and basically the momentum from the initial support from the city has flopped. The 3 leading the new entity dont have any traction with the general public and everything is always behind closed doors. There is a really strong group of true crocs supporters trying to help, but the 3 directors haven't embraced the community ownership ethos and alienating the faithful and the fence sitters. Putting your hand out for money to stay alive is a bad start. The Business Plan is an absolute farce that can't be backed up with any fact/projection - fact is they haven't the number of foundation memberships they need, sponsors wont commit without the new NBL committing and season ticket holders wont commit if its the same old shit from last time.

Crocs will be in next season, but I don't see them being viable the season after with new teams coming in.

SS: yep Townsville ex-pat.

Venom: sad but true. All I'm seeing so far is more of the same. More closed doors. More stubbornness and denial. A massive disconnect between the local business community (ie. sponsors) and the franchise. It's like Smythe never left.

The sad thing is, if you're a local business, sponsoring the Crocs is about as terrible a business/marketing decision you could make, so you would only ever do it out of benevolence.

I wonder if the lack of licence means the currently signed players and coach are sitting around waiting or if they have started preseason? With the team we have I think we'll need to be a very hard working team!

Are they getting paid yet? If not it must be concerning reading all of this stuff in the paper

I think most NBL contracts start from 1st July so they likely wouldn't expect to be getting paid yet.

I find it amazing that people on here all seem to know what's happening with the Crocs, especially Mick, who apparently lives in Melbourne. It's not all secret stuff going on, sure there are some stuff that they have to keep to themselves until things happen but we people who are helping and supporting them are kept up to date on the rest. When the NBL finally hands out the licences to all clubs, then we expect the people who are waiting will sign on or sponsor our club again. Mark, Cameron and Pat are doing a remarkable job in saving our Crocs and to the Council Committee member who leaked info to the journalist in the Bulletin, I feel is just negative to our Crocs and wanting to stir up trouble. No one can say whether we will survive next year, can anyone say that their club will be either. I look forward to the season. GO CROCS

No one in this thread is suggesting anything that isn't explicitly spelled out out in the news article at the top of the page.

No one is trying to act like they are on the inside of anything, G Rudd, except for you.

Cochrane's involvement will see Colbran being tempted to get back involved

Colbran will not get involved, he has other issues pressuring him at the moment. Crocs are the last thing on his mind.

Mick the issue might be that the story isn't entirely factual. This from the crocs newsletter.

WELCOME TO THE 9th SAVE THE CROCS NEWSLETTER
Hello Crocodile members & supporters,

Some of you may have read the article in the Bulletin today which, for some reason, puts a slur on everything we are doing for the Townsville Crocodiles Basketball Club. We don't know the motivation behind the negative slant by this particular journalist but it is certainly not welcomed by all at the Crocs.

Truth be known, here is a summary of where we are at:

Pat, Cam and Mark have all taken much reduced pay to get this club going. In fact, they volunteered their services for the first 6 weeks of the start-up. Further to this, a number of members have contributed virtual fulltime hours to help keep the Club on it's feet.
The business plan is not kept secret at all. If any members want to come into the office we are happy to go through it with you.
The Founding Directors of the company are Pat, Mark and Cam. We have given everything to try and get the club up and running again (which has taken its toll on our family lives) but there are certain people in the city who, for one reason or another want to hamper ours and our supporters’ attempts.
Any company needs Founding Directors otherwise there is no company. We are actively appointing Board members and have presented or forwarded the appropriate documents to all of those we have approached. Every person presented these documents has commented positively on the professionalism of the presentation and quality of information in the company documents.
We have discussions with a number of people on filling positions that we believe the club needs as part of the Board and it's committees, not just people who may have a basketball background or are fans. This is a very complex business and these things take time. For the Club to survive and prosper it requires a significant input form it's Board members. All of these people are very busy professionals and because of other commitments some have had to decline the invitation. Others have accepted and we are very greateful for their contributions so far. We will announce these positions once the process is finalised.
As with all members based organisations, Board positions will be voted upon by the members in accodance with it's constitution.
Pat, Mark and Cameron will remain employed by the club and their future employment will be in the hands of the new board.
All governance that can be expected in this short period has been completed and is available for scrutiny.
Regarding some of the comments in the newspaper this morning:

The business plan was provided to Council committee members in confidence. These documents shouldn't be distributed randomly as aspects of them may be misconstrued like in today’s article. Unfortunately somebody saw it as an opportunity to pass it on to a certain journalist.
In a business plan, one generally covers all aspects of the business and the challenges, forecasts and environment they operate in. Two inclusions are a SWOT analysis which looks at the company’s Strengths and Weaknesses together with the possible Opportunities and Threats that may appear; and a Risk assessment which assesses any risks and the probability and extent of these occurring. When putting these important inclusions together you must be honest and list these items as accurately as you can. This is what has been done, with the newspaper clearly misreading the information.
There is no secrecy to anything at the club apart from the obvious things: player and Coach recruitment, staff and player salaries, personal details relating to members or any stakeholder in the Crocs club, sponsor negotiations, etc. Anybody who has visited our office will tell you that we operate an open door policy and unless staff are absent or in a meeting, we are usually accessible.
Communication to our members is open. We listen and act in the interest of the club. A weekly newsletter has been reconfigured so it offers more information than it ever has. We have continually updated the FAQ page on www.savethecrocs.com to reflect the questions we receive most. We have had a lot of feedback regarding this positive change.
Criticism is good when it is constructive. When there is another agenda behind it, it will do nothing but be harmful to the club. All it does is feed those who have nothing better to do than cast negative remarks about something that can only be positive for the city. If you do hear or read negative comments that you don’t agree with, don’t accept it. Stand up for your Crocs

Do you Seriously believe everything you read or receive hearsay from a newspaper? Have any of you seen the Business plan or the strategic plan? I think not. Before you make these ridiculous comments why not contact the Crocs and have a chat. They are very transparent. I've been shown the business and strategic plans and discussed budget and these guys are legit. Who's to say that a trainee journo knows how to decipher what a business plan is about. And if the media were to tell it like it is, it wouldn't sell papers would it. You don't think there is a hidden agenda if someone from council leaks something probably with recommendations to how it should be reported. Believe what you read if you are that gullible, but watch out for the Martians when the war of the worlds kicks in.

I didn't see anything negative in that article... it was just talking about council funding being less than what the Crocs wanted and a brief overview of the profit figures from the business plan. If those figures are flat out wrong then sure, but the newsletter rebuttal doesn't seem to say that the figures were wrong.

There's no need for them to get on the defensive like that in a newsletter and call out individual journalists who are just doing there job. Not a good look for the club.

There's nothing wrong with healthy skepticism and objective reporting keeping all the stakeholders here honest. The Crocs were questioned for a year or so over the massive losses the club was incurring and they flat out lied about them to the public for ages. They finally admitted it when there were too many sources confirming the facts. So there's history there, even if it's a new franchise now.

I think that what keeps happening here is that Pat Reidy is continually saying "no comment" or flat out not answering his phone or returning calls to journos, then an article gets written without his point of view, and then he gets upset when it's somewhat one sided. Then he puts all these rebuttals in a newsletter or on the crocs website as if the newspaper isn't giving him a fair go.

You can understand where he's coming from, because he probably watched Smythe being a bit of a media darling and wants to stay away from that, but you can't refuse to give comment to a journalist and then be upset when your point of view isn't represented. You can't have it both ways. The media is not an extension of your PR department.

Mick has hit the nail on the head in his 2 previous posts.

If the Crocs really feel that they have been done over by the Bulletin how about posting the full business plan to their website. Put it out there for all to see.

It does seem there are some issues surrounding the long term viability of the club. There is no pointing the finger at the media, council or anyone else who dares to ask any questions. Allegations of an anti Crocs agenda at the Bulletin, hinted at in the above news letter, are ridiculous. If one analyses each Bulletin article on the Crocs since Barrier Reef Basketball withdrew support, it is clear that the reporting has been overwhelmingly supportive of the goal of saving the Crocs.

@ anon: no. Every article about the Crocs has a line like "pat reidy refused to comment" or "pat reidy didn't return any phone calls".

Or should i say, every article about the Crocs that then is rebutted in newsletter or website posts has a line like "pat reidy refused to comment" or "pat reidy didn't return any phone calls".

I think given they are still in the formative stage the Crocs are wise not to post their business plan but instead make it available to view with someone from the club.

It's hard to make too much comment about the long term viability of the club because that is going to come down to how well they run the show and connect with the community once they get up and running.

Let's not forget Cairns made a large loss their first community-owned season but put the building blocks in place that have allowed them to do well the past two seasons.

Agree Paul but is it not a bit presumptious to have a model predicated on a 36k profit from the get go?

This team has lost 750k over the past five seasons.

I sure hope they can turn it around but I can't see them turning a profit in year one. Cairns are now viable but they have only turned in a 10k profit last season after several years under the community model and with a stronger fanbase.

Not that unbelievable
Instead of spending the cap they field a team at $750,000
That is enough to turn a loss to either break even or small profit. Even at that level the loss would be sustainable so that they could roll it along from other cashflows

Im not sure it's predicated on that Mick, I havent looked over the business plan. I imagine that is one scenario.

The Crocs' initial statement indicated they were using the $1.4mill donation as a reserve rather than working revenue, if that is still the case then I am comfortable with their planning, but if not then that will put a lot more pressure on them to be profitable early.

Interesting that the Bulletin isn't on board with the Crocs CO model. The Cairns Post was (and is) one of the Taipan's biggest cheerleaders. Granted that it's easy column inches in a slow-news town, but even so...

The Bulletin is absolutely on board with the Crocs. There are links to saveourcrocs.com all over their website and they have been supporting them from day one.

They still have a responsibility to report on the news in an objective manner though.

Again: no. I've known people that have worked there in the past but don't know anyone whose there at the moment.

I do have a respect for journalists keeping sports teams honest though.

The Bulletin used to praise the Crocs blindly no matter what they did, but for the past couple of years they have actually been reporting on the facts instead. It's a lot better for everyone.

who's*

And the bully reduced their sponsorship dollars less and less every year.