THE GEELONG CATS STILL SHOW THE WAY
The gutsy grand final win by the Geelong Cats in September added to its previous flag in 2007 surely places the team and the Geelong Football Club as two of the most dominant AFL forces in the current era!
The Geelong Football Club is a national and, indeed, an international icon that has built up over the club’s 150 years of operation into a truly recognisable brand almost everywhere in the world which gives the Geelong region huge exposure which cannot be bought!
Plus, the Geelong Football Club is presently the only AFL club located outside a capital city which is a ringing endorsement of this region and its long and persistent involvement with the code.
Money simply cannot buy this level of publicity, promotion and recognition!
The Geelong Cats’ two premierships in the past three years have strongly badged Geelong as a “can do” region which is achieving well above its size! The Cats’ dominance in recent years in the AFL as the benchmark team and playing in three successive grand finals have not gone unnoticed and will be beneficial for Geelong’s future economic growth.
The club’s recent successes have been widely recognised and will translate into increased business interest with companies wanting to be a part of a region with such an enduring and winning formula.
Some commentators will say that the Club’s relevance in Geelong is overstated and that, in the end, it is only a sporting club.
But this view is both pessimistic and naive and misses the point that the Geelong Cats’ success is really seen as a gauge for the regional drive, enthusiasm and support that are essential for the club and the team to have done so well.
This regional persistence and determination are the very things that businesses outside the region are looking for and this combination will definitely encourage them to become part of it!
The Chamber made this same observation when it ran its very successful Geelong Region Business Connections project in conjunction with the City Council, Geelong Business Network and the federal government in 2005 and 2006. That project brought twenty new businesses and 245 new jobs to the Geelong region in an eighteen months period and large parts of the reason were the region forging ahead and that they were made to feel welcome here!
It also shows that Geelong has shrugged off its earlier “sleepy hollow” title and is now doing battle with the capital cities and is punching well above its weight!
Whichever way you look at the Geelong Football Club, it is big business!
Its annual turnover is now $44 million. The club has ninety full-time staff, forty-seven senior players and a support staff of 200 plus and has attracted over 37,000 members. It regularly purchases goods and services from 600 suppliers - nearly all Geelong-based now - and its success on the field has a huge impact on regional trading patterns.
Each of the eight home games played at Skilled Stadium every season injects an average of nearly $2 million into the regional economy and this alone is predicted to grow to an estimated $22 million annually in the next few years.
Again, who can predict what winning the 2009 AFL flag will end up doing for the region?
What is certain is that the Geelong Cats’ successes “on field” have flooded over and will make outsiders take another look at the region and try to work out how they can be part of that success!