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The Eels annual report was released last week and has some really interesting numbers in it - this thread will share some highlights ( @EelsTCT has a whole interview on it if you want to check out more detail, this is just my idiot's financial view):
Operationally the Eels performed strongly, with the historically loss making Football club making a profit driven largely by the incredible support of a 15% increase in members (now largest in Sydney), continued sponsor support, and lack of lower grade expenses.
The Leagues club (which has historically funded the Football club) managed to make a surplus despite COVID. This is quite spectacular - I had been very vocal about Leagues clubs being placed under solvency pressure as their pokie operations shut down.
Despite the shutdown, Pokies still brought in $39M for the year (down 14%). Total annual revenues went down by $14M, mostly driven by reduced pokie revenues and ticket sales. However job keeper offset some of these expenses with $4.8M injected and a similar $ wage reduction.
The club continued to make donations to the community despite its reduction in revenues. It's balance sheet remained solid, albeit a slight increase in drawn debt and lease commitments (lease accounting standards changed so it's not as bad as it looks). So what does this mean?
Love them or hate them pokies have remarkable resilience to economic cycles. There was a 10 week shutdown and significant capacity restrictions yet pokie revenues were still substantial. Similarly, the government initiatives to support wages all appear to have been well used.
You also wonder how the new stadium and the Eels successive top 5 finishes continue to stir member engagement. When the team is going well it's much easier to fork out for a membership than when it is languishing.
Finally credit goes to the administration who took very quick steps to solidify the Eels finances. I think it's no coincidence that a club run by an Administrator for the last few years was able to deal with these terrible conditions in such a strong way. Well done @TheParraEels
