Wasn't that pretty much what tinks was offering though?
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I have no interest whatsoever in this bloke taking over
He could have been the hero anytime in the last 2-3 years but showed no interest it ain't like our issues with ownership haven't been common knowledge. Why has it taken to now for him to come to light??
Secondly he can babble on with community lingo but it doesn't escape the fact he could have bought his community is the Gypos team but hasn't
I just don't trust him already
I barracking for the Chinese bloke.
Seems the lesser of 2 evils
Must be some russian somewhere with 1o mil to throw away. They wont be scared to cheat
Why would you barrack for anyone at this stage?
We know stuff all about Martin Lee's proposal either and his motives, same as months ago with Dundee's Thompson.
The talks with Thompson were fairly advanced but not once did we here about what his vision was for the Newcastle Jets.
Even FFA, is their priority just to recoup their costs and make a profit or are they genuinely concerned with making sure the new ownership is the right fit for this club?
Going to be interesting but with the very limited knowledge we have of Lee or Von Schmauden or the supposed other four potential buyers, can't see the point in picking a favourite at this stage.
I love all this talk about 'vision'. Let's drop the BS. At the end of the day, we need someone who can throw some money at the team, get some decent players, win enough games, make the finals, entertain us, then we go home happy. Tinkler tried and did alright to begin with until we quickly learnt he didn't actually have money to throw at the team. Seriously, what do you want the new owner to do? 'Connect with the community?' What the hell does that even mean? We just need someone with money who'll hang around for at least a few years so the FFA don't have an excuse to see us disappear in place of another Sydney team.
If you were interested in buying the Jets would you be accepting the FFA asking price. The FFA are bleeding money, the longer it drags on the more it costs.
FFA are grandstanding and if you ask me this bloke from Hawaii is nothing more than a smokescreen to make it look like there is a serious second bidder, or any other bidder for that matter. I know what's more beleivable and it's the Chinese bid by a country mile
For the first five minutes whoever buys us can throw all the money they like at us, but by the sixth minute I wanna see a plethora of sponsorship deals with local and national (even international, I'm not fussy) businesses, third party agreements coming from every direction, blanket advertising announcing the all new fighter Jets have arrived and they're ready for combat, promotion to make the Knights hierarchy cry, and that's just for starters. The Jets need to rebuild the brand properly within the community by showing they mean business on and off the park, they've made a tentative start but we need to take it fifteen levels higher.
I do want to know what any prospective buyer envisages the club will be in 5, 10, 25 years time - A-League and ACL champions? A proper academy producing top level juniors? That should be the minimum. And do they have the investment power long term to make it a reality? Martin ticks a few boxes, but he really needs to be able to show where he's gonna connect with local business etc before I get too excited. I'm also a little apprehensive about being owned by someone who will have virtually no profile here, unless he starts a consortium with local investors will it just look like we've been sold off to a faceless corporation? I'd like to see an owner who actually comes to games as regularly as possible and shows some passion for the team, that would give the semblance at least that the owner is a supporter of the product he is endorsing, more like a Lowy-style ownership where you know the owner is prepared to win at all costs.
Jesus you aren't asking for much. But there it is again, 'he really needs to be able to show where he's gonna connect with local business etc'.
Why? If he gets national or even international sponsors on board, why is this even a priority? And what makes you think local businesses wouldn't jump at the chance to try and connect with a cashed-up Chinese business man?
As for your dreamed up white knight, name some wealthy Newcastle business people who are interested in the Jets, have a high profile, and who are respected enough for the almighty local businesses to deem good enough to get on board. I'm sure this Chinese guy has a million percent better chance of attracting sponsors from further afield than the Hunter Valley then whatever novocastrian it is you're conjuring up in your imagination.
Seriously, do you think any owner is going to be around in 25 years? For any a-league club? Or for most clubs around the world, even highly successful ones?
Also, can you explain to me what 'rebuilding the brand' means without using useless jargon? When the team wins, people attend. When people attend, they get to know the players. When the players become better-known, their face gets plastered around town. End of. If you're talking about school visits, hospital visits, training camps yada yada yada, aren't they already doing that? Do we have any tangible proof that increasing these visits and spending more time out in the community actually leads to an increase in membership or 'better connection' with the community, or is it just another myth we can whinge about when we aren't winning games.
Better community links and proper promotion get people through the gates.
Money spent on the team, office & coaching ancillary staff etc to create a culture the community can get behind and the crowds don't drop off by 50% when we lose more than 2 games in a row.
No, we need an owner to do what Con and Tinks both failed to do and failed terribly, I might add and that is to connect with local corporate businesses in the Hunter and NNSW as a whole....to bring in valuable sponsorship dollars and support. This will ensure the long term longevity of the club so that we are not always relying on one man with hopefully deep pockets to continually be pumping money into the Jets.
All good to connect with the community by visiting hospitals, schools and local clubs but you can't beat having a strong, successful club like we had between 2006-08 to truly connect with the community.
To be fair any new owner can get the local business community to pay a hell of a lot of his teams bills if he a) employs some staff who return phone calls or b) doesn't **** them over by continually owing them money.
Jets always seem to be way behind when it comes to commercial revenue. Might be a good idea to look into fixing that.
We all agree memberships are strong for what we get onfield.
The local interest is definitely there from businesses as a local consortium did put forth a bid but were well short of the $$$ required by FFA.
Don't for a second underestimate that there are businesses in the Hunter who want to be involved with the Jets. Just look at businesses like Inspirations Paint, Greater Building Soc, Varley Eng etc who have all come on board since FFA took over and with the right owner involved I bet there would be dozens more willing to be involved!