North Melbourne is changing the the game - yet again.
Club CEO Carl Dilena recently revealed to The Age the club's patented injury prevention technology, KangaTech, has gone international with two NBA franchises, among other elite sporting teams, already hopping on board to take advantage of the high-tech system.
"The Roos swear by it, and are now selling it to the world," Greg Baum wrote in his weekly column.
"The worth of KangaTech to North is not just a matter of the integrity of Ben Brown's hamstrings. In almost every story you have read about the dependence of AFL clubs on pokies, there will have been this throwaway line "except North Melbourne". It was there again this week. Rarely is there more elaboration."
Turning off the tap to pokies and gambling revenue came at a significant cost, meaning the club had to be smarter and more strategic in order to eradicate $8.5 million of debt while running a successful football operation.
"Ten years ago, the club had a few unproductive machines at Etihad ... they decided to cut costs to the bone and reinvent themselves as a community club, small but resourceful," Baum wrote.
"North was never handicapped on the field, said Dilena, because it could always pay the most that any team can pay, the salary cap. This chimes with stories about richer clubs at a loss about what to do with their pots of money. The ethical dimension emerged. Pokies might be justified as a pub's business, for instance, but North was a footy club, not-for-profit. Besides, much of North's mission was with the young and disadvantaged. To exploit others less well off for footy club funds would be antithetical.
"North continue to work their patch. The Hobart games are one initiative, paying much more than Etihad, their supposed home. KangaTech is another. Now they are making plans to do business – a child-care centre, for instance – in the precinct that will open up around the new Arden Metro station, right at their front door. By one study, with Hawthorn-scale pokies added to their other enterprises, the Roos would be in the top four for revenue. Without them, they are 16th. But their debt is down to around $800,000."
The AFL and other clubs are slowly catching on according to Baum, with the industry now looking at ways to switch off the pokies once and for all.
"History might be nearly ready to meet the Roos half way. Dilena discerns at last a resolve among AFL clubs to wean themselves off pokies. It won't be easy, but at least the AFL has a shopfront for the cause. There is a model.
"Evidently, North is feeling secure in itself. Dilena said when he arrived at the club, he sensed a reluctance to drop below mid-table when their turn came, for fear of irrelevance, perhaps extinction. No more.
"When reboring the list between seasons, the Roos had not expected to fall to 16th, but knew they would be vulnerable to injury. No longer were they measuring the year in terms of wins and losses, said Dilena, but in player development. Ten debutants, plus two from other clubs, had energised them about the future.
"It's been really positive in that sense," said Dilena.
"Not only that, North still feel that they're in the running for Dustin Martin and/or Josh Kelly. "Except North Melbourne" still aims to be exceptional North Melbourne."
With a standalone VFL side on the horizon in 2018, an AFLW team likely in 2019 and grand plans for the multi-million dollar redevelopment of the club's headquarters and wider 'Arden' precinct, North Melbourne is about to grow and expand like never before.
