Let's head off to somewhere where we have some kind of affinity or contact and strike up some kind of mutually beneficial deal. How about a game in Denmark, apparently there's an amateur comp over there. Princess Mary loves the blues, expat community, european contacts. Or there's the old Dart, no shortage of Aussies and business links there, how about we leverage off the popularity of the Brothers O'hAilpin and do some marketing in Ireland. Apparently ireland is one of the world's fastest growing economies. Set up some kind of scheme to leverage off a bit of interest where we dont have to compete with 15 other clubs for any AFL interest. It's not like the Irish dont know about AFL.

Are there sporting clubs overseas that we could sign up mutually beneficial cross marketing deals with, maybe even share training info, maybe offer access to each other's membership databases, maybe offer a way in for each other to penetrate home country markets.

Failing all of that, if we got 10,000 members to sign up for medical experiments on behalf of the club what would that earn us???

Cork is a huge untapped market for the club. In college this week i saw three Carlton guenseys - might not sound like much but in U.C.C that is a big number. Im sure if the club got in contact with Cork sports stores they would sell a lot of merchandise considering they would have 100% market share. When the boys return home after the year they could do an official launch and get the club advertised in the Echo and Examiner.

I've noticed a few threads moaning about traitors out to get "The Menace", how much players get paid, how troubled our club is etc and how we should all unite behind the cause, give up our hard earned yada yada yada.

How about some ideas for the club to raise the $$$ instead of going cap in hand to AFL?

I suggested to one of the social club members that the club "sells" a brick in a wall at the club. "donations" (not another raffle for the love of all things blue) of $100 or $200 (pick a number, i doubt it really matters) get the donors name on the brick. call the wall the people that re-built the club or something.

i figure 30,000 members and supporters (more to come out of the closet) @ $200 equals (counting fingers and toes) a decent bloody start.

any thoughts/comments/high fives at such a brooliant idea?

Maybe a couple of "Strip Nights", that might get a few in!!!!!!!!

I'm in for a Strip Night!

I read some time back some stats Jarusa put on here about the amount of traffic this site gets. It sounded like a lot.

Why not sell advertising on TC and funnel 100% of it to the club?

In theory it could be a good little source of income for the club.

In practice however I reckon the mods/admins would be pretty cautious in light of what happened to TBV when money issues were brought into the equation.

lets open a nightclub run by the players! and charge double for the drinks then all the other clubs
lets jus go put 1 mill on black or red, if we get up we have doubled our money

True, but the concerns were then that the money would be lining someone's pocket. The trick would be to provide a means by which it could be guaranteed that the money is going to the Carlton Football Club.

It's an idea which would need some work put into it before it could be implemented. I wonder what sort of $$$s would be involved?

Are there schemes whereby money is raised for clicks alone? We could all take it upon ourselves to spend five minutes a day clicking on the links at no cost to ourselves and be generating income for the club.

I find that an interesting viewpoint. I just had to go over to Big Footy to see if it had ads. I thought it did but couldn't be sure. I hardly notice them. I wonder where that money goes?

I wonder too.

Because AFAIK the mods there do not get paid (ODN you would know?).

They would do a massive amount of work to keep the site running and there is an 'owner' who would reap the profits (assuming it is profitable, it might not be, forums are notorious for being very low money earners).