It is the Club’s second successive profit, after losses in 2009 and 2010.
Sydney Swans Chairman Richard Colless said the financial result was in line with the Club’s three-year plan.
“To be able to achieve our objectives, the Club is focused on ensuring our core football operations are fully resourced to enable our team to consistently play finals, challenge for the AFL Premiership and be seen as a leading club in the AFL competition,” he said.
“The modest profit, posted after achieving the ultimate objective of winning the 2012 AFL Premiership, reflects the reality of fielding an elite sporting team in Australia’s most competitive sporting market and in one of the world’s most expensive cities to live.
“We will continue to provide a fully resourced Academy with over 40 coaches in the community and with over 570 boys aged from 9 to 18 in various Academy programs, overseen by Academy coach Paul Roos.”
Mr Colless said the 2012 operating profit had been achieved despite some significant off-field challenges.
“The 2012 result was achieved despite the disruption caused by the Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust announcing in January that the SCG Stage 2 Redevelopment would proceed with approximately 10,000 seats being unavailable for the entire 2012 AFL Season (approximately 25% of total SCG capacity)”.
“This resulted in over 7,000 of our members having to be relocated and regrettably approximately 3,000 chose not to renew their memberships.
“We will be working hard to re-engage with these lost members when the redevelopment is scheduled to be completed for the Ashes Test and before the commencement of the 2014 AFL Season.
“The SCG Stage 2 Redevelopment also impacted match day attendances, merchandise sales and other revenue streams which the SCG Trust partly compensated the Club.
“Whilst club sourced revenue was generally flat year on year the Club acknowledged the long term support of Principal Partner QBE, which extended its contract for another 5 years taking the relationship to 30 years, and Major Partners Citi and Volkswagen.
“The Club is excited by the year ahead and we are optimistic that we can continue to attract major sponsors looking for national exposure and we will continue to work hard on building our membership base to our goal of 40,000.
“To this end we were pleased to be ranked number one in the AFL competition, for the second consecutive year, in the industry Member Satisfaction Survey where our members have rated the services that we as a club provide to them,” Mr Colless said.
