When Geelong take to Simonds Stadium on Friday night, it will mark a number of milestones for the Cats.
It's not just the long-awaited first home game of the season, following the completion of the $91 million Brownlow Stand.
![Geelong Cats CEO Brian Cook talks to The Age about the club's off field success, with the ground redevelopment and ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170519015856im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/7/o/z/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gw7xh4.png/1495116906438.jpg)
Of as much importance will be the 1000 names that adorn a special guernsey being worn by the players. Each is a person who has donated $250 or more to the club, helping to raise $16.3 million to ensure the Geelong Football Club is debt-free for the first time in five decades.
It has been such a financial success, the Cats have permanently axed the gaming facility and 100 poker machines that were part of its home ground. Chief executive Brian Cook now says a complete exit from the poker machine business and planned the sale of the club's Point Cook gaming facility is on the cards.
"Five years ago, gaming revenue was worth more than $4 million a year to the club," Cook says. "This year, it will be less than $1 million. We have made a decision to rely less and less on gaming and, in the medium term, to exit that business altogether."
The "Our Ambition" fundraising project, as the Cats dubbed it, has been the biggest philanthropic drive football has seen, eclipsing the $1.5 million raised by Footscray supporters as part of the "Fightback" campaign in 1989.
"We started out hoping to raise $10 million," says Brian Cook. "It's astonishing that we got to $16.3 million. It has secured the club's financial future for a generation. By the end of the season we will be completely debt-free for the first time in 50 years."
Rewind to 2014, and the Cats were in a far more precarious financial position.
The club's operating loss was $250,000. To make matters worse, the Cats faced debts of $8.5 million due the following year, and had just $4.2 million in cash and liquid assets.
Cook will now pay off the club's five outstanding loans, totalling $3.7 million, and cover the $5 million it needed to borrow for the current stage-four works at Simonds Stadium.
 "On top of that we will have a new stadium with increased revenues, an alternative training venue, the biggest function room in Geelong and, hopefully, a business model that won't rely on gaming in the future."
It was a meeting with the Australian Ballet that changed the fortunes of the Cats.
"[Geelong president] Colin Carter introduced me to head of fundraising at the Australian Ballet Company. He showed me his fundraising team, which was made up of about 20 people, dedicated to philanthropic donations. They told me that one in every three season pass holders makes an additional donation. The penny soon dropped that we could try this concept in football."
Geelong established "Our Ambition" with the Australian Sports Foundation, which has been set up by the Australian Tax Office to provide a mechanism for donations to sports clubs to be tax deductible. "Of the $16.3 million we raised, almost $12 million was donated via the ASF," says Cook.
The windfall makes Friday's match especially sweet for the Cats. Â
"One of the biggest changes I have seen in my time in sport is the expectations of the fans," Cook says. "They want and expect more and more from their experience. Look at the facilities at the MCG, at the Australian Open. We can compete now in terms of match day experience."
Now all Cook wants is a win. "There is no doubt that the premiership sides of 2007, 2009 and 2011 have left a legacy in these stands," Cooks says. "That on-field success generated optimism around the club, optimism among the members and optimism among the sponsors. The players now are enjoying the spoils of their success."