Exactly. Neither are suitable for an AFL team because demographics matter.
Obviously Darwin is demographically stronger than either, but still much weaker than Canberra or a third Perth team.
20th AFL Team
- Thread starter lionshine
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Exactly. Neither are suitable for an AFL team because demographics matter.
Obviously Darwin is demographically stronger than either, but still much weaker than Canberra or a third Perth team.
Interestingly, a Kalgoorlie WAFL team had some good features despite a population catchment area of 40k.
Kalgoorlie is serviced by the Prospector train and it's quite popular and thus the WAFL could see away team fans travelling to Kalgoorlie to make a day of it.
This has implications for Canberra, Riverina, N.M. etc
People will travel from Perth to Kalgoorlie, Melbourne to the border, Brisbane to the Gold Coast, from anywhere to the Gather Round but nothing will make Sydney-siders cross the Harbour Bridge.
Darwin would require 10% of the population to attend to achieve an attendance of 15k
which is OK for one-offs but unrealistic for the long-term.
Driving across the Nullabor you can only pick up the ABC radio consistently.
For hours (literally) we listened to the ABC report on the Whyalla Football League teams - North, South and Centrals. Then they moved onto the possibility of a Port Lincoln team rejoining the WFL Then they moved onto the possibility of a Whyalla team entering the SANFL.
Canberra is objectively a better option than the NT by pretty much every metric. Not having a dig at the NT, it just is what it is.
Canberra has a long history of Aussie Rules and a proven culture of attendance at this point. The ACT and Capital region already has the money and population to support an AFL side, and we're still growing at an exponential rate. The talent pool in ACT and Southern NSW is already bigger than the NT, and will also continue to grow. We can rely on strong government and institutional support without being totally reliant on it like the NT would be, and I think the support base for a local team would shock more than a few people.
On the other hand the NT has good PR with a fanciful feel good story. But the unfortunate reality is that you can't pay the bills with good vibes.
The Raiders get healthy contingents of traveling supporters against the Sydney sides. I see no reason why the Swans and Giants wouldn't travel in similar numbers, If anything I'd expect the Swans to have a larger traveling fanbase than most of the NRL sides.
Canberra doesn't really need the Sydneysiders to draw decent away support anyway. People from all over Southern NSW travel to Canberra to see their favourite team play.
So people in the Riverina support the Raiders and travel hours to Canberra to watch them play home games? I wasn't aware of that. Would it be fair to say Aussie rules fans from southern NSW areas like Wagga Wagga would adopt Canberra as their team and travel mutliple hours to watch them play home games at Manuka?
- Apr 2, 2013
- 11,880
- 18,143
- AFL Club
- Collingwood
No one can pay bills in Australia anymore.
We've lost the plot. So the old school look for numbers and safety first simply doesn't cut it anymore.
Even the traditional economy is dying.
Put simply adapt or die.
AFL needs to pivot to the north.
The people want it they have made an enormous contribution to the game and will support it. It's really a no brainer
No there isn't a large contingent of Raiders fans in the Riverina that travel to Canberra to watch the Raiders regularly. That's not what I'm claiming.
Though there are Raiders fans who travel from as far as Sydney in the North (Most famously Simon Tayoun and his family. Look him up, bloke's a legend), as far as Griffith in the West, and from the Coast, for every Raiders game, the vast majority of traveling fans are supporters of the away team making their yearly pilgrimage to watch their favourite team play at Bruce.
So no, on the whole people from places like the Riverina aren't likely to adopt Canberra as their team, but over the course of a season they'll travel to Canberra in their thousands to watch Collingwood, Carlton, Geelong, etc, play.
Though in saying that, the Riverina isn't the be-all and end-all of Southern NSW.
Canberra doesn't have particularly strong cultural connections to (most of) the Riverina. It does however have much stronger cultural links to the Southern Tablelands, Snowy Mountains, and southern half of the South Coast, and over time a not insignificant portion of the population of those regions probably would adopt Canberra as their favourite team, and a portion of those fans would regularly travel to watch them play in Canberra like they do the Raiders.
Last edited:
Shifting away from the population and economic centers would be commercial suicide.
There's no foreseeable future where the NT will be a better commercial prospect for the AFL than Canberra, or any of the other expansion prospects, outside of a vain of unobtanium being discovered under Darwin
Your arguments for it and against Canberra are at best cope and uninformed stereotypes.
Last edited:
Yeah, no one can pay bills anymore, so let’s put a team in a region where they really can’t pay bills. It just makes the case for Canberra stronger, ironically.
threenewpadlocks
Brownlow Medallist
Can you please answer the obvious questions about revenue generation, stadium size, population, etc?
Well that's certainly applicable to governments.
But when it comes to football, if something isn't broke don't try and fix it.
You haven't brought forward a financial case.
What you said earlier is applicable to governments because they didn't look at the financial case.
Well, we had the NEAFL and that was a success but .....that ran out of funds at a much lower level.
Cubs2Lions
Norm Smith Medallist
Plus, the level of competition with standalone teams such as Aspley, Redland, Sydney Hills and others wasn't as high as the other state leagues around the country (Brisbane had an undefeated 2019 season in the final season of the NEAFL).
Sure, it was more beneficial in terms of travel load and gave more exposure for local clubs in the ACT and NT regions but the reserve teams of those AFL clubs in the northern states were particularly vocal in that they would rather be playing against Victorian-based clubs (either reserves or standalone) than facing those local teams mentioned above and that's why they joined the VFL after the COVID pandemic.
In all honesty, the next step that needs to happen after the 20th team occurs though and before any further expansion comes in is for the AFL to implement that reserves league so that all AFL clubs have an equal playing field with reserves teams playing each other and that development is fair for every team compared to the current situation we have with SA and WA clubs over the VFL.
Furthermore, would provide AFL supporters the opportunity to watch double-headers live at the ground or on TV / streaming services in the future as well as the competition being a trial run for future expansion cities and regions out such as Canberra, Darwin, Newcastle & North Queensland that have teams ran by the AFL under a provisional license until they are ready to join the AFL competitions.
Only issue this could bring though is there would be a massive decline in viewership and support with all the state leagues around the country especially in the VFL and Victorian grassroots system.
Bjo187
Premiership Player
- Apr 30, 2020
- 4,079
- 5,773
- AFL Club
- Essendon
Didn't the AFL knock the reserves competition idea on the head? I thought it was too costly. It would be cool, but I do agree, the costs don't make it worthwhile, particularly when competitions like afl w are running at a massive loss each year and afl hq is over staffed.
threenewpadlocks
Brownlow Medallist
Yeah, it makes little sense to be flying four Western teams to the eastern suburbs for dozens of players costing thousands of dollars - money that isn't going to be recouped by any revenue from TV or attendance - only to play a similar standard of football as the standalone teams in the home state. Little sense for reserves football.
However, the power that the WAFL and SANFL have in preventing the four AFL clubs - accepting that they're independent - from developing their players more beneficially should be overthrown a bit by the AFL. The inability for these clubs to recruit properly or resource around their developing players similar to the eastern teams has bene a bit silly, even if the games themselves make perfect sense to be playing against the WAFL and SANFL clubs.
However, the power that the WAFL and SANFL have in preventing the four AFL clubs - accepting that they're independent - from developing their players more beneficially should be overthrown a bit by the AFL. The inability for these clubs to recruit properly or resource around their developing players similar to the eastern teams has bene a bit silly, even if the games themselves make perfect sense to be playing against the WAFL and SANFL clubs.
Interetsing insight. Do you think the Riverina being added to a future hypothetical Canberra academy zone would help to build that kind of connection between the two areas? Sydney is probably too far for that to be possible, but Canberra is within driving distance of a decent amount of Riverina towns.
Bjo187
Premiership Player
- Apr 30, 2020
- 4,079
- 5,773
- AFL Club
- Essendon
I think it would to a degree. Closest proximity out of any club and players from their local community representing that club, would definitely build a connection over time.
In 30 or 40 years time.
Canberra should be Team 20.
Melbourne team relocations after that to North Brisbane / Sunshine Coast (2040) and Newcastle (2050ish).
GWS could take their Canberra games and go play them in Newcastle until then to grow the game.
Yes, but not a.t.m. and not without a lot of work.
Not really.
Newcastle has an AFL. It's competition is the longest surviving football competition - the Diamond Cup..
Not really.
Whilst it would be financially unviable a.t.m. you would still get a crowd to the games.
It's difficult to say for certain.
We can only really go off the experiences of other sports, but the NRL doesn't have academy zones or develop players in quite the same way that the AFL does. The Raiders are one of the bigger players in the Riverina, and do extensively scout and develop juniors from the region, but half of the rest of the NRL does as well.
Thinking about it for a minute, in my experience Parra and the Dogs are by far the most popular NRL sides in the Riverina, and that's largely because Peter Stirling and the Mortimer brothers grew up in the region. So in theory if a Canberra AFL side had first dibs on talent from the Riverina it probably would lead to a higher percentage of people from the Riverina choosing to support the Canberra side, but who knows exactly how big that impact would be.
Setting football aside, the regions that have the strongest links to Canberra are the ones where Canberra is convenient to travel to for necessities like work, medical care, shopping, etc, which simply isn't the case for most of the Riverina and a footy team isn't likely to have a significant impact on that.
Definitely, Newcastle is a good option further down the track considering it is the centre of a LEAGUE with a very long history.
if you say so, but there are a number of people involved with Australian Football in Newcastle
and that could be expanded upon given the right resources.
While Newcastle is obviously not ready for the 20th team, I wouldn't be surprised if the Hunter had a similar number of AFL fans as Darwin.
I think Newcastle will be ready for a team before Darwin is.
I think Newcastle will be ready for a team before Darwin is.
Canberra by a capital mile.
Bjo187
Premiership Player
- Apr 30, 2020
- 4,079
- 5,773
- AFL Club
- Essendon
I think Newcastle would capture a higher percentage of fans than western sydney currently has, as there is a more Anglo Australian population and less competition. I also suspect there would be a bit of local pride being a regional town. It would also be good to fill in the gap between Sydney and the Gold Coast.
However, the potential isn't as high, because even if you capture an ok percentage, there are still league fans that will never accept it. That's why as expansion markets, western sydney and Canberra who already have a decent AFL population, are safer bets with bigger potential.
I would however start having some presence there with occasional pre season games etc, as looking at the growth in the gold coast and tweed areas, that strength is only going to spread further downwards in the coming decades.
Down the track I'd like to see Newcastle get at least two games a year.
Like what North are doing in WA, I'd like to see a team host the Giants and Swans.
