Well could you enlighten me the other teams that regularly fly 4,000 km each fortnight ?
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Well could you enlighten me the other teams that regularly fly 4,000 km each fortnight ?
NZ Warriors, Wellington Phoenix, PNG Hunters, Auckland Tuatara, Fiji Drua, Hawaii Rainbow Warriors, Mexico City Capitanes, a few teams in the Kontinental Hockey League. The Wolfpack were doing 11,000km round trips when they were active in the Super League.
Bjo187
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Basically the entirety of American sports teams in the NBA, NFL and MLB. Plus plenty of Australian and kiwi teams.
Commercially or private? Honest question as I suspect most would be private jets but no real idea
I'm not going to look them all up, but the majority of those are poorer or lower leagues than the AFL. I can't imagine them regularly chartering flights in the A League, Australian Baseball League, Queensland Cup.
The Drua fly by Fiji Airways, the Wolfpack travelled by Air Transat. The Warriors have a story about how they travelled by private jet for a once-off final, meaning they fly commercially normally.
So from what I can find, no, the majority are not by private jets.
Well could you enlighten me the other professional teams that regularly fly 4,000 km each fortnight ?
That's an 8,000 km round trip,, each fortnight, no amateurs or university.
No. The NFL has 8 conferences of 4 teams. The MLB uses buses.
The only professional Australian teams that are separated by 4,000 km and have to fly regularly are W.A. teams.
N.Z. only fly half the distance.
Commercially. Even in the U.S.A. sporting private jets are not common.
The U.S.A. which is the same size as Australia is set up as conferences to reduce travelling as in NFL.
The MLB plays multiple games in each city stop and are famous for their "road trips".
Which we aren't really interested in, are we?
And the only applicable clubs that would fly regularly across the breadth of Australia are the Wildcats, the Heat AFL and AFLW clubs.
If you want to keep moving the goal posts, sure. A bunch of the examples I gave you all fit that bill of travelling the same as Perth teams, and are pro. Wellington Phoenix, NZ Warriors, NZ Breakers and Fiji Drua are all professional outfits that travel similar distances to Perth teams.
The Drua are the only one that comes close to an 8,000km round trip, but West Coast and Freo never come close to that either, and definitely not regularly. Brisbane is the furthest ground away at 3600km. Melbourne is 2700km away.
I'm not saying Perth teams don't travel a lot, but it's not unique.
Perth is the most isolated city in the world.
Hockey league is your example. That’s the same.
It's not relevant to the thread, but I can't help but fact check.
Honolulu is more isolated than Perth. By about 1700km. That's more than Adelaide to Brisbane more isolated than Perth.
You could argue that Perth is the equal second most isolated city. It's a similar distance to Adelaide as Anchorage is to Vancouver, but airport to airport (and you'd obviously fly between the two cities) the Anchorage to Vancouver route is about 21km further. So Perth is either the equal second, or third most isolated city.
Once again, irrelevant to the thread, but one for the geography nerds out there.
No you cannot read. Perth to Sydney is travelling 4,000 km. N.Z. to Sydney half that.
Enough said.
if you cannot see that travelling 4,000km across Australia to a professional game of AFL is indeed a disadvantage then you've lost all credibility with me.
It's like like not playing at the MCG often is a disadvantage come finals time.
It's like some teams definitely seem to have the run/displeasure of umpires at times.
it's like Melbourne teams have a distinct advantage financially when it comes to the number of derbies.
Some people get upset at the "unfair" draw.
These are legitimate disadvantages, but I say a good team has to be good enough to overcome all obstacles.
No. They travel approximately half the distance.
You've lost track of the gist of the thread in that travelling 4,000 km to a profession game of AFL is a disadvantage.
and I don't know of any other teams that to travel that far, so often at that level.
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Ironic.
You know it's easy to Google these things. It's 3,290km (not 4000km) from Perth to Sydney. It's 2,156km (not half) from Auckland.
I've never once said that (and you accused me of not being able to read). All I've said is that it's not unique.
There are genuine disadvantages to travel for Perth teams. All I have ever said is that these aren't unique in world sport.
NO. Check again.
Well, for geography starters let us hear you say that W.A. teams travel much further to Sydney than N.Z. teams
Some irrelevant crap.
Hurrah.
Why ?
AFL is an unique game, with an unique league and an unique set of geography, athleticism and circumstances.
Geez, you're a bit intense there.
Honolulu to San Francisco: 3,854km
Perth to Adelaide: 2,131km
Honolulu is 1,723km more isolated than Perth.
Why is the fact that Perth isn't the most isolated city in the world so hard for you to fathom?
Most of Auckland's away games are in Sydney (2,156km away). The rest are further away.
Most of West Coast and Freo's games are in Melbourne (2,700km away). So the majority of WA's away games are 25% further away than NZ's closest away games.
Across the season, the Warriors travel 59,605 kilometres.
I can't get an as specific number, but West Coast and Freo travel "almost 60,000km" in 2023.
So the Warriors actually travel a remarkably similar number of kilometres to the WA AFL teams.
Bjo187
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Also the fact Perth is a domestic flight, yet New Zealand to Australia is international, so you'd need to go through all the customs crap which is a lot more demanding and time consuming. Same with Canadian clubs playing in American leagues.
Also redv3x MLB travels in buses?, I didn't know that. They play 162 games in a season for crying out loud. Plus yes some leagues in America have conferences, but they still travel outside the conference regularly to other parts of the country and there are a shitload more games than the 11 or 12x the Eagles or Dockers do per year. Basketball also plays every few days.
I would think the questions surrounding travel impact is around player welfare.
Are WA based AFL players more prone to shorter careers due to the travel factor compared to players in other teams.
The most relevant question is not how isolated is Perth, or who has to travel the furtherest, or how many times does the team travel.
It is whether the disparity in total travel distance for the Perth AFL teams vs a majority of other AFL teams, is greater than the disparity seen in other competitions.
In American sport leagues there are long distances to travel for some teams. But the longer trips are often separated by some shorter trips. There are a lot of teams on both sides of the country and rarely more than two teams in the same city, generally resulting in a smaller disparity in total travel distance by teams in the same league.
A lot of the leagues in America also have more games and therefore more travel compared to the AFL. This is a greater impact to all the players in those leagues than in AFl. But again, that tends to be similar for all teams.
So the question should be focused on the disparity of travel for some teams vs other teams. Can extra WA teams, reduce that disparity? I would think yes, by giving the WA teams more away games without travel, and forcing other teams to travel to WA more. Is that a reason good enough to give WA a third team, I would think not.
If Perth gets an NRL team, it is likely to be similar due to the number of teams in Sydney. For the NBL and A-League the disparity is likely to be less due to no city having such a large grouping of teams.
Are WA based AFL players more prone to shorter careers due to the travel factor compared to players in other teams.
The most relevant question is not how isolated is Perth, or who has to travel the furtherest, or how many times does the team travel.
It is whether the disparity in total travel distance for the Perth AFL teams vs a majority of other AFL teams, is greater than the disparity seen in other competitions.
In American sport leagues there are long distances to travel for some teams. But the longer trips are often separated by some shorter trips. There are a lot of teams on both sides of the country and rarely more than two teams in the same city, generally resulting in a smaller disparity in total travel distance by teams in the same league.
A lot of the leagues in America also have more games and therefore more travel compared to the AFL. This is a greater impact to all the players in those leagues than in AFl. But again, that tends to be similar for all teams.
So the question should be focused on the disparity of travel for some teams vs other teams. Can extra WA teams, reduce that disparity? I would think yes, by giving the WA teams more away games without travel, and forcing other teams to travel to WA more. Is that a reason good enough to give WA a third team, I would think not.
If Perth gets an NRL team, it is likely to be similar due to the number of teams in Sydney. For the NBL and A-League the disparity is likely to be less due to no city having such a large grouping of teams.
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If the AFL was to give the WA teams an extra home game then I agree the need for a 3rd WA team is less, but then you get 14 other clubs having a whinge(SA clubs already have their extra home game).
If the AFL doesnt want to make a hard call despite significant whinging from teams over east, the easiest thing to do is make the 3rd WA team.
I struggle to see the AFL actively deciding to go with a decision that 14 other clubs are strongly against, but I could be wrong
So WTF are you still going on about?
What happenned to "All I've said is that it's not unique."
Zero credibility.
threenewpadlocks
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Generally when people talk about an "isolated city" they're talking about a population of 1 million and how far away it is from another population base of 1 million, of which Perth to Adelaide is correct (neither Honolulu or Anchorage have 1 million people).
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