Expansion New Team - Sydney or Tasmania?

[JM71]

If Tasmania is ever going to have a team, it should be a relocated Melbourne club who have a strong and established loyal base, with 2-4 home games in Melbourne.

Why would a Tasmanian team play 2-4 games in Melbourne. The whole idea of relocating is to create more revenue. Do you honestly think if Fremantle relocated to another state that the majority of their supporters would come and watch them play 2-4 home games at subi. You don't see Sydney playing 2-4 Games in Melbourne either.

 

[Black Falcon]

I could be wrong (it has been known) but I believe the people of Western Sydney will embrace a new AFL team with open arms. In time I think the new side will even surpass the Sydney Swans in terms of popularity (assuming the side is not a relocated Melbourne team). The people of Sydney's west are crying out for quality weekly sporting entertainment, they clearly aren't getting it with Rugby League at the moment.

I don't think it's a coincidence that there has been a marked decline in the popularity of RL since the AFL announced their plans to introduce a new team into RL heartland. Ignore the talk of increased crowd numbers and the like, RL is in serious trouble and insiders are well aware of it.

From my experience of living in various suburbs in Sydney's west, there is a lot of soft support for Aussie rules amongst the couple of million people the new team will be targeting. I would suggest to you that AFL research has shown the same. I am not surprised that they have not released any such research however as it would only serve to assist opposition codes.

The difficulty of course will be converting that soft support into hard core, rusted on supporters who go week in week out to watch their side play. I think a game a week plus the added media exposure will go a long way to assisting that process. I am very confident the AFL knows exactly what they are doing with this expansion. There will of course be risks but the payout could be great.

I couldn't say it any better.

 

[EchucaRoogirl]

I cant see the AFL giveing Tassie a team. They seem to have made up their minds they want West Sydney, the AFL are probally just humouring Tassie.

But I'd like to see a club in Tassie, its a true football state and I think they deserve it more then West Sydney.

I agree and the AFL want to go national they already have a team from Sydney can't work out the AFL