VFL into AFL

[Matt Stevic]

Not all this again...

 

[Seedsfan]

Nope. Of the 50,000+ fans at Adelaide Oval, a handful is usually from interstate clubs (Showdown excepted).

With our 60,000 members, we'll get 50,000 to a home game v Collingwood.

With their 80,000 members, they'll get 33,000 to a home game v Adelaide.

The AFC has traditionally well supported away games in Melbourne. The same level or volume of enthusiasm doesn't seem to come back over the border this way though.

One thing I've always found fascinating is talking to mates in Melbourne who are Bombers, Hawks and Saints fans - they'll gladly go to a neutral game between two Vic clubs, but rarely to Vic v somewhere else. They don't know why either.

Put it back in your pants mate, Collingwood has the highest average attendance of any club. Also playing Adelaide at Etihad would be like you playing the Saints at Footy Park. I hate Etihad it is a shit stadium compared to the G and I know fans who will only go to Pies games at the G. (I was at the Collingwood Adelaide game)

 

[telsor]

Is it the fact that there are more than 50% of players recruited out of Victoria the reason for them having more than 50% of the clubs, or is it the fact that there are more than 50% of the clubs in Victoria the reason that more than 50% of players are recruited from there?

Or they both could have something to do with football playing/supporting population.

 

[Father Jack]

Or they both could have something to do with football playing/supporting population.

And is the football playing/supporting population the result of or the cause of the imbalance?

Due to the way the league evolved out of the VFL, if we have ended up with the best possible configuration it is only out of sheer luck. Is Victoria deserving of five times the amount of clubs than WA or SA? Or would a brand new league have gone with six, two and two instead of ten, two and two?

Not to mention that as a Tasmanian I am completely unrepresented, except of course for the odd Victorian club looking for a payday (because they struggle to compete in their over-saturated home market) or somewhere to dump their unpopular low-drawing games.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

And is the football playing/supporting population the result of or the cause of the imbalance?

Due to the way the league evolved out of the VFL, if we have ended up with the best possible configuration it is only out of sheer luck. Is Victoria deserving of five times the amount of clubs than WA or SA? Or would a brand new league have gone with six, two and two instead of ten, two and two?

Not to mention that as a Tasmanian I am completely unrepresented, except of course for the odd Victorian club looking for a payday (because they struggle to compete in their over-saturated home market) or somewhere to dump their unpopular low-drawing games.

You'd probably have to ask the WAFL and/or the SANFL why things went the way they did.

 

[SJ]

Collngwood's support is based on what happened 100 years ago.
The above is not true for Hawthorn, whose support is based on more recent success.
More Hawthorn fans go to watch us v Port, Swans, WCE, Freo than for Dogs, Saints, Dees, even Bombers and Tigers.

Hawthorn has also benefited from being the sole VFL/AFL team in the prosperous leafy inner-east.

 

[port_adelaide_1870]

It is the best though, what we have been the most liveable city in the world for the passed 5 years

Just gunna leave this here
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...es-to-go-in-2015/story-fni6uo1m-1227181561608

Adelaide only Australian city to make The New York Times list of 52 places to go in 2015

Thus Adelaide >>>> Melbourne, Sydney etc

 

[greatwhiteshark]

You'd probably have to ask the WAFL and/or the SANFL why things went the way they did.

This is about right Bunk, It was the WAFL and the SANFL that went running to the VFL and wanted to join instead of standing strong and looking out for their own clubs and forcing a national league to be formed correctly. Not the VFL fault.
You could never ever have a national league without WA and SA, unfortunately the WAFL and SANFL did not realise just how much say they had in this and were to interested in losing players to the VFL and they panicked.
Yes the AFL are Victorian centric, they have half the clubs so that makes some sense. But hard to complain when you allowed Victoria to set it up and run it their way. By the WAFL and SANFL allowing them to dictate how it would be I can't see how we can complain now. Those administrators of the 80's in the WAFL have a hell of a lot to answer for in my view. They certainly did not act in the best interest of WA football.

 

[Riccardo11]

There was an attempt at setting up a "national competition" by the NFL in the 1970's using state league teams in a night series to test the waters. Initially the VFL refused to participate and VFA clubs were approached to join. It failed when the VFL, after competing for a few years brought in it's own competing night series which eclipsed anything the NFL tried to do in popularity and visibility.

As an NRL supporter in Melbourne, I understand the frustration of having a National competition with the majority of the clubs based in one area, but that's the way it is. The VFL became the AFL, and attempts in the past to merge/kick out the member clubs in Melbourne who have contributed to the competition in favor of new franchise clubs have been largely unsuccessful, dating back almost 30 years to when a report tendered to the VFL commission suggested the struggling St Kilda and Sydney teams share the SCG and Moorabbin as dual home grounds.

If the WAFL or SANFL wanted to foster a national competition based out of their states, they would have tried, but both realized they had nowhere near the strength or popularity of the VFL. This isn't rhetoric or revisionist history - it's a stone cold fact. Deal with it.

 

[Hawkk]

Hawthorn has also benefited from being the sole VFL/AFL team in the prosperous leafy inner-east.

Not sure about that.

Melbourne (inner-east) and Richmond (middle-east / south-east) are both direct competitors for our market share. Both these clubs were far stronger than Hawthorn for most of the 20th century.

In fact historically most of Melbourne's support base (when they were very, very good) were tied to the old APS schools largely in the inner-east

 

[moses]

Considering that more than 50% of the talent is recruited from Victoria, then it's probably fair enough that half the sides are based in Melbourne.
This table shows the number of players recruited from outside the AFL in the National & Rookie drafts (2010-2014)

Vic|297|52%
\SA|104|18%
\WA|94|16%
\NSW|30|5%
\Tas|19|3%
\Qld|18|3%
\Ire|7|1%
\NT|3|0.5%
\Tot.|572

The NSW and Qld numbers are somewhat slanted by many kids recruited via the NSW and QLD scholarship schemes.
Most of them don't make it in the AFL.

The NSW numbers are also boosted by a few NSW Riverina kids who lived closer to Melbourne than any other city.

Go SA!

 

[The_Reaper]

There's 6 out 20 teams in the EPL from London currently. There could be more if the likes of Charlton, Milwall, and Fulham get their acts together. I realise its a bit different because London is so much bigger than other cities in England but I don't get why this makes the league any less "national".

Year but the EPL has pro/rel

 

[telsor]

And is the football playing/supporting population the result of or the cause of the imbalance?

Considering the population playing disparity pre existed any attempt at a national league, it can only be cause.

 

[Timewaster]

Those administrators of the 80's in the WAFL have a hell of a lot to answer for in my view. They certainly did not act in the best interest of WA football.

Good comment. Imagine how much better the rivalry would be if Carlton or Geelong was playing against great old clubs like West Perth or Sturt. So much history was lost because of short-term panic. For many in Melbourne I suspect it's hard to warm to the Crows or Eagles if you're over 40, admittedly unfairly they still feel a bit like they're not "real clubs".

Ironically the VFL was quite happy to sacrifice its own history at the time. If the WAFL and SANFL had stood tough they could have forced through a few VFL mergers and negotiated a more equal comp.

Missed chance though, and now it'll forever be too late.

 

[Timewaster]

Not sure about that.

Agreed. Hawthorn's masterstroke was pushing into the OUTER East. Locating themselves at VFL Park put them in the demographic centre of Melbourne, and contributed a lot to their current success.

If any Melbourne club was thinking of moving their training ground and HQ they could do a lot worse than move somewhere like Rowville or even Frankston. It's a huge area.

 

[shumo]

But Melbourne is the biggest, oldest most famous Australian football city in Australia.

Perth is older than Melbourne by 6 years

 

[Augustine]

I wish that all the clubs were in one big national competition in 2 divisions. Obviously it could never happen these days because Australians would never support a team in division two but I feel like if we rewinded to 1980 they might have been able to get it to work and culturally it would have been ingrained by now.

 

[Augustine]

Perth is older than Melbourne by 6 years

Were Perth playing Melbourne Rules football 6 years before Melbourne? Wow that's odd. You're right Perth is the "biggest, oldest most famous Australian football city in Australia".

 

[Augustine]

Not all this again...

The inevitable and annoyingly repetitious threads of Bigfooty:

1. State of Origin
2. Where are ... at?
3. Victorian bias
4. Interstate concessions
5. Dumb idea for a rule change
6. Validity and value of past premierships: sanfl, wafl, vfl etc

 

[shumo]

Were Perth playing Melbourne Rules football 6 years before Melbourne? Wow that's odd. You're right Perth is the "biggest, oldest most famous Australian football city in Australia".

That isn't implicit in his statement. The meaning of the sentence as it reads is that Melbourne is the biggest, oldest, most famous city in Australia which plays AFL. You should brush up on your syntax.

 

[Augustine]

That isn't implicit in his statement. The meaning of the sentence as it reads is that Melbourne is the biggest, oldest, most famous city in Australia which plays AFL. You should brush up on your syntax.

I think fabulousphil 's meaning is clear. I think you misread it.

 

[fabulousphil]

I think fabulousphil 's meaning is clear. I think you misread it.

He sure did misread it, Australian football was initially bought west by South Australians and young well off West Australians who were educated at primarily Prince Alfred college in Adelaide returning West.

But the game really grew when around 95,000 primarily Victorians migrated from the gold fields of Central Victoria during the 1890's to Western Australia during the western Gold rush.

 

[manicmagpie]

Nope. Of the 50,000+ fans at Adelaide Oval, a handful is usually from interstate clubs (Showdown excepted).

With our 60,000 members, we'll get 50,000 to a home game v Collingwood.

With their 80,000 members, they'll get 33,000 to a home game v Adelaide.

The AFC has traditionally well supported away games in Melbourne. The same level or volume of enthusiasm doesn't seem to come back over the border this way though.

One thing I've always found fascinating is talking to mates in Melbourne who are Bombers, Hawks and Saints fans - they'll gladly go to a neutral game between two Vic clubs, but rarely to Vic v somewhere else. They don't know why either.

Only problem with this is that you're using a record low crowd (33K) to make assumptions about Collingwood's average attendance.

When Collingwood plays interstate teams we draw a lot more to games in Vic than interstate, with the exception of Adelaide. If you narrow it to only games played at our actual home ground, the MCG, then we outdraw Adelaide as well.



I would suggest that those Collingwood home figures, even allowing for a few thousand at most travelling fans, would be entirely consistent with the amount of Collingwood fans who show up to most games against Vic teams.

 

[master bate]

http://www.worldofwookie.com/aflbusiness/?page_id=497

Some interesting one line comments....love the Senate enquiry in 2009 findings

And this is good too:

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/timeline-of-vfl-afl-broadcast-rights.958269/

We can clearly see that the biggest clubs in the land are the expansion clubs. Clearly, using the yardstick most BF posters feel most comfortable using - how much money do they make the game?

Here's how I like to think of it:
Coll, Haw, Rich, Ess, Geel, Carl help supplement Melb, North, St K, WB.

WC, Freo, Adel, Port, Syd help supplement Bris, GWS, GC

The VFL was broke before it became the AFL. It needed to go national. But that doesn't directly mean that the VFL has leached off teams and fans from outside Victoria. Those teams have been richly rewarded by being part of the biggest sporting code in this country and 5/6 out of the established lot have won premierships.

You've started another thread largely without a point. So I'd love to know what it is? Do you feel Brisbane have been badly mistreated despite the AFL pumping in money and resources and not showing any signs of withdrawing that support.

 

[Father Jack]

The inevitable and annoyingly repetitious threads of Bigfooty:

1. State of Origin
2. Where are ... at?
3. Victorian bias
4. Interstate concessions
5. Dumb idea for a rule change
6. Validity and value of past premierships: sanfl, wafl, vfl etc

Well you'll have to direct me to the posts that have conclusively decided the debates in all those cases, if we don't have to discuss any of these issues ever again.