We have GF blowouts now.
I suggested cross division games be spread across the season and played against teams in the same position (at the time).
Edit: it was a pretty…pretty good 1am napkin proposal…
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I think any cross division games have to be fixed so that you end up playing everyone over a 2 year period. I don’t want to see a system where you go 3-4 years not playing someone. You would play a fixed 5 one year and the other 5 the next so that over a 4 year period you play all those in the other conference both home and away.
It might even make the Showdown/Derby/QClash/BOB more exciting if you only play them once every 2 years
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Lots of options, certainly.
As an aside, we could make SA and WA feel a bit more importanter by naming the divisions after their best ever players, rather than Gil and Vlad.
You can actually cross the finals series to avoid this issue. As in div A team 1, plays div B team 2 in the first final. Div b team 1 plays div b team 2 etc etc.
It’s pretty much the same as we see now where 1 plays 4, but instead across divisions. It means the best two teams still make the g.f even if they are from the same division. The division is simply used for fixturing and ladder position purposes and to crown ‘divisional champions’ pre finals starting. I’d also do a cross divisional wildcard round in the bye week. So div a teams 4 and 5 play div b teams 5 and 4 to decide the finalists.
India is too big to care about Australian football i think, they have their own national sport which is the second biggest sport in the country.
I do however think the AFL should be targeting Indian expats living in Australia in a big way. Seeing the crowds they pull to cricket here, there is a whole untapped market of a potential supporter base right in front of us.
That is interesting…
I have an idea that will never happen so feel free to ridicule.
20 team comp (Hobart, Canberra?)
Every team play each other x 1 (19 games)
Then
Bottom 8 teams cannot win flag. Play each other just like final 8 series now. The winner gets the #1 draft pick, runner up #2 etc. This will stop the tanking and keep fans interested to the end.
Also
1 - 6 play each other x 1 (they remain the top 6)
7 - 12 play each other x 1 (top 2 join the 8 in 7th/8th position
Then play 8 team finals as now
For teams 1 - 12 that is 24 games before the Final 8 starts so only 1 extra game compared to now - and mostly blockbusters leading in to finals. In the bottom 8 the first x 2 eliminated only play 20 games for the year but who cares about them right!
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Ace do you think it would be plausible for Norwood to do a joint bid with another club like North Adelaide/Woodville etc to become an AFL club? Or would members and supporters of both joining clubs reject the idea?
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The population of Darwin is 130,000, the closest city is over 5 hours away.
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Tasmania was apparently too small and will have 650,000 people by 2030.
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Despite the Tasmanian population bring 5x that of Darwin, the government needs to put in 12 mill per year to ensure the team can stay afloat.
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darwin isn’t even a full footy town, there is a percentage of people that are rugby fans there.
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A lot of the Darwin population are indigenous and struggle financially, are they going to be buying memberships?
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What player from down south will want to live and play in Darwin, especially with the climate, flight times etc?
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it’s too hot and humid to play footy, they will need an indoor stadium, who’s going to pay for that and fund the club for the next 100 years?
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exhibition games in Darwin don’t even get decent crowds once there is more than one in a season, a few thousand people at best.
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compare to Canberra who:
- has the highest average income in Australia
- footy is still statistically the most popular sport there
- has a population that will be over 500k in one city by 2030
- gets good crowds to games there
- can pull fans from the riverina too, bringing the catchment closer to 1 mill people
- is one of the fastest growing cities in Australia
- can help the afl increase it’s north east footprint
So yeah overall N.T is financially the dumbest idea ever, not sustainable at all, with limited growth potential.
Members wouldn’t be interested and it was one of the main reasons the Norwood/Sturt bid didn’t get traction.
Norwood won’t want to give up its identity which is why I can’t ever see the club joining the AFL.
Unlike Port who has changed colours a few times, Norwood has played in the Red & Blue for all of its 145 years and there is no way Melbourne would let us retain those colours
So you’re saying it’s like the Tasmania proposal, but worse.
I kind of agree.
I think there are different factors for a Darwin team.
What about if it was Maroon and Sky Blue?
Claret and blue like west ham.
Yeah, just try it
I personally don’t want to go past 18 teams, but i think the Tasmanian proposal is pretty decent now. I tend to think any club should have at least 500k population to pull from.
Tasmania has that now, will have a good stadium, has a monopoly on the whole state forever, is a full footy state, will produce it’s own players, has a government that can afford it and has hundreds of thousands of expats living on the mainland.
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Doubtful. Our history is based around us being the Redlegs and the old Red & Blue.
If we joined the AFL then that all disappears as unlike when Port entered we wouldn’t be able to maintain our identity in the SANFL as the SANFL would probably cease to exist
Fair enough.
I’m not bothered about how many teams there are, really.
But I can’t think of one single thing that a Tasmanian team offers the AFL, or the existing clubs in the AFL.
To me, a Tasmanian team makes both worse.
You could argue that GC and GWS have already done that, but there are at least Some claims for them being a benefit. Claims that don’t apply to Tasmania.
Which basically makes a Tasmania team a charity.
Edit: As a 19th team.
I have no problem with a relocation and very limited concessions.
Just move an existing club to tas and leave the comp at 18 teams
Or remove carlton from the afl
Both of these options are better than 20 teams
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I’m putting you down as a ‘Maybe’ then.
In all seriousness I think you’re right that a WA3 team will come a long time before a SA3 team.
Looking at the Tassie proposal and the team needing around $12m a year of Govt funding, I actually see that as an enormous opportunity for a State like WA or SA to put together a new bid. If that’s the going rate, $12m a year is a pretty small price to pay to ensure you get around 2 games in the state each weekend.
If your stadium is already built like it is in SA and WA, then an extra 11-12 games in the state each year would help to pay it off while generating a fair chunk of business to the region.
20 teams is far too many teams in a country of our population.
18 is too many IMO.
But, let’s have 20 teams if the AFL insists and reduce the quality even further.